Fernão Ferro is the newest parish in the municipality of Seixal, having been created on 27 May 1993.
According to legend, the parish is named after Fernão Peres, brother of D. Paio Peres. Fernão Peres de Correia, master of the Order of Santiago, founder of the village of Paio Peres.
Fernão (Ferro) Peres was known by the name of Babilon, a cognomen attributed to him and all the other crusaders who, during the reign of Sancho II, ventured into Babylonian lands to defend the Tomb of Christ.
The crusader fell into disgrace during the war between Sancho II and his brother, Afonso II. It was at this time that Fernão Ferro sought refuge in this region. Once settled here, he took it upon himself to collect tribute from all travellers coming or going to Sesimbra and using the Almada road.
Ferro's nickname was possibly due to the fact that he had the cross of Christ inlaid on his crusader armour and on the hilt of his sword, which he always carried. Another possible explanation would be the fact that he smote animals, which, combined with his corpulence and cruelty, gave rise to the designation.
The place of ‘fernanan ferro’ has its first reference in a document found in the Torre do Tombo which says ‘on 10 January 1501, the sesmeiros of the castle gave a letter of sesmaria in favour of Braz Teixeira, a knight of the house of El- Rei Nosso Senhor D. Manuel I. The land where a house is called...’
This property was given in a will to the Jerónimos friars of Belém by João Teixeira, son of the first owner, in 1547.
After the extinction of the religious orders in 1834, the pine forests of Palmela and the couple of Fernão Ferro were sold to Gabriel Borges Marques Rocha, who introduced the cultivation of tobacco. In the same year, the property was acquired by Abraão Wheellhouse, who gave it to his daughter Georgina as a dowry for her marriage to José Joaquim Almeida Lima, and the property remained in this family until recent times.
Settlement only began in 1902 with families coming from different parts of the country. The first families to settle were Mirandas, Sacoutos, Padre Nosso, Gomes, Nogueiras, Tostão and many others.
The original thirty-three families cleared the scrubland that covered the area and cultivated the land. Others worked for the Lima family cutting pine wood, which was then taken to Lisbon to be used in bread ovens.
Fernão Ferro once had good vineyards, but they disappeared completely due to phylloxera.
The ex-libris of the parish, the Casa das Conchas, seems to have been the ruined house mentioned in the 1501 document by the Almoxarife de Sesimbra. Just as it was then, the house is in a sorry state of ruin today.
Due to its geographical location, with good access, good air and close to seaside resorts, the town underwent a process of clandestine subdivision from the 1960s onwards. In 1969 António Xavier de Lima began selling off part of his property, plots of land. In 1970, the owner built a church and parish centre, inaugurated by the then Cardinal Cerejeira. It was in this same year that Fernão's newspaper was published for the first time.