Pulaski County IL Archives Biographies.....Ford, Theodore M. 1853 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 19, 2008, 7:47 pm

Author: George Washington Smith (1912)

   THEODORE M. FORD is a retired business man of Mound City who has passed a
third of a century in this city, and has been a particularly important factor in
the business life of the district with which he has been identified for so many
years.

   Mr. Ford is a native of McMinn county, Tennessee, having been born there on
February 3, 1853, his father being William Ford, also a resident of McMinn
county and of Maryland ancestry. The life of the elder Ford was, for the greater
part, devoted to the pursuit of mechanics in a practical way, he having been for
years a millwright and blacksmith in Tennessee, which was the field of his
operations throughout the extent of his busy career. He passed away at Irving
College, a small town near McMinnville, Tennessee, in the year 1900, at the
venerable age of eighty-four years.

   The father of William Ford and the founder of the Tennessee branch of the
family settled in McMinn county in the early part of the nineteenth century,
coming to Tennessee from Maryland. He was the father of several children, among
them, being Margaret, Andrew and William, the latter named being the father of
Theodore M. Ford, of whom we write. William Ford married Elvira Meyers, who
passed away in 1893, and of their twelve sons and daughters seven attained to
years of manhood and womanhood. Those now surviving are: James, Thomas, Theodore
M., Edward, Florence and Elizabeth.

   The early life of Theodore Ford was passed in a country town near
McMinnville, and his education was, for the greater part, acquired in the
district school. While yet a mere youth he evinced a strongly marked tendency
towards mechancis, and at the age of fifteen years he began to study the
carpenter's trade. He followed that line of work for a few years, after which he
drifted into the sawmilling industry at Paducah, Kentucky, where he was employed
for a few years, and lie later engaged in the same line of industry in
Williamsville, Missouri. Out of his wages while employed in these two mills he
managed to save the money which, combined with his practical knowledge and
unfailing energy, represented his only assets when he branched out into a mill
and lumber career on his own responsibility.

   In 1881 he moved to Mound City, and for a short time he operated a small
shingle mill in Ballard county, Kentucky, later removing it to Mound City, where
he and his partner, Mr. Alfred W. Williamson, conducted it as a lumber and
planing mill until he sold out his interest to his partner and took up the
business of merchandising in Mound City. For fifteen years Mr. Ford carried on a
general merchandise business with most pleasing success, and in the year 1900 he
retired from active business. However, he did not relinquish all his business
interests, as he is still more or less involved in various industrial and
financial organizations, being a stockholder in the Mound City Crystal Ice and
Coal Company, and in the Metropolis Ice Company, as well as in both of the Mound
City banks. He is also vice-president of the Williamson-Kuhny Mill & Lumber
Company in Mound City.

   Mr. Ford has never taken any marked interest in the civic affairs of his home
city. He is concerned for the welfare of the town, but his labors in that
direction have not been of the order that would necessitate any especial
affiliation with local politics. He served as a councilman for one term. He is a
member of the Mound City Commercial Club, in which he is active and influential.
Mr. Ford is a Democrat in his political persuasions, and the chairmanship of the
County Central Committee of his party was pressed upon him for one campaign.

   In the year 1880 Mr. Ford married Miss Ella Williamson, a sister of his
one-time partner, Alfred W. Williamson. Mr. Ford is not connected with any
fraternal orders, but he and his wife are earnest members of the Congregational
church.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS

A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, its People, and its Principal
Interests

BY
George Washington Smith, M. A.
VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED

THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1912



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