John Baptiste Ford

Born in a log cabin in Danville, Kentucky, he never remembered his father, Jonathan Ford, who in 1813 joined the Kentucky Volunteer Homespun regiment to fight the British forces at New Orleans in the War of 1812 and never returned. His mother, Margaret, the daughter of Jean Baptiste, an immigrant from France who had fought in the American Revolutionary War, apprenticed young John at the age of 12 to a Danville saddlemaker. He ran away from the saddlemaker at age 14 and found his freedom in Greenville, Indiana, where he remained for the next 30 years.