Sherman Herbert Ford<\/div>\r\n
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Sherman Herbert Ford, born on December 8, 1871, deceased April 1947, immigrated from the U.S.A., Rockwell City, Iowa to Victoria B.C. prior to 1910. He was a watchmaker, jeweller and financier. Little is known about his emigration to the United States other than the fact that his father, Borg Johnson had died before the emigration and he had one sister, Dora or Olga. Where they emigrated from, we have no idea, but he came with his mother and stepfather, Andrew Jacobson, who had been a carpenter and fisherman in Norway. He had two step-brothers, Ralph E. and Harold O. Jacobson. Ralph was the Chief of the Fire Department in Portland, Oregon.<\/div>\r\n
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He married Martha Louise McGee Allen (born Jan. 7, 1895, deceased Dec. 28, 1984) in 1914 and had one child, Ralph Eugene Ford. Martha (Louise as she was known),came from Mount Forest, Ontario where her father and mother, John and Ellen (from Cork, Ireland and Scotland),had a boarding house and draying business. At a later date, the Allens moved to Spy Hill, Saskatchewan after a disastrous fire that destroyed the boarding house.<\/div>\r\n
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“Bert” as S.H. Ford was known, was indeed a futurist. He believed in great things for British Columbia. Sometime after 1903, we believe, he purchased a vast number of acres west of Harris Road to the Fraser and Pitt Rivers. He sold parcels of land and would have homes, a series of designs he made available, built on them if the purchaser wished. He raised sheep and certified ‘Early Rose’ seed potatoes on ‘the farm’ to ship to the U.S.A. while he, being a Notary Public, a member of the B.C. Land and Investment Co., a director of the Vegetable Marketing Board, with his offices in the Marine Building in Vancouver, an investor in mining shares, uranium, lumber and logging tracts, buying and selling timber limited in the Johnston Straits, and land speculator elsewhere, kept busy with other pursuits. He often travelled to the Interior, staying at the Sumallo Lodge and had begun pursuit of building a hotel on the lake north of present-day Okanagan Falls. The crumbling foundations were still visible some years ago.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
The steamboats travelling up the Fraser River to Yale, (as there was no proper road from Vancouver, nor a car bridge, only the railroad) also stopped at Fordson Landing, 4 times a week, at the end of Herring Road which was on his farm. He kept his yacht moored there for his trips up the coast. He added another 51 acres of land in 1943 at the end of Windsor Road, where I and my sister Gwen grew up some years later.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
In addition, he and some investors purchased some property on Kennedy Road and subdivided it into a townsite as they knew a bridge and highway would someday be built across the Pitt River alongside the railway bridge. Unfortunately, that area of Pitt Meadows never progressed into the townsite they envisioned. Bert’s good friend, Harold Sutton, also became prominent in the building and politics of Pitt Meadows. Louise became involved with Mrs. Meeker and Mrs. Sutton in the Women’s Institute which helped with a lot of charity fundraising in the Municipality as well as provided a social circle for the ladies.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
Bert was also politically active. He travelled to Victoria during the Depression years to help seek tax relief for the farmers and homeowners in Pitt Meadows. He proposed they work on projects such as hauling gravel, building roads and such in lieu of tax payment. The homeowners saved their homes and farms and did all the work with horse and wagon. Bert also was fundamental in helping to secure a school bus for the outlying areas.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
The road running West from Harris Road past his farm (now the airport property) was named after him, and, when people told him he could never build a road across the peat bog to Woolridge Road, he decided to prove he could. He built the famous ‘plank road’ about 1924, which was indeed used and parts still are in evidence today. My mother, Evelyn Gertrude Knull Ford, used to walk from her family’s farm along it, to the store in ‘downtown’ Pitt Meadows, regularly. However, as it came into disrepair, it was easier and cheaper for the Municipality to build a road around the peat bog and thus came the Ford Road Detour.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
He built a lovely home, by the standards of the day, which even contained a ‘dumbwaiter’ to bring supplies upstairs. The home had one of the first telephones after 1910 and his son, Ralph, had one of the few cars in evidence in those days. Bert was also a Seventh-Day Adventist and built the present church at the corner of Harris and Ford Roads. His church group also built a log house and an academy, called the Manson Industrial Academy, on the road they aptly named Advent Road. Yes, he was obviously a very busy and exciting man and I wished I had known him. He succumbed to a heart attack when I was only about 5 months old, having lost most of his investments through the Depression. In those days though, children were seen and not heard, so even my father, the only child, did not know a lot about his background and ancestry. I am still searching for the lost ancestral roots of his family.<\/div>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n
-Virginia Gail Ford Mackintosh<\/div>","SEO_LINK":"sherman-herbert-ford","VIDEO_LINK":"","SOUNDCLOUD_LINK":"","IMG1":"","IMG2":"","IMG3":"","IMG4":"","IMG5":"","IMG6":"","IMG7":"","IMG1_THUMB":"","IMG2_THUMB":"","IMG3_THUMB":"","IMG4_THUMB":"","IMG5_THUMB":"","IMG6_THUMB":"","IMG7_THUMB":""}X
Sherman Herbert Ford
Sherman Herbert Ford
Sherman Herbert Ford, born on December 8, 1871, deceased April 1947, immigrated from the U.S.A., Rockwell City, Iowa to Victoria B.C. prior to 1910. He was a watchmaker, jeweller and financier. Little is known about his emigration to the United States other than the fact that his father, Borg Johnson had died before the emigration and he had one sister, Dora or Olga. Where they emigrated from, we have no idea, but he came with his mother and stepfather, Andrew Jacobson, who had been a carpenter and fisherman in Norway. He had two step-brothers, Ralph E. and Harold O. Jacobson. Ralph was the Chief of the Fire Department in Portland, Oregon.
