Thomas Ford was the eighth Governor of Illinois, and served in this capacity from 1842 to 1846.
Background
Thomas Ford was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. His father was Robert Ford, of a Maryland family. His mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Hugh Logue and Isabella Delaney, both natives of Ireland.
By a former marriage she was the mother of George Forquer, who by the time of his death in 1837 had risen to be the Jackson leader in Illinois.
Robert Ford died in 1803, and the next year his widow removed first to St. Louis, then to New Design in the future Monroe County,
Education
Despite the straitened circumstances of the family, Thomas Ford managed to get a common- school education.
Later his half-brother helped him to spend a year at Transylvania University; then with the encouragement of Daniel P. Cook he studied law.
Career
After a term of practise in Waterloo, TIL, he set up with Forquer in partnership at Edwardsville, 1825-29, and for the following six years, 1829-35, he served as state’s attorney at Galena and Quincy.
On January 14, 1835, he was elected circuit judge by the state legislature, serving until March 4, 1837, when he resigned to become judge of the Chicago municipal court. He was again elected circuit judge, February 23, 1839. When the Democratic general assembly reorganized the state supreme court to swamp a Whig majority, he was elected to the court February 15, 1841, and held office till he resigned to run for governor in 1842.
Ford’s first recorded participation in politics was with his half-brother as henchman of Governor Ninian Edwards.
When Forquer, as Edwards’s nominee, ran against Joseph Duncan for Congress in 1828, Ford contributed newspaper articles attacking Duncan (Illinois Intelligencer, July 5, 12, 19, 26, 1828).
After the final overthrow of the Edwards faction, Ford apparently took no active part in politics until 1842.
In the latter year the Whig and Democratic nominees for governor, Joseph Duncan and Adam W. Snyder, had long and vulnerable records to defend. The Democratic loss was therefore more apparent than real when Snyder died May 14, 1842. The leaders of the party turned to Ford, and after ten days’ entreaty he consented to run.
With no chance to gather ammunition for the election on August 1, the Whigs lost to Ford by a vote of 39, 020 to 46, 507 (T. C. Pease, Illinois Election Returns, 1923, p. 126). The new governor faced a difficult situation. The state was burdened with a debt on which state taxes could not even pay the interest.
In his history of Illinois Ford later stated with probable truth that his influence could have turned his party to the policy of repudiating the state debt (p. 292). Instead he secured the adoption of a scheme suggested by Justin Butterfield of Chicago by which the state was to make clear its willingness to shoulder its financial obligations to the extent of its ability, and foreign bondholders were to advance enough money to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the tolls from which were to be applied to the liquidation of the debt.
At the same time Ford interposed his influence to secure the peaceful termination of the state banks, which had fallen into difficulties. In Ford’s administration also a troublesome situation arose regarding the Mormon community.
he murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith at Carthage was the signal for the outbreak of open hostilities between the Mormons and the Gentiles in western Illinois. Ford repeatedly called out the militia to preserve order, and maintained that expediency demanded the withdrawal of the Mormons from the state, though he was criticised for playing for Mormon votes (Alton Telegraph, Aug. 21, 1844).
But despite any censure which he received, Ford had the right to look back on his term with satisfaction. He had saved the state’s credit, and assured its integrity and future prosperity.
At the end of his term, though he was asked to run against Douglas for the Senate, he resumed the practise of law at Peoria. Unfortunately he was overtaken by tuberculosis, and at his death in 1850 was virtually dependent on charity.
It was finally published under the auspices of James Shields in 1854. It is an interesting work. It covers essentially the period of Ford’s personal observation of Illinois politics, and though the narrative is a good commentary on American democracy, his characterizations of public men are overdrawn and often unfair.
His wife, Frances Hambaugh, whom he had married on June 12, 1828, was worn out by nursing him and died a few weeks before him.
He left five children for whose financial benefit he had some time before begun his History of Illinois from its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847.