West Ford
[1][2] Ford was born on the Bushfield Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of a woman named Venus, who was classified as "mulatto" in the parlance of the time.
[4] West Ford's exact birth date is unknown but Mary V. Thompson, Mount Vernon Research Historian, writes that the year was "about 1784".
[8] When John Augustine Washington died in 1787, he left Venus and her parents, Jenny and Billey, to his wife, Hannah.
[9] In Hannah's will, written in 1802, she specified: [I]t is my most earnest wish and desire this lad West may be as soon as possible inoculated for the small pox, after which to be bound to a good tradesman until the age of 21 years, after which he is to be free the rest of his life.
[12] Along with Ford's jobs of carpenter and gardener, he would become the main guardian of George Washington's tomb as many visitors were known to flock to his gravesite.
[1] In 1833, Ford sold the land he inherited from Bushrod Washington, to buy a larger plot of 214 acres, located two miles north at Gum Springs Farm.
In view of its 1833 establishment, Gum Springs, Virginia is the oldest African American settlement in Fairfax County.
[17] A Virginia State historical marker honoring Ford[18] was placed in Gum Springs on Fordson Road in June 2023.
[1][23] They also have gathered documentation including historical accounts, scholarly works on Washington, last wills and testaments, drawings, tax records, census data, and personal letters.
[25][21][26] The Ford family's claim gained greater publicity after DNA tests carried out in 1999 lent support to the asserted connection between Thomas Jefferson and children born to his enslaved servant and companion Sally Hemings.
[30] In a letter written in 1786 (West Ford's birth date is believed to be around 1784–1786) to a nephew, George Washington expressed his opinion that it was not because of himself that he was childless with his wife.
The letter also stated that he had no biological children: If Mrs. Washington should survive me there is moral certainty of my dying without issue, and should I be the longest liver, the matter in my opinion is almost as certain; for whilst I retain the reasoning faculties I shall never marry a girl and it is not probable th[a]t I should have children by a woman of an age suitable to my own should I be disposed to enter into a second marriage.
Authors William Rasmussen and Robert Tilton have written that, "According to a tradition passed down in Masonic circles, Martha Washington would have needed some sort of corrective surgery in order to conceive additional children, after the birth of Patsy.
In 1994, locks of hair supposedly from George Washington were given to the FBI for testing, but not enough DNA was recovered to make analysis possible.
