Sewell Ford

Born on March 7, 1868, in South Levant, Maine, Sewell Ford became a popular American author whose name is closely tied to the "Torchy" and "Shorty McCabe" stories. Reliable library and memorial records also place parts of his early life in Cheboygan, Michigan, and confirm that he died on October 20, 1946, in Keene, New Hampshire.

Ford wrote for a mass audience and was remembered as a reporter, editor, and author. His fiction was known for its quick pace, humor, and easygoing style, which helped make his recurring characters especially memorable to magazine readers.

Today he is mainly remembered through those character-driven stories and the long shelf of books and periodical fiction he left behind. Even when tastes changed, his work remained a vivid example of the lively popular storytelling that flourished in the United States in the early 1900s.