Biographical Sketches

Worthington Chauncey Ford was born on 16 February 1858 in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest son and third eldest child of Gordon Lester Ford (16 December 1823-14 November 1891) and Emily Ellsworth (Fowler) Ford (26 August 1826-23 November 1893). Gordon Ford was a lawyer and president of the Willimantic and Palmer Railroad, known for his private collection of American history books and manuscripts. (After his death, the Ford family donated this collection to the New York Public Library.) Emily (Fowler) Ford was a poet and essayist, as well as the granddaughter of Noah Webster. The couple married on 16 December 1853. The Fords had seven children in addition to Worthington: Kathleen Gordon (Ford) Turle (28 June 1856-16 April 1932); Rosalie Greenleaf (Ford) Barr (1859-16 September 1911); Malcolm Webster Ford, Sr. (7 February 1862-8 May 1902); Mabel Percy (Ford) Mayo-Smith (1 August 1863-3 February 1938); Paul Leicester Ford (23 March 1865-8 May 1902); and Emily Ellsworth (Ford) Skeel (15 January 1867-7 February 1958).

Worthington attended the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and Columbia University, but withdrew from school his junior year due to hearing loss. An historian, he edited several publications on early American history and served as chief of the United States Department of the Treasury (1883-1898), chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the United States Department of State (1885-1889), head of the Department of Documents and Statistics at the Boston Public Library (1893-1898), and chief of the manuscripts division at the Library of Congress (1902-1908). At the behest of his friend and president of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS), Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Worthington joined the MHS in 1909 as editor, remaining in the position until his resignation in 1929. During his tenure at the MHS, Worthington served as an editor for the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University (1917-1922). He was also president of the American Historical Society in 1917 and taught a course on historical manuscripts, History 46, at Harvard University, which included students from Radcliffe College.

From 1929 until his retirement in 1932, Worthington was appointed European commissioner for the Library of Congress. A prolific publisher, Worthington was considered the leading scholar at the time on George Washington, and he published two books about the first president, The Writings of George Washington (1889-1891) and George Washington (1900). While editor at MHS, he edited and/or wrote twenty volumes of Proceedings and ten volumes of Collections, including the volume on Massachusetts Broadsides to 1800. Worthington was also an active member of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) and was elected to the Council of AAS in 1915.

He married Bettina Fillmore Quin (1870-1931) of Washington, D.C. on 11 October 1899; they had two children, Emily Ellsworth (Ford) Lowes (1901-1983) and Crimora Chauncey (Ford) Ellis (1906-1966). Bettina (Quin) Ford worked as a clerk at the Bureau of Statistics during Worthington's tenure as head. After retiring from the Library of Congress, Worthington and his wife lived in France. After Bettina's death in 1931, Worthington remained in Europe, but left in 1941 from Lisbon, Portugal, on the ship Excalibur. He died at sea on 7 March 1941.

Worthington's youngest brother, Paul Leicester Ford, was a novelist and biographer. Born on 23 March 1865 in Brooklyn, New York, Paul suffered a spinal injury as an infant and did not receive a formal education. Paul was educated at home by his sister Rosalie, using their father's library. He was the author of the novels The Honorable Peter Stirling (1894), Story of an Untold Love (1897), Janice Meredith (1899), Wanted-- a Matchmaker (1900), and Wanted-- a Chaperone (1902). Paul also wrote a ten-volume edition of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson and an edition of The New England Primer, as well as The Writings of Christopher Columbus (1892), among others.

Paul married Grace Kidder in December 1900, and the couple moved to a house on the Upper East Side of New York City. On 8 May 1902, Paul was the victim of a murder-suicide perpetrated by his brother Malcolm. Grace (Kidder) Ford was pregnant at the time; she gave birth to a daughter, Lesta, on 3 June 1902.