History/About the Museum

Faith, Family, Posterity

In his book and in other writing, Dr. James Ford chronicled his nineteenth century life as a physician, family man, surveyor, agronomist, architect, and Civil War surgeon in detail. His 1841 home was expanded to become a 4,000 square foot residence by the 1870s.

After the death of a great-granddaughter, the ownership of the home went out of the family in the latter part of the twentieth century and was purchased by the Charley Creek Foundation in 2002. Richard Edwin Ford, Chairman of the Charley Creek Foundation, is a great-grandson of Dr. Ford.

Restoration began in 2003 and the Dr. James Ford Historic Home opened in April 2005 to give visitors an experience of family life in the 1870s.

Throughout the extensive restoration of the home, the goal was to create a working museum without compromising architectural historic integrity.

Dr. James Ford purchased this property in 1839 and moved his family into an unfinished home in October of 1841. As the Ford family grew and prospered over the years, so did this home. Dr. Ford has an interest in architecture and he designed multiple additions to the house.

Dr. Ford and his wife America Holton raised six children in this home. Their second daughter Martha Jane died in 1846 before she was five-years-old and their oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth died at the age of twenty-eight. Allena and Nancy Anna had reached adulthood by 1865, but the boys were still coming of age - James Henry was 17, William Jesse was 14, and the youngest, Edwin Holton was four years old.

Dr. Ford's mother Rebecca Snedeker Ford, was also a member of the household. She played an important role, especially when the Fords found themselves raising Mary Elizabeth's three young children, Harriet, America and Mary. The girls were only age four, two and nine days when Mary Elizabeth died.

Throughout the years, life in the Ford house was full of activity - from the joyful chaos of young children to more formal adult social gatherings.