SETH PORTER FORD

On January 1, 1848, Dr. Ford married Miss Maria N. Fowler in Washington, Connecticut. He is believed to have served as a surgeon in the U.S. Navy before coming to Hawaii with Mrs. Ford in January, 1852, aboard the "R.B. Forbes" from Boston.

In April, 1852, Dr. Ford and Dr. George A. Lathrop opened a Hydropathic Establishment and private hospital in Nuuanu Valley, but by the following September the association was dissolved by mutual consent. When Honolulu was divided into districts to fight the smallpox epidemic of 1853, the doctor was placed in charge of one of the districts. In 1855 he joined with Dr. Henry L. Bullions in launching the City Hospital located on King Street, but this too was short lived. He also had an extensive private practice and was the personal physician of Kamehameha IV. Undoubtedly, his most publicized operation was performed on Mrs. Lucy Thurston when, with the assistance of Drs. Judd, Hillebrand, and Hoffman, he removed her breast. He also performed a successful cataract removal, the second ever to be attempted in Honolulu. Again he made the newspapers when he operated for an aneurism (aneurysm) of the femoral artery and the patient recovered.

However, all was not well with Dr. Ford financially, and in September, 1855, he filed for voluntary bankruptcy and for a time abandoned medicine in favor of various business deals. Mrs. Ford had gone back to Connecticut in March, 1855, and did not return. In 1864 the doctor sued for divorce on the grounds of desertion, but Mrs. Ford entered a counter suit in which she contended that she had gone home at the time of the doctor's financial troubles with the understanding that he would follow as soon as he cleared up his business affairs. A letter written by Dr. Ford to his wife in 1860 and offered in support of her suit, tells of a promising business deal in which he was then engaged which had prevented his return but promises to return in another year. Mrs. Ford was granted a divorce in September, 1864.

Seemingly, there was only a brief period between his going into bankruptcy and his return to practicing to some degree. In 1866 he was advertising his office and drug store located on Queen Street, and in 1857 he was listed as port physician. However, the "Advertiser" of October 2, 1862, carried the following notice: "The undersigned respectfully announces to his friends and the Honolulu public, that he has this day resumed the practice of his profession, and takes this opportunity of returning his sincere thanks to his friends, and the public for the liberal patronage they were pleased formerly to grant him, and hopes that by attention to business to merit a continuance of the popular favor which he has enjoyed heretofore, in the practice of Medicine and Surgery." And it was signed S. Porter Ford, M.D. Consular Physician to American Seamen.

Dr. Ford became a naturalized Hawaiian citizen in March, 1855. The following year he was one of the signers of the charter of incorporation of the Hawaiian Medical Society. In 1859 he was appointed by the Board of Health to serve on a committee of three doctors to examine applicants for medical licenses. At the time of his death he was physician for the Insane Asylum and had served as surgeon of the Honolulu Rifles.

On June 2, 1866, Dr. Ford married Miss Carolyn Jackson in Honolulu. Some five months later, on November 19, 1866, he died in Honolulu at the age of 50. He was survived by his widow, Carolyn, two daughters, Lois C. and Minehaha, and a son, Seth Porter.

Interested in agriculture as well as medicine, Dr. Ford introduced rice growing as an Hawaiian industry, even going to the extent of destroying large patches of growing taro in Moanalua to make way for this new crop. He was also one of the men responsible for building the first rice mills.

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