American Outlaw. He was the son of James Ford and Mary Susan Miles-Ford. According to the book, The Outlaws of Cave-In-Rock, William by local tradition died of cholera. According to Illinois historian, Jon Musgrave, he was most likely shot and killed on the Illinois side of Ford's Ferry, along Ford's Ferry Road in Pope County (now Hardin County, Illinois) while attempting to rob a traveler. His existing gravestone now lying flat on the ground was designed as the elevated top lid cover of a sandstone box grave marker which has long since collapsed. The heavy, dressed stone slab cover is six feet long and three feet wide and was originally placed on top of a three-foot-high grave box which is similar to the other surviving heavy, dressed stone slab cover lying on the ground that belongs to his brother, Philip Ford. Stone box graves were many times used by prominent, well-to-do families in the early 19th century and were especially popular in the 1820s through the 1830s. According to the official historian of Marion and Crittenden County, Kentucky, Brenda Travis-Underdown, years later a local farmer who owned the cemetery land decided to use the stone graves to cover over holes in a nearby pasture but after his child and some of his cows died he thought the Ford gravestones were cursed. The farmer then removed the gravestones and haphazardly dumped them back in the cemetery making the identification and exact locations of the Ford family graves nearly impossible.
American Outlaw. He was the son of James Ford and Mary Susan Miles-Ford. According to the book, The Outlaws of Cave-In-Rock, William by local tradition died of cholera. According to Illinois historian, Jon Musgrave, he was most likely shot and killed on the Illinois side of Ford's Ferry, along Ford's Ferry Road in Pope County (now Hardin County, Illinois) while attempting to rob a traveler. His existing gravestone now lying flat on the ground was designed as the elevated top lid cover of a sandstone box grave marker which has long since collapsed. The heavy, dressed stone slab cover is six feet long and three feet wide and was originally placed on top of a three-foot-high grave box which is similar to the other surviving heavy, dressed stone slab cover lying on the ground that belongs to his brother, Philip Ford. Stone box graves were many times used by prominent, well-to-do families in the early 19th century and were especially popular in the 1820s through the 1830s. According to the official historian of Marion and Crittenden County, Kentucky, Brenda Travis-Underdown, years later a local farmer who owned the cemetery land decided to use the stone graves to cover over holes in a nearby pasture but after his child and some of his cows died he thought the Ford gravestones were cursed. The farmer then removed the gravestones and haphazardly dumped them back in the cemetery making the identification and exact locations of the Ford family graves nearly impossible.
Inscription
"William [F]ord (first letter of last name illegible) whose benovelence [benevolence] caused the widow and orphan to smile and whose firmness caused his enemies to tremble. He was much apprested [appreciated] while living and much slandered since death."
(Inscription composed by his father, James Ford)
Gravesite Details
Gravestone moved, gravesite not marked.
Family Members
Siblings
Half Siblings
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