James Ford (pirate)

James Ford
No known portrait of James Ford exists from life. This is an artist's likeness created from his physical description in historical records.[1]
BornOctober 22, 1775 (1775-10-22)
Ninety-Six District, Province of South Carolina, British America, present-day Spartanburg, South Carolina[2][3]
DiedJuly 7, 1833 (1833-07-08) (aged 57)
Ford's Ferry, Livingston County, Kentucky, near present-day Tolu, Kentucky[4][5]
Cause of deathGunshot wound
Resting placeFord family cemetery, Kirksville, Livingston County, Kentucky[6]
Other namesSquire Ford, Satan's Ferryman
Known forBeing a pillar of the community and secretly, the criminal leader of the Ford's Ferry Gang, along the Ohio River
Spouse(s)Susan Miles (first wife)
Elizabeth "Betsy" W. Armstead Frazier (second wife)
Children4
Signature

James Ford, born James N. Ford, also known as James N. Ford Sr., the "N" possibly for Neal (October 22, 1775 – July 7, 1833), was an American civic leader and business owner in western Kentucky and southern Illinois, from the late 1790s to mid-1830s. Despite his clean public image as a "Pillar of the Community", Ford was secretly a river pirate and the leader of a gang that was later known as the "Ford's Ferry Gang". His men were the river equivalent of highway robbers. They hijacked flatboats and Ford's "own river ferry" for tradable goods from local farms that were coming down the Ohio River.

Ford was an Illinois associate of Isaiah L. Potts and the Potts Hill Gang, highway robbers, of the infamous Potts Inn. James Ford also was an associate of John Hart Crenshaw, an illegal slave trader and a kidnapper of free African Americans, and may have taken part in the Illinois version of the Reverse Underground Railroad. At one point, the outlaws used "Cave-in-Rock" as their headquarters on the Illinois side of the lower Ohio River, approximately around 85 miles below Evansville, Indiana.

  1. ^ Rothert, Otto A. (1924). "The outlaws of Cave-in-Rock : historical accounts of the famous highwaymen and river pirates who operated in pioneer days upon the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and over the old Natchez trace". Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark. p. 292.
  2. ^ Landrum, John Belton O'Neall (1900). "History of Spartanburg County: Embracing an Account of Many Important Events, and Biographical Sketches of Statesmen, Divines and Other Public Men ..." Atlanta, GA: Franklin Prtg. and Publishing Company. pp. 1–2.
  3. ^ Landrum, John Belton O'Neall (1900). "History of Spartanburg County: Embracing an Account of Many Important Events, and Biographical Sketches of Statesmen, Divines and Other Public Men ..." Atlanta, GA: Franklin Prtg. and Publishing Company. pp. 1–2.
  4. ^ Sniveley, Jr., William Daniel (1968). "Satan's Ferryman: A True Tale of the Old Frontier". New York, NY: Franklin Prtg. and Publishing Company. p. 211. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  5. ^ Rothert, Otto A. (1924). "The Outlaws of Cave-In-Rock". Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 309. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  6. ^ Forgotten Passages