Thomas Ford
Thomas Ford, president of the Bourbon Copper and Brass Works Company of Cincinnati, is one of the well known manufacturers of the city, having been identified with the manufacturing business in Cincinnati ever since his boyhood. He is a native of Mount Savage, Maryland, born October 11, 1846. His parents were Owen and Mary (Nealon) Ford, both of whom were born in Ireland. They came to America early in their lives and were married at Carbondale, Pennsylvania. The father was a butcher by trade. He removed to Cincinnati with his family in 1852 and there engaged as a contractor. He furnished boulders for street paving. There were four children in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Ford, the subject of this review being next to the youngest in order of birth and the only one now living.
He gained the rudiments of an education in the public schools of Newport, and soon after leaving school the war broke out and, like thousands of patriotic young men, he offered his services in support of the federal government. He was connected with the supply department at Covington, Kentucky, under Captain Webster, General Frye being in command at Camp Nelson. Later he joined the Twenty-third Corps under General Schofield and marched to meet the army of General Sherman but was captured by the confederates in April 1865. Soon afterwards he was paroled at Monroe, North Carolina. Subsequently he was enabled to join his old corps. After receiving his honorable discharge from the army Mr. Ford, on August 9, 1866, entered the employ of Robson & Company, brass founders and coppersmiths, remaining with that concern, working on and off with Samuel Cummings & Sons, a firm that was established at Cincinnati in 1818, and built the first hand fire engine used by a volunteer fire department west of the Allegheny Mountains. This firm also manufactured fire plugs and made fire plugs for Cincinnati in the early days when wooden pipes were used. About 1874 or 1875 Mr. Ford associated with John G. Hetch, John G. Ellerhorst and Peter M. Bardo under the title o the Bourbon Copper and Brass Works and purchased the plant of Samuel Cummings & Sons. The purchasers had all been employes of the old firm and they carried forward the business successfully until 1891 when Mr. Ford and Mr. Bardo bought out the other partners. About 1904 the business was incorporated as the Bourbon Copper and Brass Works Company, with Mr. Ford as president and Mr. Bardo as secretary and treasurer, the capital stock being fifty thousand dollars, all of which was paid in. The company employs about fifty persons, many of whom are thoroughly skilled workmen, and manufactures fire plugs, gate valves for water and steam and waterworks and fire department supplies, this company being now one of the most important concerns of the kind in the west.
On November 15, 1870, Mr. Ford was married to Miss Mary Dowd, a daughter of Thomas A. and Bridget Dowd of Newport, Kentucky. To them five children have been born, Peter, James, Catherine, Louise and Genevieve. Mr. Ford is a member of Lodge No. 73, B. P. O. E., of Newport, and has served as trustee of this organization. In religious faith he is a Catholic and he and his family are consistent members of Father McNearney’s church at Newport. He has never taken particular interest in politics. A man of broad views, his mind having been broadened early in life by contact with the world, especially at the crucial time of the Civil war, he has been forceful and energetic in his business management and has attained success that is richly merited. Courteous and obliging by nature, he has won the honor and respect of his associates and of his employes, and he can look back on a long life in the course of which he accomplished not a little in lightening the burdens of his fellowmen.
From Cincinnati, The Queen City, Volume III, by Rev. Charles Frederic Goss, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1912