to secure the head of the slave and cut off his ears and pull out his teeth. The 1832 runaway slave notice Ford had printed in the Sangamo Journal indicated that a slave named "Ben" had his ears removed for "robbing a boat on the Ohio River". In another tale, James Ford allegedly bound hand to foot an offending slave and dragged him to death behind a mule, through a field of tree stumps. Allegations of illegal slave trading James Ford was also alleged to have had legitimate and criminal associations with John Hart Crenshaw, an Illinois businessman operating the Illinois Salines and who kidnapped free Blacks to sell into the illegal slave trade, as well as practicing illegal slave breeding. The road from the Old Slave House of Crenshaw in Illinois crossing the Ohio River to Ford's Ferry, Kentucky, was a heavily traveled route of the infamous Reverse Underground Railroad, which sent its victims to a life of enslavement in the Southern United States. Physical appearance Dr. Charles H. Webb, future husband of Ford's daughter Cassandra, described the appearance of James Ford while he was at his plantation in 1822: He was of about six feet in height, and of powerful build, a perfect Hercules in point of strength; but he has now grown to corpulent to undergo much fatigue. His head is large and well shaped; his sandy brown hair, now thin, is turning gray, for he must be fully fifty years old; his eyes, of a steel-gray color, are brilliant and his glance quick and penetrating; his nose rather short and thick; his upper lip remarkably long, his mouth large, and his lips full and sensuous. He has a broad firm double chin, and his voice is deep and sonorous. His complexion is very florid, and he converses fluently. On the whole, when in repose, he gives one the idea of a good natured, rather than a surly, bulldog; but, if aroused, I should say he would be a lion tamer. Death James Ford was ambushed and shot dead at Ford's Ferry near his home on July 7, 1833, by members of his own criminal gang. He was buried in the Ford family cemetery in Kirksville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Ford family plantation property, now located on Tolu-Carrsville Road (Kentucky Route 135 - KY 135), in present-day Tolu, Crittenden County, Kentucky, on a farm that