John FORD

                   HISTORY OF WILLIAM FORD AND FAMILY
(Submitted by Mrs. Rebecca Ford Anderson)

	William Ford was the second son of John and Rebecca Chandler Ford, son of Thomas and Sarah Turner Mason Ford, son of John and Ann Ford.

	Family history carries with it a degree ad character of interest different to any other.  It comes to the very doors of our homes.  We read between the lines, alternate hours of mirth, and hours of mourning.  Days of young men and maidens, sorrowful in the presence of death.  It is the history of home and love that sanctifies home, and of labor that love lightens.

	Father ws born October 5, 1838, in Gravely, Cambridgeshire, England.  His parents, John Ford and Rebecca Chandler, were of the sturdy , honest, middle class English folk.  Grandfather was not very religious, but grandmother had a double portion.  She read her Bible daily and when she heard the Gospel was ready to receive it, but not so with Grandfather.  The story of their conversion I will leave at this point as it has appeared in the account given of John and Rebecca Chandler Ford.

	They were both baptized in the year 1849 and five years later on February 9, 1854 the Ford family set sail from Liverpool for the new world, on the old sailing ship, Windemere.  They had a disastrous journey all the way.  Smallpox broke out on shipboard.  Many died and were buried at sea.  William and Thomas contacted the disease but recovered.  All of the family except these two boys were vaccinated before leaving England.  They ran away to avoid the vaccination.  Then fire almost destroyed the ship before it could be brought to port, and adverse winds had held them nine weeks on the ocean.  When they finally arrived at New Orleans, they were not allowed to land because of Smallpox, so those on board the ship were taken to a small island.  Here again hunger and want visited them.  After the smallpox had been subdued the company was taken in small boats up the Mississippi River to Kansas City, Missouri.  Hardly had they landed when Cholera broke out.  Grandmother became a victim, and her life despaired of, but she recovered.

	The family remained in Kansas City for several weeks.  During this time Thomas and William were sent back to St. Joe to drive a church team up the river for immigrants.  They left Kansas City on Sunday night; stopped at a farmer's place Monday where they spent the day setting out cabbage plants, receiving for their labor fifty cents each.  Before going to bed that night Thomas said, "I will never see the folks again."  Father(William) urged him to return home, but Thomas said, "I have been called, we will go on."  During the night Father was awakened by his groaning.  Cholera had seized him, and despite all the aid Father could give him he passed away in less than six hours.  Father hired a horse and cart from a livery stable, placed the body of his brother in it and took him several miles to a Mormon camp.  There with the help of two men, he buried his brother in a desolate spot.  This was such a tragedy in the life of my dear father he could never speak of it without much weeping.  One can hardly imagine the sorrow of his family when he returned to them with this sad message.  There was not time or place for them to give up for weeping, they must go on.

	Soon after the death of Thomas the family began their journey across the plains.  Only a few days upon their journey, Father was seized with Cholera.  Elders were called to administer to him.  He was promised, among other things, that he would recover.

	Near Omaha, Grandfather and two of his children, John and Sara, and Nathan (James Ford's son) were stricken with Mountain Fever.  At Fort Laramie, Nathan and Sara succumbed to the disease.  This made three of the family buried in lonely graves on the plains.

	Before the death of Nathan and Sara, Father was seized with the fever, but he continued to drive the team, and also walked along beside the wagon in which he, Mother, and the children rode.  One day while the fever was still burning in him, the wagon threatened to topple over an embankment.  Father in his weakened condition, became so frightened that he fainted.  In this unconscious condition he was brought to the valley.  He had never been baptized, and his mother, feeling sure that he would not live; anxious to have this ordinance performed, requested that it be done.  The Elders carried him on a sheet to the Platte River, broke the ice and performed the baptismal rites.  In their administration they again promised him recovery and safe arrival to Utah.

	After the Ford family arrived in Utah, they lived on a farm near the Jordan River.  The farm belonged to a man by the name of Thomas King.  All the members of the family were baptized in the Jordan River by Samuel Neslin and were confirmed in the Seventeenth Ward in the spring of 1855.  In the fall the Ford family moved to Centerville where Grandfather rented a farm and in the following spring sowed the crops.  It was futile, however, for the grasshoppers came in the spring of 1856 and ate up the crops.  Starvation reigned once more.  At this time when they were suffering for food, dear Aunt Esther was born.  In place of rejoicing, when the children were called to see the little new baby, they cried, "How could they feed another when they were so hungry now?"  This was more than their father could stand, and in tears he said, "I wish I had never left my home."  This was the only time he was driven to make this remark.  Many times he thanked the Lord for the privilege of living here.