He married Martha Louise McGee Allen (born Jan. 7, 1895, deceased Dec. 28, 1984) in 1914 and had one child, Ralph Eugene Ford. Martha (Louise as she was known),came from Mount Forest, Ontario where her father and mother, John and Ellen (from Cork, Ireland and Scotland),had a boarding house and draying business. At a later date, the Allens moved to Spy Hill, Saskatchewan after a disastrous fire that destroyed the boarding house.
“Bert” as S.H. Ford was known, was indeed a futurist. He believed in great things for British Columbia. Sometime after 1903, we believe, he purchased a vast number of acres west of Harris Road to the Fraser and Pitt Rivers. He sold parcels of land and would have homes, a series of designs he made available, built on them if the purchaser wished. He raised sheep and certified ‘Early Rose’ seed potatoes on ‘the farm’ to ship to the U.S.A. while he, being a Notary Public, a member of the B.C. Land and Investment Co., a director of the Vegetable Marketing Board, with his offices in the Marine Building in Vancouver, an investor in mining shares, uranium, lumber and logging tracts, buying and selling timber limited in the Johnston Straits, and land speculator elsewhere, kept busy with other pursuits. He often travelled to the Interior, staying at the Sumallo Lodge and had begun pursuit of building a hotel on the lake north of present-day Okanagan Falls. The crumbling foundations were still visible some years ago.
The steamboats travelling up the Fraser River to Yale, (as there was no proper road from Vancouver, nor a car bridge, only the railroad) also stopped at Fordson Landing, 4 times a week, at the end of Herring Road which was on his farm. He kept his yacht moored there for his trips up the coast. He added another 51 acres of land in 1943 at the end of Windsor Road, where I and my sister Gwen grew up some years later.
In addition, he and some investors purchased some property on Kennedy Road and subdivided it into a townsite as they knew a bridge and highway would someday be built across the Pitt River alongside the railway bridge. Unfortunately, that area of Pitt Meadows never progressed into the townsite they envisioned. Bert’s good friend, Harold Sutton, also became prominent in the building and politics of Pitt Meadows. Louise became involved with Mrs. Meeker and Mrs. Sutton in the Women’s Institute which helped with a lot of charity fundraising in the Municipality as well as provided a social circle for the ladies.
Bert was also politically active. He travelled to Victoria during the Depression years to help seek tax relief for the farmers and homeowners in Pitt Meadows. He proposed they work on projects such as hauling gravel, building roads and such in lieu of tax payment. The homeowners saved their homes and farms and did all the work with horse and wagon. Bert also was fundamental in helping to secure a school bus for the outlying areas.
The road running West from Harris Road past his farm (now the airport property) was named after him, and, when people told him he could never build a road across the peat bog to Woolridge Road, he decided to prove he could. He built the famous ‘plank road’ about 1924, which was indeed used and parts still are in evidence today. My mother, Evelyn Gertrude Knull Ford, used to walk from her family’s farm along it, to the store in ‘downtown’ Pitt Meadows, regularly. However, as it came into disrepair, it was easier and cheaper for the Municipality to build a road around the peat bog and thus came the Ford Road Detour.
He built a lovely home, by the standards of the day, which even contained a ‘dumbwaiter’ to bring supplies upstairs. The home had one of the first telephones after 1910 and his son, Ralph, had one of the few cars in evidence in those days. Bert was also a Seventh-Day Adventist and built the present church at the corner of Harris and Ford Roads. His church group also built a log house and an academy, called the Manson Industrial Academy, on the road they aptly named Advent Road. Yes, he was obviously a very busy and exciting man and I wished I had known him. He succumbed to a heart attack when I was only about 5 months old, having lost most of his investments through the Depression. In those days though, children were seen and not heard, so even my father, the only child, did not know a lot about his background and ancestry. I am still searching for the lost ancestral roots of his family.
-Virginia Gail Ford Mackintosh
Details:
Latitude: 49.2224494353963
Longitude: -122.69704164251
Direct Link: https://www.pittmeadowsmuseum.com/locations/sherman-herbert-ford
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