John T. Ford

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
John T. Ford
Baltimore, Maryland
, US
Died (aged 64)
Baltimore, Maryland, US
OccupationTheater manager
Years active1854–1890s

John Thompson Ford (April 16, 1829 – March 14, 1894) was an American

Abraham Lincoln assassination.[1]

Early life

Ford was born in

bookseller
.

The theatre

Working as a bookseller in Richmond, Ford then wrote a farce dealing with contemporary life. The farce was entitled Richmond As It Is, and was produced by a minstrel company called the Nightingale Serenaders. This farce was fairly successful, and George Kunkel, the owner and manager of the Serenaders, offered Ford a position with the organization. He accepted, and for several seasons traveled as business manager of this company throughout the United States and Canada.

In 1854, Ford assumed control of the Holliday Street Theater, Baltimore, which he managed for twenty-five years.[1] Later, he built the Grand Opera House in that city in 1871.

Ford also was responsible for creating three theaters in Washington, D.C. He opened his first theatre on Tenth Street in 1861. After it was destroyed by fire the following year, he rebuilt the structure on the same site and called it Ford's Theatre.

Political life

In 1858, Ford was elected President of the City Council of

acting mayor for two years. He also was in the position of City Director, for one term, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
.

He was a Commissioner of the McDonough Fund on part of the city, and managed the old Washington theatre for a season.[2]

Lincoln assassination

Ford was the manager of this highly successful theatre at the time of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. He was a good friend of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor. Ford drew further suspicion upon himself by being in Richmond, Virginia, at the time of the assassination on April 14, 1865. Until April 2, 1865, Richmond had been the capital of the Confederate States of America and a center of anti-Lincoln conspiracies.

An order was issued for Ford's arrest and on April 18, he was arrested at his Baltimore home. His brothers James and Harry Clay Ford were thrown into prison along with him. John Ford complained of the effect that his incarceration would have on his business and family, and he offered to help with the investigation, but

Edwin M. Stanton made no reply to his two letters. After 39 days, the brothers were finally fully exonerated and set free since there was no evidence of their complicity in the crime.[3]

The theater was seized by the government, and Ford was paid $88,000 for it by Congress. The treatment accorded to him following the assassination made him remain bitter toward the US government for decades.

Theatres in other cities

During his career, Ford also managed theaters in

royalty on the opera. This action prompted the authors and their manager, Richard D'Oyly Carte, to allow Ford to produce their next opera in the United States and to entrust their American business affairs to him; and he leased the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City, for the production of The Pirates of Penzance
in 1879-1880 and other Carte productions thereafter.

For a period of forty years, Ford was an active and prominent figure in Baltimore's civic life. He was connected with many banking and financial concerns, and his business advice was sought and relied on. He was president of the Union Railroad Company, member of the board of directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, vice president of the West Baltimore Improvement Association, and trustee of numerous philanthropic institutions. In 1858, while serving as president of the City Council, he was made acting mayor of the city of Baltimore, and he filled this position with marked ability. His winning and gracious personality won him a host of friends.

Death

Grave monument at Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore

In early 1894, Ford's health declined. His death at his Baltimore home of a

Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, and he was buried in Loudon Park Cemetery
.

Notes

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ "Our Dramatic Portrait Gallery : John T. Ford" (PDF). New York Clipper. New York Clipper. 1865-08-15. p. 147. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  3. Pennsylvania Avenue
    . (Chamlee, p. 117)

References

  • Chamlee, Roy Z. Lincoln's Assassins: A Complete Account of Their Capture, Trial, and Punishment, pp. 116–8. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1990.
  • Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 6, pp. 517–8. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931.
  • "John Thompson Ford Dead", The Washington Post, March 15, 1894, p. 2.
  • "Funeral of John T. Ford", The Washington Post, March 17, 1894, p. 4.