C. Oscar Ford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 3, 1873, the son of John and Mary Eliza Ford.  He entered the Dickinson Preparatory School and then the freshman class at the College, the class of 1898, in September, 1894.  He was an active member of his class, being elected president in his first year and captaining the class baseball team all four years.  He was also a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to membership in the Belle Lettres Society.  He was president of the Athletic Association in his sophomore year and was a fine enough speaker to represent the College at the Collegiate Oratorical Contest in Mt. Gretna.

He played all four years as a member of the varsity football team and was captain in 1896, scoring eight touchdowns that year from the position of right tackle and setting the kicking point record with seventeen "goals from touchdowns" yielding 75 points.  His team beat State College, Penn, the Carlisle Indian School, and Lafayette, yielding only eight points in these four games and scoring eighty-four.

Following graduation, he studied for the Methodist ministry at Boston College and was ordained in 1901.  Along with long serving pastorates in Winthrop and Lynn, Massachusetts, he also gave sterling service to the New England Conference of the Methodist Church as a superintendent, member of the board for ministerial training, and delegate.

He married Florence Bartch of Columbia, Pennsylvania in 1901 and the couple had three daughters.  C. Oscar Ford was serving in semi retirement as pastor of the Prospect Street Methodist Church in Gloucester, Massachusetts when he died of a heart attack on October 17, 1948.  He was buried at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Gloucester.