After carefully concealing its acts for many years, the clan began drifting to the inevitable. A lack of trust among the men themselves and the increasing danger of their work indicated that sooner or later something would occur to end its career. The end came in 1834. Strange to say, it was brought about, not through a dispute over the division of spoils or a wholesale arrest of its members, but was due more directly to a lawsuit regarding a slave than to any other cause known to the public. Tradition is vague regarding this litigation, but the court records reveal sufficient data from which to glean the cause of the beginning of the end of the Ford’s Ferry mystery.
The Circuit Court Records of Livingston County contain the proceedings of a suit entitled “Ford versus Simpson” which began in September, 1829, and continued nearly two years. James Ford’s petition recites that on January 7, 1829, he bought from Vincent B. Simpson a slave named Hiram, for the sum of eight hundred dollars. Simpson guaranteed him to be “a good blacksmith, sound and healthy,” but the negro died soon after the sale, at the age of thirty-four. Ford set forth that the man was “no blacksmith and no labourer and was labouring under a disease called hernia,” and that he was worth only two hundred and fifty dollars at the time of the sale. In consequence of the loss of time and work resulting from the purchase of the negro, Ford sued for one thousand dollars damages. Simpson tried, through various witnesses, to prove that the slave was a good mechanic and a healthy negro, but failed to establish any of his claims. Ford, on the other hand, produced many men who upheld him and gave much testimony to prove that Simpson had practiced a fraud in making the sale. The case dragged through the courts until March 9, 1831, when, by agreement of the attorneys, the suit was ordered dismissed, “each party paying their own costs.”
This was a victory for Ford, for rumor had it that he and Simpson were equally implicated in certain robberies. Ford had proved Simpson a deceitful man and could now cite the Hiram transaction as an example of his unreliability. Ford was prepared, should Simpson reveal any of their secrets and “try” to implicate him; he was fortified against any accusation, true or false, that Simpson might make. In the meantime, Simpson continued to run Ford’s Ferry. Whether or not Ford attempted to remove him is not known. It is probable that each feared the other, and that each was awaiting the other’s first damaging act. Ford and his two grown sons evidently foresaw the possibility of serious trouble.
These two sons were Philip and William M. Ford (whose ages, in 1831, were respectively thirty-one and twenty-eight years). He had one daughter, the Cassandra who, February 5, 1827, married Dr. Charles H. Webb, as previously noted. The daughter was an accomplished and highly respected woman, and is so represented in Watt’s Chronicles. Her husband was all his life a model citizen. Ford’s first wife, it is said, was a Miss Miles, whose brother at one time ran a ferry where the village of Weston, Kentucky, now stands. After the death of his first wife, Ford, January 15, 1829, as shown by Livingston County marriage records, married Mrs. Elizabeth Frazer, a widow with three daughters. Mr. Frazer and his family, so runs the story, were coming down the Ohio in a flatboat and chanced to stop at Ford’s home. Mr. Frazer became ill while there, and a few days later died. In the course of a short time Ford married the widow, and from that union was born, in 1830, one child, James Ford Jr.
Trouble was brewing. What preparations were made by Ford and his two sons to meet the uncertain developments is not known. A perusal of the wills recorded in Livingston County reveals the fact that Philip Ford made a will on November 21, 1831, and that within seven months thereafter wills were also made by his brother and father. Philip Ford died two days after he had prepared his will. One tradition has it that he died of yellow fever, but that is not at all likely to be true. The document was not recorded until June, 1833. It shows he was a widower and a man of some means. He designates his father and brother-in-law, Dr. Webb, as administrators. He bequeathed some of his estate to his father, sister, and brother William, but the greater part to his only child, Francis Ford, then a small boy. Among the items were seven slaves, two of whom, “Irene, a woman, and Kitty, a girl,” were to be retained and the other five sold “at nine months credit, the proceeds to go for the whole use and benefit of my son.” Another item reads: “My gold watch I wish Doct. Charles H. Webb to take charge of until my son comes of age and then to go to my son Francis Ford.” As requested in this document, he was “buried by the side of where my beloved wife is buried and in a decent manner.” The inscription on his gravestone reads:
“To the memory of Philip Ford who was born November 25th, 1800, departed this life November 23d, 1831.”
A year later William died and was buried beside his brother. Tradition ascribes his death to cholera. Be that as it may, there is nothing to indicate that he “died with his boots on,” although he might have met that fate had he survived a few years longer. The graves of the two brothers are on the Ford Old Place about one mile southwest of Tolu. Each is marked with a dressed stone box grave cover, which, before the collapse a few years ago, was about six feet long, three feet wide and three feet high, the top being a well carved slab bearing an inscription. The inscription on the grave of Ford’s second son can be interpreted in more than one way:
“To the memory of William M. Ford, who departed this life on the 3d day of Novr. 1832, aged 28 years. Whose benevolence caused the widow and orphant to smile and whose firmness caused his enemies to tremble. He was much appresst while living and much slandered since dead.”
William also left a will. It is dated June 1, 1832. The official records show that it was recorded July 27, 1832, a little more than three months before he died. Tradition has forgotten how William’s “firmness caused his enemies to tremble” and by what means he was “much appresst while living and much slandered since dead.” Nor is there any tradition regarding the identity of the widows and orphans who, through his benevolence, were caused to smile. His will, however, throws some sidelights on his career as a father. The document does not refer to a wife, living or dead. One tradition has it that at the age of twenty-two he married a girl by the name of Simpson, but that name does not appear among the three mothers of his children referred to by him. He first bequeaths all his estate to his two sons, one of whom was, in 1832, seven years old, and the other seven months. After stating the name of the mother of each, he adds: “both of said children I acknowledge to be my sons.” But in the event of the death of both boys before they reached the age of twenty-one, he gives two thousand dollars to the young daughter of a certain woman he mentions, and bequeaths practically all the residue of his estate to his uncle, Richard Miles.
It is said that the inscription placed on the grave of William was dictated by James Ford. Beginning a short time before the death of his two sons, many accusations against William and his father gained wide circulation. Ford evidently hoped that such an inscription on the tomb of the “appresst” and “slandered” son would have the effect of a voice from the grave and do much toward subduing undesirable true and false reports that might continue to circulate after his death. Tradition says James Ford requested his wife to place an inscription of a similar character on his grave, hoping it would, to a considerable extent, prevent the community from attributing all the lawlessness to him and none to the mysterious Ford’s Ferry band, of which he was openly accused of being the leader. Mrs. Ford, in all probability, would have carried out this wish had she not died so soon after her husband. Be that as it may, nothing marks the grave of James Ford nor that of his wife. If small stones were erected over them they have long ago disappeared, as have some of the other headstones that once stood in the same graveyard. The spot pointed out as the one where James Ford was buried is a few feet from William’s grave and is now, and long has been, covered by a briar patch.