	They had been living for weeks on nothing but pigweed greens and from that time until Father's death we could never persuade him to eat greens.  A dear old midwife by the name of Cherry, was in the home and told Grandfather to go home with her that evening, and she gave him a one hundred pound sack of flour. This was saving grace for the family and tided them over a critical situation.

	My father herded cattle for William Smith two summers for two wagon covers, out of which his mother made dresses for herself and his sisters, and pants and shirts for his father and himself.  He worked the summer of 1857 for three yards of calico a week.  But the Fords were industrious and thrifty and when once they got a toe hold in the country, the wolf never howled again at their door.  During the winter of 1857 and 1858, Father served as one of the Militia who guarded Echo Canyon to prevent the Johnston's Army from entering Utah and was one of nine young men left to set fire to the homes and fields of Centerville if the army violated its agreement to march peacefully through to its stipulated encampment forty miles from any Mormon settlement.

	In the spring of 1862, Father was called to go to Omaha and back with an ox team as a church teamster for the poor.

	In the year of 1866, in company with Lorenzo Roundy and family, the Parker family and others, Father left Centerville for lower Kanab in Kane County where they intended to make their home.  Hostility of the Indians prevented this and forced them to settle in Long Valley, which they did in 1867.  But the Indians followed them, stealing what could be carried off and destroying the rest; so they were advised by the Church authorities to move again.  In June of this year they broke up their home in Long Valley and settled the town of Kanarra.

	Brother William R. Palmer writes of this, and I quote: "Strong men seem to come in groups.  They stimulate each other and each spurs the others to strive harder and reach higher to attain their purposes.  Led by Bishop Lorenzo Roundy, Kanarraville had such a group.  They were active, forward looking leaders, and in their day Kanarra was the richest settlement per capita in Southern Utah."

	Father made his home with the Roundy's until 1869.  At this time he met Martha Jane Mulliner, who was living with her Grandmother Berry in Kanarra, and this mutual romance quickly developed.  They were married in the Salt Lake Endowment House after making a nine day's journey with team and wagon from Kanarra together with two other couples.

	Mother was the eldest daughter of Samuel and Harriet Berry Mulliner.  She was the eldest daughter in a family of eleven children.  Her's was not an easy life, and she learned all the arts of housekeeping, as well as cording, mending, etc. at a very early life, all of which helped in becoming an efficient wife and mother.

	In the spring of 1870 Father and Mother together built their first home, which consisted of a one-room log cabin with a rough board bunk in one corner.  A clothes chest served for a table, and the wagon spring seat did duty for chairs.  The start was so humble that there was only one way up.  But romance thrives as well in hovels as in palaces, and it set itself down firmly in this log hut.  Love never left the home of these two people, and in old age they were notable, gentle, and kind and respectful toward each other.

	During the early years of their life in Kanarra Father acted as an Indian guard, spending much time on the frontier, guarding against the Indians.  After the danger of raids were over, he became engaged in farming and livestock around Kanarraville, and it was not many years until he had good herds of cattle, sheep and horses.  He developed a big farm and good mountain ranches.

	Father and Wallace Roundy brought into Kanarra the first mowing machine and with George Williams bought the first grain dropper ever used there.  A few years later together with John Middleton of Hamilton's Fort and Frank Prince of Harmony brought the first threshing machine that was used in any of these places, and they did all the grain threshing for many years.  While keeping his own business he also gave strong assistance to the Co-operative movements of the 1870's.  He had substantial interests in the Co-op sheep company, Co-op Store and was a director in all of them.

	He was not by nature a public man.  He was quiet and retiring and was content to take care of his own affairs.  He had strong qualities of head and heart that brought him sooner or later to leadership.  People came to respect his abilities and to rely upon his judgement.  When Kanarra wanted representation on the board of County Commissioners his name was put up.  He was elected and re-elected for as many terms as he would run and most of the time was chairman of the board.

