By 1812Blockouse
In the fall of 1857, long before the age of armored trucks and digital transactions, a quiet banking errand turned Mansfield into the scene of a financial showdown that might make the Wild West blush.
The Weekly Plain Dealer and other newspapers shared this story.
It all began innocently enough on October 15, when G.A. Sturges, a clerk from the Mount Vernon banking firm of Russell, Sturges & Co., arrived in Mansfield with $930 in bank notes—roughly equivalent to over $30,000 today—seeking to exchange them for gold or silver specie. But what awaited him wasn’t a simple counter exchange. It was a crowd of angry citizens and a sticky threat of tar and feathers.
According to reports from the time, the notes were accepted by the cashier at the local branch of the State Bank, and hard currency was being counted out when all at once, the doors burst open. A mob, apparently alerted by some covert signal, stormed the bank. Leading the charge? None other than Tom Ford, the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio.
Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction!
The mob made their message clear: if Sturges dared to take a single dollar of hard money out of town, he’d leave Mansfield a much stickier man. The notes were thrown back at him, and he was forced to flee under threat of bodily harm. And the town wasn’t done yet.
Two days later, the firm sent heavier guns—Dr. Thompson and F.D. Sturges, partners in the company—to retry the transaction. They, too, were met with the same hostile reception. Just as the cashier began counting out their specie, the doors flew open once more, and Tom Ford’s “Border Ruffians” charged in, running the bankers out into the street in front of hundreds of gathered onlookers.
What triggered this monetary melee?
At the time, the country was in the grips of the Panic of 1857, a financial crisis that rattled banks and businesses from coast to coast. Specie—actual coinage in gold or silver—was prized and hoarded, especially in the Midwest. Many local banks feared their reserves would be drained by out-of-town brokers redeeming notes, leaving local depositors with nothing.
Ford, a rising political figure, seemed to have taken it upon himself to defend Mansfield’s financial honor—though some called his actions more mobster than magistrate. The scene resembled less a banking dispute and more a street skirmish, with “border ruffian” tactics borrowed from the violent conflicts in Kansas over slavery just a few years earlier.
Ironically, it was a member of the same political party —B. Burns, Esq.—who finally brokered peace. Acting as an impromptu diplomat, Burns convinced the crowd to stand down, pledging protection for the out-of-town visitors. Without his intervention, who knows how far the standoff might have gone?
Today, this little-known incident offers a vivid glimpse into the passions—and panic—of 19th-century Ohio banking. In an age where financial debates now play out on Capitol Hill or in Wall Street boardrooms, it’s almost hard to imagine a time when such arguments could spill onto the streets with tar buckets and torches.
But on those October days in 1857, Mansfield wasn’t just another Ohio town. It was the epicenter of a monetary mutiny—and Lieutenant Governor Tom Ford was its unlikely outlaw-in-chief.
Ford himself had a somewhat checkered career. After being commissioned in the Union Army, Colonel Ford, commanding the 32nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, ordered a retreat from Maryland Heights during the Battle of Harpers Ferry on September 13, 1862, contributing to the Union’s surrender two days later. His decision shocked Union leadership and led to the loss of approximately 12,700 troops. Ford was subsequently tried by a military commission, found guilty of negligence and improper conduct, and dismissed from service on November 8, 1862.
Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay
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