"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
- Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"
Jane Ford and Porter Smith
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*West Ford was willed 160 acres of land adjoining Mount Vernon in 1829, making him the richest black man in Virgina at that time. He later sold his land and purchased...
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Jane Ford Smith was the daughter of West Ford and Priscella Bell. She was born abt. 1816. Her husband, Porter Smith, worked at the Mount Vernon Estate and as the local blacksmith. The...
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Drawing of West Ford in his early 70's, son of George Washington and father of Daniel Ford.
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Venus was a handmaid on the Bushfield Plantation. Bushfield was owed by John Augustine Washington, a brother of George Washington. As a child, Venus' mother, Jenny, was the...
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_0_0.thumbnail.jpg "Annie Arnold Smith")
Photo of Annie Smith. Dandridge Smith, son of Jane and Porter, was born on August 24, 1840. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a blacksmith. He stayed in the Gum...
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This is a picture of the cemetery grave stone of Annie Smith, wife of Dandridge Smith. The grave stone is located behind the Gum Springs Museum in the old Peake Plantation Cemetery. ...
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This is a photo of the cemetery grave stone of Dandridge Smith, husband of Annie Smith, son of Jane Ford and Porter Smith, and a grandson of West Ford. The cemetery stone is located behind...
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