Historical Marker

Ford vs. Ford

Johnson City, Washington County · Tennessee

Loyd Ford, a farmer, wrote a will freeing his enslaved children and leaving them his land. His children tried to make him destroy it and offered money to the man holding it for safekeeping. Once he died, the freed people had no legal standing, so Phoebe Stuart filed suit as their next friend. The state supreme court sent the case back on evidence but held that they could bring the suit, and a second jury ruled for them. Freedom and the farm were theirs in 1850.

What the plaque says

Ford vs. Ford This land brought about the historic court case of Ford v. Ford. Loyd Ford (1748-1843) freed his five enslaved individuals and gave them his farm located here. His children challenged the will and the five who were freed fought the case up to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 1846, Judge Nathan Green authored an opinion which ruled that an enslaved individual is "Not in the Condition of a horse or an ox … he is made in the image of his creator." The state's highest court recognized the enslaved humanity as both "persons and property." Those formerly enslaved won their case and kept their freedom and land. The Tennessee Supreme Court's decision affirmed the legal right of those enslaved to bring suit to probate the will. Freed African Americans Win First Inheritance Suit At his death in 1843, Lloyd Ford, Sr. freed his five enslaved children, John, Peg, Edward, Larkin and Rhoda, and left them land and a home near this location. Ford's son, Lloyd Ford, Jr., contested the will. To fight for their inheritance and freedom, the children asked Phoebe Stuart to file suit as "Next Friend" as they had no legal rights. Tried in Washington County, the court ruled in favor of the children. Appeals in Ford v. Ford recognized the children's legal rights. Ultimately, the children gained freedom and won ownership of the property.

Where it stands

36.42717, -82.50675 · Directions

Worth the stop nearby

Warriors' Path State Park — 5.0 mi
A state park around Fort Patrick Henry Lake on the Holston at Kingsport, named for the Great Indian Warpath, with an unfinished late-1800s railroad grade, mountain-bike trails and a marina.
Jonesborough Historic District — 9.2 mi
Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
Rocky Mount Museum — 9.6 mi
William Cobb's log house at Piney Flats, where Governor William Blount ran the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792, now a living-history museum set in 1791 with a reconstructed cabin for the enslaved.
Long Island of the Holston — 9.8 mi
A four-mile island in the Holston at Kingsport, Cherokee council and treaty ground, the start of Boone's Wilderness Road in 1775, and in part returned to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in 1976.

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