San Francisco County
Biographies
TIREY LAFAYETTE FORD
FORD,
TIREY LAFAYETTE, Attorney and General Counsel for the United Railroads, San
Francisco, California, was born in Monroe County, Missouri,
December 29, 1857, the son of Jacob Harrison Ford and Mary Winn (Abernathy)
Ford. He comes from a long line of
agricultural forbears and was himself born on a farm. In the first ship that sailed from Holland to
Virginia, in January, 1700, was a band of French Huguenots whom William, prince
of Orange, after he became King of England, had invited to make their home in
America, and among these first French immigrants were Pierre Faure (later
called Peter Ford), his wife and child, his brother, Daniel, and his two
sisters. From the time that this Pierre
Faure first settled on his allotted land along the James River, in Virginia, to
the death of Jacob Harrison Ford, father of the subject of this sketch, in Kansas
City, Missouri, in November, 1908, his American ancestors have been tillers of
the soil. Mr. Ford married Miss Emma
Byington, daughter of the Hon. Lewis Byington, one of the leading pioneers of
Sierra County, in Downieville, California, February 1, 1888. To them were born three children—Relda (now
Mrs. Fred V. F. Stott) and Byington, and Tirey Lafayette Ford, Jr.
The
phrase “born” or “raised on the farm” has been elevated in America from a term
somewhat jocular to one of something like distinction, such is the character of
the men chiefly responsible for the elevation.
And from milking cows at daybreak, husking corn and performing other
feats on some cultivated acres, even though the latter be situated in the
Show-Me State of Missouri, to an attorney generalship and the post of general
counsel of one of the richest corporations in the country is a progression that
doesn’t mar the acquired nature of the foregoing phrase. This, in brief, is the career, at a glance,
of General Ford.
The
district school of the county, 1863 to 1873, and the high school, from which he
was graduated in 1876, gave him his early education. During these years, however, he worked at
night and on Saturdays “doing chores” to pay his expenses, and on the other
weekdays rode his father’s mules to the schoolhouse.
When
he was 19 years of age he reached
The
outlook he found on his return to
In
January, 1885, he moved to Downieville, where his legal efforts met with a
little better reward. His progress
thenceforward was rapid, marked by his election in 1888, and again in 1890, to
the District Attorneyship of Sierra County, to the State Senate in 1892,
wherein he served from 1893 to 1985, and, on his change of residence to San
Francisco, by his appointment to the Attorneyship of the State Board of Harbor
Commissioners.
In
all these offices he made a brilliant record.
As a Senator he had the special distinction of voting, with only one
colleague, against the “free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ration of
16 to 1,” and as attorney for the Harbor Commission solved the difficult legal
problem, there by giving to San Francisco the area known as Channel street, now a part of the city’s harbor.
In
January, 1899, after considerable opposition frem [sic] the regular Republican
organization, so called, he became Attorney General of California. The policy to which he adhered throughout his
term he outlined to his deputies thus: “With lawmaking and with State policies
this office has nothing to do. The
Governor and the Legislature will attend to that. Our business is to know the law, to disclose
it as we find it and to protect and maintain the State’s legal rights.”
Among
his noteworthy acts in this capacity was his argument on rehearing before the
Supreme Court whereby he secured a reversal of the former decision touching the
inheritance tax on the Leland Stanford estate and thus converted the $250,000
involved to the use of the public schools of
General Ford’s appointment, in August, 1902, as general counsel for
the United Railroads obliged him to resign his Attorney Generalship. To insure the continuance of the office on
the plane he himself had chosen, he selected for his successor his friend and
former mountain neighbor, U. S. Webb, at that time the District Attorney of
Plumas County. In this instance he
triumphed again over the opposition of the so-called regular Republican
organization.
In
April, 1905, after some hesitation, he accepted the appointment from Governor
Pardee to membership on the State Board of Prison Directors. Here, too, his work has been distinguished by
the same system of thoroughness he had applied to all his previous
offices. His creation of the special
bureau for paroled prisoners, by means of which 985 prisoners have been
paroled, and his able and elaborate report on the principal reformatories in
the United States have added not a little luster to his record as a public
officer.
General
Ford is a member of the Pacific Union, Bohemian, Union League, Press,
Transportation, Commercial, Amaurot and Southern Clubs, as well as of the
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition, Page 111, 1913.
© 2007 Donna L.
Becker.