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Barney Launcelot

c 1840 - 1902

Name: Barney Launcelot

Birthplace: Virginia

Occupation/Training: Businessman



Abolitionist Involvement: Barney Launcelot Ford rose from slavery to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He was born a slave in. In the 1840's he had been hired out by his master to work on a steam ship. It is from this steamer that Ford escaped. He encountered another escaped slave--Henry O. WAGONER, and both of them taught themselves to read. He joined Wagoner, for some time with the assistance on the Underground Railroad.

By 1848, he had married, and he left with his wife, Julia to Central America. While there, he made money from the establishment of several hotels that he built while there. Returning to the United States, he lived briefly in Chicago, then headed for the west. He responded to the Gold Rush, but encountered much racism, and was driven off of a hill by white gold speculators. They found no gold after driving off Ford, and his party, and it was believed that for years that Ford had buried the money. The hill was subsequently called Nigger Hill.

He moved onwards towards Denver, opening hotels and barbershops, and giving food and refuge to escaped into Colorado during the years of the Civil War. After the war ended, the state of Colorado proposed a law that would have prohibited black suffrage. Ford, traveled to Washington personally to persuade Congress to appeal this law. He was successful in convincing President Andrew Jackson to veto this new bill that would have provided statehood with white suffrage only.

Ford established the first adult education classes for Negroes in Colorado. In addition, he continued to invest in business, opening new hotels in the west. He developed hotels and other businesses in Cheyenne Wyoming, and Denver, and later San Francisco. He was the first black man to serve on a Colorado grand jury. In 1964, some small recognition was given to Barney when Nigger Hill was renamed Berney Ford Hill.



Family: Wife Julia Children: Napoleon, Sadie and Frances.

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