Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned (1919) — The Public Domain Review

August 6, 1874, Albany, New York. His mother, Agnes Hoy, died before he was five years old, leaving Toddy (as he was called) and his two younger brothers to the widowed Charles Nelson at Fort. The fatherly Ford is stern, physically abusive, and brings tears to Toddy’s eyes and a bloody nose—an authoritarian figure who bullies his sons into compliance without respect or love. Ford displayed a playful streak from an early age, perhaps in reaction to his father’s authoritarianism, and this uncompromising attitude evolved into a suspicion of all forms of authority. He rejected religion—and what was taught in schools. As a young man, he had an urge to collect, which was another trait that characterized him as an adult: collecting and resisting. Ford dropped out of high school and moved to Brooklyn, where, like home, he worked as a journalist. In 1893, he used a small inheritance to travel, covering thirty thousand miles in three years. “It’s all about accumulating life experience and knowledge.” In 1896, illness forced him to return to Brooklyn. He reacquainted himself with Anne Ferling, whom he had known in Albany. She nursed him carefully back to health. They were married in October. The couple struggled to make ends meet, with Anne becoming a laundress and Ford a dishwasher.