John Ford (February 27, 1767 – February 14, 1826) was a pioneering Methodist minister and political leader in South Carolina and in the Mississippi Territory.
He was born in Marion District,
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
on February 27, 1767, the son of James and Ann Townsend Ford. Little is known of his early life except that he obtained his ministerial license while living in South Carolina. John Ford married Catharine Ard, daughter of Thomas Ard, in
, in March 1790 and the couple resided in South Carolina for the next eight years.
Around 1798 the Ford family moved to the frontier of the
Mississippi Territory
The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that was created under an organic act passed by the United States Congress, Congress of the United States. It was approved and signed into law by Presiden ...
and lived in the Natchez District until around 1805. Around 1809, the family built the famed
John Ford Home, a three-story wood-frame structure on the Pearl River. The house was built at Fordsville (now known as the
Sandy Hook, Mississippi Community), in
Marion County, Mississippi
Marion County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 24,441. Its county seat is Columbia, Mississippi, Columbia. Marion County is named ...
, several miles south of the county seat of
Columbia, Mississippi
Columbia is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Mississippi, United States. Formed six years before Mississippi was admitted to statehood, Columbia was named for Columbia, South Carolina, from which many of the early settlers had mig ...
, where the Ford family took up the plow and started farming.
John Ford served two terms in the legislature of South Carolina and after moving to the Mississippi Territory was one of two delegates from Marion County, Mississippi to the first Mississippi Constitutional Convention. The other delegate was Dougald McLaughlin.
The John Ford home was the site of the first Mississippi Methodist Conference in 1814 and the Pearl River Convention of 1816, which recommended partitioning the Mississippi Territory into the present-day states of Alabama and Mississippi. By the 1840s the Ford Home was sold to William Rankin and family, and successive generations of that family occupied this historic home for over one hundred years. Today the John Ford home is owned by the Marion County Historical Society and is a tourist attraction.
References
"Revised Record of the John Ford family of Marion County, Mississippi," by Irene Ford Webb
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, John
American pioneers
1767 births
1826 deaths
People from Marion County, Mississippi
Methodist ministers