17 October 2023

By Göran R Buckhorn

U.S. Olympic champion Edward “Ed” Payson Ferry, III, passed away on 18 September. He was 82 years old.

Edward “Ed” Payson Ferry, III, was born to Illis Harper and Edward Payson Ferry, II. The Ferrys’ ancestors had arrived in Seattle, Washington, on 21 December 1887.

Ed graduated from Lakeside School in 1959. In 1961, as a sophomore at Stanford University (class of 1963) and with only one year of rowing under his belt at Stanford, Ed, 19, was asked by 31-year-old Conn Findlay to join him and cox Kent Mitchell in the coxed pair. At the 1956 Olympic Games, Findlay, Dan Ayrault and Kurt Seiffert as cox won a gold medal in the coxed pair. At the 1960 Olympic Games, Conn took a bronze medal together with Dick Draeger and Kent Mitchell (cox).

Conn, Ed and Kent won the national title in the pair in 1961, 1962 and 1964. At the World Championships in 1962, the trio finished fifth. At the 1963 Pan American Games, Conn and Ed, with Charles Blitzer as a substitute for Kent Mitchell, took gold. With Kent back in the boat in 1964, the coxed pair won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

At a talk Kent Mitchell gave at a Rowing History Forum in March 2010 in Mystic, he mused how he and Ed managed to stay in Conn’s crew. Conn was very particular whom he picked as a rowing partner and whom he allowed to steer the boat. How come they were not discharged from the Conn crew as others had been before them? Mitchell said in his talk that “after almost 50 years pondering this question, I concluded it was because Ed was simply that good, and I was simply that lucky.” The talk is available on YouTube, “Surviving Five Years as Conn Findlay’s Coxswain”,

After graduating from Stanford, Ed served two years in the U.S. Navy. He then earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

In the 1970s, after spending two plus years traveling through Europe, India and Africa in a Volkswagen camper, Ed started Tent ‘n’ Trek, taking high school students to eight different countries on a six-week camping adventure. After closing Tent ‘n’ Trek in 1986, Ed began building custom homes in Marin County, California until he retired.

Edward “Ed” Payson Ferry, III, born 18 June 1941, died on 18 September 2023. He is survived by his wife, Brenda Smith Ferry, a sister, a stepsister and several cousins, nieces and nephews.

This article is based on information from the April 2021 article, “Olympic Champion Conn Findley Dies”.