Joseph Ford
MSA SC 3520-16744
Biography:
Born ca. 1751, probably in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Son of John and Henrietta (Neale) Ford. Married Mary Henrietta Spinks, November 20, 1778. Three children: Mary (Polly); Lewis (1782-1823); John F. (d. 1822). Roman Catholic. Died in St. Mary's County, Maryland, January 23, 1812.
In January of 1776, Maryland began to raise troops to meet its quota of soldiers for the Continental Army. Among the men who joined the First Maryland Regiment, the state's earliest group of full-time, professional soldiers was Joseph Ford, who received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Eighth Company, commanded by Captain Samuel Smith. The company spent the first half of 1776 training in Baltimore, until early July, when they marched for New York, in order to protect that city from the British. [1]
On August 27, 1776, Ford and his fellow soldiers faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island). The battle was a rout: the British were able to sneak around the American lines, and the outflanked Americans fled in disarray. During the retreat, the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, but were blocked by the swampy Gowanus Creek. While half the regiment was able to cross the creek, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, the Marylanders mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. [2] Ford's company was able to escape across the Creek, taking only a handful of causalities. Still, as his captain Samuel Smith described later in life, their retreat was not an easy one. During the retreat,
When the Regiment mounted a hill, a British officer appeared…and waved his hat, and it was supposed that he meant to surrender. He clapped his hands three times, on which signal his company rose and gave a heavy [fire]. I took my company through a marsh, until we were stopped by the dam of a…mill…that was too deep for the men to ford. I and a Sergeant swam over and got two slabs [of wood] into the water, on…which we ferried over all who could not swim. [3]
Ford himself survived the battle, and stayed with the army through the rest of the difficult fall of 1776, a series of defeats that saw the Americans pushed out of New York, followed by revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton late that winter. By October 1776, Ford was the acting captain of the Ninth (Light Infantry) Company of the First Maryland Regiment, and when the Maryland troops were reorganized and expanded, he secured a commission as captain, commanding a company of his own in the newly reformed First Maryland in late 1776. [4]
Over the next several years, Ford and the Marylanders fought against the British in the campaigns around Philadelphia in 1777, and endured the legendary winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. In the spring of 1778, however, he resigned his commission, and returned home to his native St. Mary's County, although he retained the title "Captain" for the rest of his life. [5]
Ford married his wife Mary Henrietta Spinks in November of that year. They had three children: a daughter Mary (called Polly), and two sons, Lewis and John F. Ford. [6] Over the following years, Ford held a series of government posts. From 1779 to 1782, Ford oversaw the purchasing of supplies for the army in St. Mary's. He was also appointed the official Auctioneer of the county in 1780, served as a justice of the peace in 1790 and 1791, and as the Inspector of Tobacco at the Leonardtown Warehouse from 1803-1809. [7]. During that period, he also grew a thriving merchant business, operating out of Leonardtown, where he maintained his own storehouses, and owned a ship, the schooner Matilda. [8]
At the time of his death on January 23, 1812, Ford owned a large personal estate worth nearly $5,000, including twelve slaves, and several hundred acres of land. His merchant firm also owed significant debts, and his heirs were entangled in court proceedings for several years as they tried to resolve them [9]. His obituary praised him, in tones which reflected the building tensions with Britain that would lead to the War of 1812, "As a citizen he was ever alive to his Country's good. He was one of the first to revenge her wrongs. As an intrepid soldier his memory will long be fondly cherished by his associates in arms." [10]
Owen Lourie, 2015
Notes:
[1]
Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 17; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 81; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com. While Steuart lists Ford as receiving a promotion first lieutenant on August 16, 1776, no documentary evidence can be found to support this.
[2] Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com; Mark Andrew Tacyn “’To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73. For more on the experience of the Marylanders at the Battle of Brooklyn, see "In Their Own Words," on the Maryland State Archives research blog, Finding the Maryland 400.
[3] “The Papers of General Samuel Smith. The General’s Autobiography. From the Original Manuscripts.” The Historical Magazine, 2nd ser., vol. 8, no. 2 (1870): 82-92. Smith wrote his autobiography in the third person; it has been converted to first person here for purposes of clarity.
[4] Archives of Maryland, vol. 18, p. 108; Compiled Service Records; Ford was "acting under brevit [i.e. without formal commission] as Captain of Light Infantry." William Smallwood to Council of Safety, 17 October 1776, in Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety July 7, 1776 to December 31, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 12, p. 360.
[5] Archives of Maryland, vol. 18, p. 108; Compiled Service Records.
[6] Margaret K. Fresco, Marriages and Deaths St. Mary's County Maryland 1634-1900 (1992), 106; Edwin W. Beitzell, "Newtown Hundred," Maryland Historical Magazine 51 (June 1956), 137, Appendix: Baptisms and Marriages Recorded in the Diary of Rev. James Walton, S.J., While at Newtown, 135-137; Lewis Ford obituary, Maryland Gazette, 31 July 1823; John F. Ford obituary, Maryland Gazette, 2 January 1823; Will of Mary Ford, 1837, St. Mary's County Register of Wills, Wills, Liber EJM 1, p. 355 [MSA C1720-8, 1/60/10/39]; Joseph Stone vs. Lewis, John F., and Mary Ford, 1815, St. Mary's County Court, Equity Papers, MdHR 19731-1-1/10 [MSA C1591-1, 1/57/9/39]; Lewis Ford vs. Aloysius Thompson, et al., 1815, St. Mary's County Court, Equity Papers, MdHR 19731-2-1/2 [MSA C1591-2, 1/57/9/39].
[7] Governor and Council, Commission Record, 1777-1798, pps. 97, 105, 108, 111, 179, MdHR 4013 [MSA S1080-6, 2/26/3/15]; Governor and Council, Commission Record, 1777-1827, pps. 366-368, MdHR 1347 [MSA S1080-7, 2/26/3/16]; Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, February 23, 1789 to November 11, 1793, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 72, pps. 170, 248. Ford was also appointed as a justice of the peace in 1787, but declined the position.
[8] Stone v. Ford; Ford v. Thompson, et al.; Inventory of Joseph Ford, 1812, St. Mary's County Register of Wills, Inventories, Liber JF S, p. 252 [MSA C1611-5, 1/60/11/9].
[9] Joseph Ford inventory; Account of Sale, Joseph Ford, 1812, St. Mary's County Register of Wills, Inventories, Liber JF S, p. 459 [MSA C1611-5, 1/60/11/9]; Stone v. Ford; Ford v. Thompson, et al.
[10] Capt. Joseph Ford obituary, Federal Gazette (Baltimore), 7 February 1812.
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