Judge Simpson Stephen Ford
Judge Simpson Stephen Ford has earned a high place in his profession and in the public life of Cleveland, where he has been a resident lawyer for over thirty years. Members of the bar give him their particular esteem for the dignity and impartiality with which he presided over the court of Common Pleas for so many years.
Judge Ford was born at Richmond in Jefferson County, Ohio, October 7, 1854, a son of William and Eliza J. Ford. Judge Ford comes of the same family stock as Henry Ford, the great automobile manufacturer of Detroit, and there is considerable personal resemblance between the two men.
In early life Judge Ford distinguished himself as a student. He took his higher literary education in that splendid small college of Pennsylvania, Allegheny College at Meadville, where he was graduated in 1881. He was class orator and was also elected a member of the honorary college fraternity Phi Beta Kappa. He was a school teacher at eighteen, and for two years after leaving college taught mathematics and English. In the meantime he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1884.
He carried on a private practice at Cleveland without interruption of outside interests until 1892, when he was elected the first president of the board of education of the city under the federal plan. He served four years as a member and president two terms. He then entered the law department of the city as a second assistant corporation counsel, and in 1896 was promoted to first assistant city solicitor, an office he held until 1898. In 1899 he was elected judge of the Common Pleas Court, and by re-election in 1904 served on that bench from 1900 to 1912. Since leaving the bench he has resumed his private practice and has offices in the Society for Savings Building. Judge Ford is a member of the board of trustees of Allegheny College, his alma mater. He is president of the Guarantee State Savings and Loan Company, vice president of the Stecker-Overlook Land Company, president of the Rapid Transit Land Company, director in the Cleveland-Belmont Coal Company, a member of the Tippecanoe Club, the Cleveland Athletic Club and the Colonial Club, and a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
He was married October 5, 1887, to Miss Altai M. Scott. They have one son, William Harold.
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1