"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"
William Ford
William Ford was the son of West Ford and Priscella Bell. William was born abt 1813-1814 on the Mount Vernon Plantation and died in 1874. He married Henrietta Bruce on September 3rd, 1840. Henrietta was the child of Daniel and Hannah Bruce, a well-to-do free family who resided in Virginia. Henrietta was born on June 7, 1819. The couple had George, John, Elizabeth “Constance”, Hannah, Matilda ? (Believed to have died as an infant). Drawing rendition by J. Madama.
*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 214 acres adjacent to it which he later divided into four, 52-3/4 acres for his children one which was named Jane Ford. After the Civil War his property became a refuge and depot for freed slaves. The area is known today as Gum Springs and West Ford as the father of Gum Springs (I Cannot Tell a Lie, Chapters 11, 16, 21).
