West Ford

rdf:langString West Ford

rdf:langString West Ford (c. 1784 – 1863) was the caretaker and manager of Mount Vernon, which had been the home of George Washington. Ford also founded Gum Springs, Virginia near Mount Vernon. He was a man of mixed-race, and possibly of Washington descent. Ford was born on the Bushfield Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of a woman named Venus, who was classified as "mulatto" in the parlance of the time. Venus was held in bondage as a house slave by Washington's brother John Augustine Washington, and by John's wife Hannah. The Ford family's oral lore states that West Ford’s father was President Washington, and some historians who have addressed the matter believe that theory is possible but not probable. In 1802, Ford moved to Mount Vernon, where President Washington had died in 1799. Ford became a free man about 1805. In 1833, he established the settlement of Gum Springs, which was the first African American settlement in Fairfax County. He continued to work at nearby Mount Vernon until 1860, and returned to Mount Vernon when the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association brought him to the estate to care for him during his final illness and death, while the American Civil War was raging.