Malcolm Webster Ford

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Malcolm Webster Ford
Born(1862-02-07)February 7, 1862
Manhattan, New York City
NationalityAmerican
Spouse
Janet Wilhelmina Graves
​
​
(m. 1892; div. 1898)​
ChildrenMalcolm W. Ford Jr.
RelativesPaul Leicester Ford (brother)
Worthington C. Ford (brother)
William C. Fowler (grandfather)

Malcolm Webster Ford (February 7, 1862 – May 8, 1902) was an American athlete and journalist best known for the

murder-suicide
where he shot his brother Paul and then himself.

Early life

Ford was born in

Worthington Chauncey Ford and novelist and biographer Paul Leicester Ford
, who suffered a spinal injury in early youth that prevented him from attending school.

Through their maternal grandmother, the former Harriet Webster (wife of scholar

lexicographer and textbook pioneer Noah Webster. Their mother, the former Emily Ellsworth Fowler, was a lifelong friend of Emily Dickinson.[1]

Career

In his heyday during the 1880s, he was three times the American National Champion as "All Around Athlete", a competition which was the equivalent of today's decathlon. The event consisted of ten events (three of which are different from those which are run today). He also excelled in individual events. In 1885 and 1886 he was the winner at the National Championships of the long jump and 100 and 200 yard dash, a "triple" which was not accomplished again until Carl Lewis did it in 1983.[2]

Ford's father and the Ford family strongly opposed his participation in athletics and he was disinherited because of his refusal to give up competition. He also twice endured scandals for competing as a professional and was banned from amateur competition.

During his marriage, Malcolm was employed as a business executive. At other times he worked as a journalist (his articles on track and field events were published in Outing magazine). He launched his own publications twice, but both were failures.[3]

Personal life

In 1892, Ford was married to Janet Wilhelmina Graves, a Brooklyn heiress. Janet's sister Marie (née Graves) Harjes, was the first wife of

J.P. Morgan
in Paris. Before the couple divorced in 1898, they had one child together:

  • Malcolm Webster Ford Jr. (1896–1975), who married Mary (née Chesnut) Snow (1901–2000),
    W. Calvin Chesnut, in 1934.[5]

On May 8, 1902, Ford went to 37

East 77th Street,[1] his brother Paul's residence in Manhattan, and fatally shot him in his library before shooting himself.[6] Ford was said to be in a dire financial condition and his brother had refused him further financial aid. An inquest ruled "temporary insanity".[7] Both brothers were buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York
.

References

  1. ^ a b Gray, Christopher (22 February 1998). "Streetscapes/53 East 77th Street; A Medieval-Style House With a Murder in Its Past". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  2. ISBN 0810854236
    .
  3. ^ Dubois, Paul Z., Paul Leicester Ford: an American man of letters 1865-1902, New York: B. Franklin, 1977
  4. ^ "Paid Notice: Deaths FORD, MARY CHESNUT". The New York Times. 6 March 2000. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  5. ^ "Mary Chesnut Snow to Be Wed" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 March 1934. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  6. ^ "Paul L. Ford Slain by his Brother" (PDF). The New York Times. May 9, 1902. Retrieved June 5, 2010.
  7. ^ "Noted Author is Murdered". Los Angeles Herald. No. 220. California Digital Newspaper Collection. 9 May 1902. Retrieved 4 March 2016.

External links

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