Edward Ferrero
1831 - 1899

         DEATH OF GEN. FERRERO
     A Man Who Achieved Fame in Two
         Dissimilar Professions.
       DANCING MASTER AND SOLDIER
   Abandoned a Successful Career in This
       City and Won High Rank as a
           Civil War Volunteer.

  General Edward Ferrero, for many years
prior to last May the lessee of the Lenox
Lyceum, and one of the most interesting
characters of New York, died at 4 o'clock
on Monday afternoon at his residence, 111
West Seventy-eighth Street, of a complicat-
tion of diseases.  Gen. Ferrero had been in
poor health for several months, and had re-
tired altogether from active business life.
  Gen. Ferrero enjoyed the distinction of
having achieved success in at least two
walks of life, so widely dissimilar as to be
popularly considered antitheses--those of
dancing master and soldier.
  Edward Ferrero was born in Grenada, 
Spain, Jan. 18, 1831.  His parents were na-
tives of Italy, and had just arrived in Spain
when the son was born.  Thirteen months
later the family removed to the United
States and settled in this city.
  The elder Ferrero's house here was fre-
quented by Italian political refugees, and
he enjoyed the friendship of Garibaldi, Ar-
genti, Albius, and Avazzana.  Signor Fer-
rero, who was famed as a dancer, opened
a dancing school at what is now the north-
east corner of Fourteenth Street and Sixth
Avenue, which, as the years went by, be-
came the most famous in the country.
  Edward was reared practically on the
floors of the dancing academy among the
boys and girls of the wealthiest families of
New York.  He developed into a master of
the Terpsichorean art, and when his pa-
rents retired, in the early fifties, he suc-
ceeded to the business.  He originated many 
dancing figures which became popular
throughout this country and Europe.
  His establishment was patronized by the
most exclusive families, and many elderly
members of the leading families of the New
York of to-day took their first dancing les-
sons under his tutelage.  He also found
to teach dancing at in the Military Acad-
emy at West Point.  He always had a taste
for military life, and at the beginning of
the civil war was Lieutenant Colonel of the
Eleventh New York Militia Regiment.
  When war was declared he promptly left
the polished floors of the dancing halls for
the field of sterner action.  In 1861 he raised
the Fifty-first New York Regiment, called
the "Shepard Rifles," of which he was
made Colonel.  He led a brigade in Burn-
side's expedition to Roanoke Island, where
his regiment took the first fortified redoubt
captured in the war.
  He also commanded a brigade at Newbern
under Gen. Reno, and in 1862 served in
Pope's Virginia campaign.  He was in the
battles of South Mountain and Antietam,
and for his bravery in the latter was com-
missioned Brigadier General of Volunteers
Sept. 19, 1862.  He served at Fredericksburg
and Vicksburg, and commanded a division
at the seige of Knoxville.
  The ex-dancing master afterward marched
the Ninth Army Corps over the mountains
without roads and by compass only to Cin-
cinnati.  He was in command at the de-
fense of Fort Sanders against the desperate
assault of Longstreet.  In Grant's final cam-
paign, including the seige of Petersburg, he
commanded the colored division of the
Ninth Army Corps, and on Dec. 2, 1864, he
was breveted Major General for "bravery
and meritorious services."
  He was mustered out Aug 24, 1865, and
upon returning to New York did not re-
open his dancing school, but leased a build-
ing at Twenty-eighth Street and Broadway,
now the site of the Fifth Avenue Theatre,
and converted it into a splendid ballroom,
which was known as Apollo Hall.  In this
hall were held the greatest balls and other
social gatherings of the exclusive social set.
The site finally became too valuable for a
ballroom, and in 1872, Gen. Ferrero gave up
his lease, and the building was converted
into a theatre.
  Gen. Ferrero next leased the big ballroom
of Tammany Hall.  He joined the Tammany
Society, and became known personally to
nearly every Democratic politician of note
in the State.  He never took much interest
in politics, however, and never held an of-
fice.  When the old Monitor and Merrimac
Exposition Building, at Fifty-ninth Street
and Madison Avenue, was converted into
the Lenox Lyceum he gave up the Tam-
many Hall lease and took charge of the Ly-
ceum Jan. 1, 1889.  He held this until last
May, when he retired.
  Notwithstanding his hard campaigns and
marches in the civil war, Gen. Ferrero re-
tained the polished manner and grace of
carriage acquired in early life.  He was a
member of the Loyal Legion, the Grand
Army of the Republic, and Manhattan
Lodge of Masons.  A widow survives him.