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President Gerald Ford

President Gerald Ford waves as he travels Duke of Gloucester Street, accompanied by Virginia Governor Mills E. Godwin, Jr., and Virginia First Lady Katherine Beale Godwin during a 1976 bicentennial observation.


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Gerald Ford
A Remembrance

GERALD FORD paid Williamsburg four visits. On January 31, 1976, with his wife Betty at his side, the president inaugurated the national Bicentennial in a speech before the Sixteenth Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at the Capitol. The president and first lady came again in the fall of 1976 for the third debate of the presidential campaign with Jimmy Carter on October 22 at William and Mary’s Phi Beta Kappa Hall. After the debate, the candidates visited separately with students, faculty, and townspeople. Carter’s performance at the event may have helped cinch the election.

It was chance that Carter and Ford made their most recent visits to Williamsburg in September of 1977, ten months after Carter won the election of 1976. The new president attended a political dinner at the Williamsburg Lodge on September 24 in support of Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial ticket of Henry Howell and running mate Charles Robb. Former President Ford, free of the cares of office, joined Bob Hope and other notables to raise money for underprivileged children through participation in the seventh annual Lee Elder Celebrity Golf Classic at Kingsmill Resort. In 1979, Ford returned to William and Mary and dedicated a Phi Beta Kappa Hall plaque memorializing the 1976 debate.

Excerpt from The Presidential Parade through Williamsburg by Bob Doares. Colonial Williamsburg. XXVII, 20-26, 2005.

Gerald Ford

Winter sun lights the Capitol in Williamsburg, Virginia as President Gerald Ford delivers a bicentennial address to the Virginia General Assembly in 1976.

 Gerald Ford

Flanked by a formal 18th-century military procession, President Gerald Ford walks to the Capitol in 1976 to deliver a speech.
Gerald Ford

Costumed interpreters line up for the honor of taking a picture with President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford in 1976.

Gerald Ford

Before his debate with presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976, President Gerald Ford takes a moment to meet a costumed interpreter at Lightfoot House.