All of you, who know anything much about Crittenden County, know something about Fords Ferry. Fords Ferry is just a place now – no longer a town – just a place on the Ohio River, immediately west of the point where Crooked Creek empties into the River. Over a hundred and fifty years ago, Fords Ferry was a prosperous river town.
Fords Ferry was a town of distinction – a distinction which was not a very enviable one but a distinction never the less and a distinction all it's own. Early in the early 1800's James Ford had a respectable family and a comfortable home at Tolu, but it was told that he had a gang of outlaws that terrorized both sides of the river and his place of business was at his ferry location several miles up river from Tolu. Late one evening Ford sat on the long wide front porch of his Fords Ferry business home, which overlooked the Ohio River.
It was an ideal Crittenden County early June evening. The sun had just gently slipped past the horizon beyond Hurricane Island; the western sky was still blue and touched with streaks of pinkish gold from the setting sun; the bees, as they gathered nectar for tomorrow's needs from the honeysuckle vine at the end of the Ford porch played the overture for Mother Nature's evening symphony which only a Kentucky June night can know.
As Ford sat on the front porch of his home that June evening, and looked across the wide expanse of the beautiful Ohio which even at that time of the day reflected and accented the blue sky, possibly he planned for the robberies which he intended for the Harps – and other robbers and cut-throats in his gang of outlaws to commit later in the night, - but even then he was not unmindful of the beauty about him. There was something of a poet in this pirate.
From the very top of a tall cottonwood, near the mouth of the creek, on this particular June evening, a mocking bird sang – sang the mocking bird version of "Love's old sweet song" to a mate in a locust thicket a couple of hundred yards up the creek.
For fifteen minutes Ford listened, and with the appreciation with which most folks who ever lived in that section have for those mocking birds, he was enjoying that evening serenade, but while he listened, his well trained ears caught another sound, a suspicious sound, and one which put him instantly on his guard, the rhythmic sound of oars-locked in a skiff coming down the river. Old Ford's ears were trained too – well trained.
A few seconds later, and by this time, Ford was on his feet, he was watching for the skiff, curious to know the identity of the man behind the oars. If he was friend, Ford wanted to know it, if he were enemy, he was prepared to take care of that situation, too. Just then the skiff came around a bunch of willows and into plain view, but Ford, at first, didn't recognize the boatman.
He called to one of his slaves – his favorite, because he was the most capable – a slave who could see, and hear – even better than his master. Ford said to the big black man who suddenly appeared at his side, "Mingo, who's the man in the boat?" To which the servant replied, "Why, Mistah Jim, don't you know who dat is?" Why dats Mestah Bon. Old Ford's features relaxed, he smiled and said, "I must not be seeing so well these days. Mingo, go help Mr. Audubon with his things and bring him to the house. He must be very tired."
And so John James Audubon came to spend the night and visit with his friend. At this time, Audubon was operating a mill upstream at Henderson, Ky.
After supper, they talked far into the night – about birds and pictures and travels – and as they talked they listened to the songs of the mocking birds, mocking birds singing in the cotton woods along the river, in the high oaks along the creek, and in the locust thickets along the river hills.
Ford turned to his friend and said," Audubon, did you ever hear such music as that?" The now famous naturalist replied, "Only one place in the world have I heard birds sing more sweetly than that – and that is in a little valley, where a small river empties itself into an inlet to the Bay of Biscay in the western part of France."
Of John James Audubon, the river pirate then made his request, "When you go back to France, I want you to bring me six of those singing birds. I want to liberate them here that they may mate with these Kentucky birds that in my old age I may listen to music, such as even musicians hear in their dreams."
John James Audubon promised that he would comply with this request.
(note: John James Audubon,(1785-1851) was one of the first to study and paint the birds of North America. He was the inspiration for the National Audubon Society.)
As to whether he was able to keep that promise before Jim Ford was shot in cold blood, I do not know, but if you have the soul of a poet, maybe you can hear the clash of pirate swords, the rattle of musket fire, and the splashing crash of oars, but if you're very quiet you don't even need your imagination to hear the call of the Mockingbird. It was as promised, music a man hears only in his dreams.
No where else do mocking birds sing more sweetly, even now, than in the cottonwoods and in the locusts thickets, in the vicinity of Fords Ferry, Kentucky.
The remains of the old chimney of James Fords Ferry House, or so believed.