	Father was a lover of well bred horses and cattle, and he went to great expense to bring from the north a gray stallion.  During later years two well bred horses were bought by him.  He purchased and imported pure bred sheep from Seeley's at Mt. Pleasant and with George Williams purchased the first pure bred sire ever shipped into Kanarra.  Later, he with others, brought in registered Durham cows and a registered Hereford bull.

	In 1888 with John Middleton, he bought a herd of cattle consisting of about four hundred from a man by the name of Turral.  These with several hundred he already owned gave them a goodly number which they operated conjointly.

	While Father was not one who sought for religious positions he was very much surprised when he was called and sustained as bishop of Kanarra Ward, which position he held from 1888 to 1901.  Regardless of long distance to travel in order to attend the General and Stake Conferences he missed but very few.  During his term of office the church building was destroyed by fire, and Father gave freely of his time and means for the rebuilding of the church.

	Released from the bishopric, he became a member of the Stake High Council, and spent the rest of his active years working in that calling.  President William R. Palmer said of him that he was a man of sound, practical wisdom and conservative good judgement.

	In 1891 Father bought the old pioneer Bishop Lund home in Cedar City, together with twenty-five acres of land.  He did this to give better educational advantages to his children.  We had a few years of real enjoyment in this home.

	He was not only a success financially, he was always ready to assist with his time and means in every good and worthy project.

	He was a member of the board who helped promote the first telephone and power plant in Cedar.

	Best of all he was a good husband and father.  He and mother worked together to provide a good home.  Ours was a home of strict obedience and respect for each other.  When either of them spoke, their word was law.  We were given every opportunity that was within their reach at that time.

	We all had to work.  There was much to do for both boys and girls.  We had a large dairy ranch in the summer, sheep, cattle and bands of beautiful horses, father was so proud of.  Also large acreage of farming land.  We never were without a job.

	Of his seven living children, four have filled missions in the world, three sons and one daughter.

	In 1915 he sold a tract of land on the Kanarra mountain and with the proceeds built a comfortable cottage.  After this was completed and he and mother moved in he said, "Now I have got Mother in this home, I am ready to go."

	Three months later Father was taken seriously ill and passed away a few days later December 3, 1916.

	Having closed a useful and successful life and it can truthfully be said of him that the world and especially Iron County was better off for his having lived.

	In our closing lecture of our research class in 1933, Brother A. F. Bennett left us with these beautiful thoughts that I would like to pass on: "Beyond the river that flows between time and eternity walk the brave men and beautiful women of our ancestry, grouped in the twilight upon the shores.  Distance smooths away defects, and with gentle darkness rounds every form of grace."

	"Far across the gulf that ever widens they look upon us with eyes whose glances are tender, lighting us to success.  We acknowledge our inheritance; we accept our birthright; and we own that their careers have pledged us to noble actions."

	I am enclosing here a tribute to our Father:

I FOLLOW A FAMOUS FATHER

I follow a famous father, his honor
is mine to wear,
He gave me a name that was free
from shame,
A name he was proud to bear.
He lived in the morning sunlight,
and marched
In the ranks of right.
He was always true to the best he
knew, and
The shield that he wore was bright.

I follow a famous father, not known
to the printed page,
Nor written down in the world's
renown,
As a prince of his little age.
But never a stain attached to him
And never he stooped to shame;
He was bold and brave and to me he gave
The pride of an honest name.

I follow a famous father, and never
a day goes by
But I feel that he looks down on me
To carry his standard high
He stood to the sternest trials, as
only a brave man can,
Though the way be long, I must never
wrong,
The name of so good a man.

I follow a famous father and him
I must keep in mind,
Though his form is gone, I must carry on,
The name that he left behind.
It was mine on the day he gave it,
It shone as a monarch's crown; and as
fair to see
As it came to me,
It must be, when I put it down.

(Author not given)
                  

                   Line 317 from GEDCOM File not recognizable or too long:
    BAPL  9 FEB 1854 29 SEP 1856
                  

                   Farmer and Stockman





tism date also listed as 14 Jun 1866
                  

                   Line 420 from GEDCOM File not recognizable or too long:
    CHR DATE BL 6 JUN 1864