Reverend John Ford was a pioneering Methodist minister and political leader in South Carolina and in the Mississippi Territory.

He was born in Marion District, South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 on February 27, 1767, the son of James and Ann Townsend Ford. Little is known of his early life except that he obtained his ministerial license while living in South Carolina. John Ford married Catharine Ard, daughter of Thomas Ard, in Robeson County, North Carolina

Robeson County, North Carolina

Robeson County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2010 it had a population of 134,168. Since then, it has been one of the 10% of United States counties that were majority-minority; its combined population of American Indian, African American and Latino residents comprise over...

, in March 1790 and the couple resided in South Carolina for the next eight years.

Around 1798 the Ford family moved to the frontier of the Mississippi Territory

Mississippi Territory

The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 7, 1798, until December 10, 1817, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Mississippi....

 and lived in the Natchez District until around 1805. Around 1809, the family built the famed John Ford home, a three story wood frame structure on the Pearl River. The house was built at Fordsville (now known as the Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook is a barrier spit along the Atlantic coast of New JerseySandy Hook may also refer to:-Places:United States* Sandy Hook , a village in the town of Newtown, Connecticut* Sandy Hook, Kentucky, a city in Elliott County...

 Community), in Marion County, Mississippi

Marion County, Mississippi

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 25,595 people, 9,336 households, and 6,880 families residing in the county. The population density was 47 people per square mile . There were 10,395 housing units at an average density of 19 per square mile...

, several miles south of the county seat of Columbia, Mississippi

Columbia, Mississippi

Columbia is a city in Marion County, Mississippi, United States, which was formed six years before Mississippi was admitted to statehood. Columbia was named for Columbia, South Carolina, from which many of the early settlers had migrated. The population was 6,603 as of the 2000 census. It is the...

, where the Ford family took up the plow and started farming.

John Ford served two terms in the legislature of South Carolina and after moving to the Mississippi Territory was a one of two delegates from Marion County, Mississippi to the first Mississippi Constitutional Convention. The other delegate was Dougald McLaughlin.

The John Ford home was the site of the first Mississippi Methodist Conference in 1814 and the Pearl River Convention of 1816, which recommended partitioning the Mississippi Territory into the present-day states of Alabama and Mississippi. By the 1840s the Ford Home was sold to William Rankin and family, and successive generations of that family occupied this historic home for over one hundred years. Today the John Ford home is owned by the Marion County Historical Society and is a tourist attraction.

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