[1] He was born at Darlington Point, Waddi, New South Wales, growing up near the Warengesda Mission near Cootamundra and, from 14 years after leaving school, worked with his father as a shearer, then labourer and mailman in the west of the State.

While on the board he was shocked by the complaints received about conditions in Aboriginal reserves, and attempted to force some changes.

In 1949 he went to lobby the national Chifley Labor government in Canberra as a representative of the Australian Aborigines' League, asking for many administrative reforms, which he had drafted.

Ferguson was furious, resigned from the Labor party, and stood as an Independent candidate for Parliament in the 10 December 1949 Australian federal election in his electorate of Lawson, but drew only a small number of votes.

He collapsed after a final speech before the election, and died of hypertensive heart failure on 4 January 1950 in Dubbo Base Hospital.