#20 Seabury Ford

Seabury Ford

Born: October 15, 1801

Died: May 8, 1855

Political Party: Whig

Term of Office: January 22, 1849 - December 12, 1850

Buried: Welton Cemetery Burton, Ohio

No. 45 of 58

  

   Seabury Ford was born in Connecticut. His family moved to Burton, Ohio when he was still very young. Ford's family were among the earliest settlers in Connecticut, arriving in 1637 and going back 6 generations. In 1821, Ford would return to the state of his birth to attend Yale University. After his graduation in 1825 he returned home to Ohio where he studied law with his uncle Peter Hitchcock, who served 28 years in the Ohio Supreme Court, 21 of them as Chief Justice of Ohio.

    After admittance to the Ohio bar in 1827, Ford started practicing law in his hometown of Burton. The following year he got married to a cousin of his, Harriet Cook. The couple went on to have 5 sons.

   Ford joined the state militia, eventually earning the rank of Major General. This led to his entering Whig party politics when he was elected to the Ohio State House of Representatives in 1835. He would serve 3, 2 year terms here, one as Speaker of the Ohio House. Ford was then elected to the Ohio Senate, where he served from 1841 to 1847.

   In 1848, Ford was chosen to be the Whig parties candidate for Governor of Ohio. He won the closest election in Ohio's history. He won by about 311 votes of about 300,000. The election had to be decided by the state legislature. Which delayed his inauguration by 6 weeks.

   Governor Ford took office in the aftermath of the Mexican War and of great national debate over the expansion of slavery. Little was accomplished due to constant deadlock in the state legislature. Ford would repeal the Black Laws of 1807. Slavery was illegal in Ohio. However these black laws required African Americans to have to prove that they weren't runaway slaves. They also restricted African American's rights to marry white people and own guns, among other things. So Ford's greatest accomplishment as Governor was the repeal of these laws. During his administration, the Ohio legislature voted to renew the state's Constitution, which led to the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1851. Ford was the last Whig to be Ohio's Governor.

    Ford retired from politics after his one term was over. Sadly, he suffered a stroke only a week after returning home, from which he never fully recovered. He died in 1855 at the age of 53.

   I visited the gravesite of Governor Ford over Memorial Day weekend 2018. My wife and I attended an Indians game and hit a bunch of sites in the Cleveland area the next day.

Governor Ford and I

#53 Martin L. Davey

Martin L. Davey

Born: July 25, 1884

Died: March 31, 1946

Political Party: Democrat

Term of Office: January 14, 1935-January 9, 1939

Buried: Standing Rock Cemetery Kent, Ohio

No. 44 of 58

     Martin L. Davey was born in Kent, Ohio in 1884. His father, John Davey was an English immigrant who eventually started the Davey Tree Expert Company. The company was the first tree care company in the United States and today is the largest residential tree care company in North America, doing business in both the United States and Canada. The company was recently on Forbes top 500 (#294) list of best employers.

    Despite the eventual success of his family business the Davey family struggled to make ends meet when Martin was growing up. When Davey was growing up he made and sold his own horseradish to help his family financially. Martin attended Oberlein College, but between helping found the family business and starting a family, he never graduated.

   As a child, Davey went to a county fair and heard William Jennings Bryan give his "cross of gold" speech. This experience later influenced Davey to run for political office. Davey was elected Mayor of Kent, serving from 1913-1918. In 1918, there was a vacancy in the district's US House of Representatives seat. Davey was chosen to fill it. With the exception of a 2 year reelection fair gap, Davey served in the US House until 1929. Davey first ran for Governor of Ohio in 1928, but lost to Myers Y. Cooper. Davey ran for Governor again in 1934 and won. He won reelection in 1936. But lost reelection for a 3rd term in 1938 to John Bricker. 

   As Governor, Davey tried to help Ohioans cope through the Great Depression. He found himself at odds against President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal policies when the Federal programs seized control of assistant programs already put there by the state. Federal official brought corruption charges against Governor Davey because of his opposition to FDR's New Deal. In spite of being cleared of any wrong doing, the Federal Government withheld relieve funds from the state of Ohio at a time when people really needed it. So Governor Davey implemented the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Law, the first state funded unemployment insurance package in the U.S. 

   After Davey's defeat for a 3rd term as Governor in 1938, he tried again in 1940, but lost again. After this he retired from politics and focused on his family tree business. He died in Kent in 1946.

After about a year of being very busy with my kids sporting, scouting, ect... I finally was able to cross off a couple of more Governor's off of my list on Memorial Day weekend 2018. My wife and I saw an Indians game the night before and then headed to Kent, where we walked around the site of the Kent State shooting. After that we headed to Standing Rock Cemetery in Kent to find Governor Davey's final resting place. After driving around for awhile I asked one of the guy's mowing if he knew where it was. I was expecting a "who" response, but he smiled and said "follow me!" After Kent we headed north towards Lake Erie and hit a few more sites along the way.

  

Governor Davey and I