Wicked River_ The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild - Lee Sandlin [41]
Finally, some of the area’s prominent citizens decided to find out for themselves. They hired a new and secret group of regulators to put an end to the Ford’s Ferry Gang. They didn’t tell Ford about it. The regulators immediately began investigating some of the vicious and bad men in his employ. Their interest fell upon a man named Vincent Simpson. Simpson ran the day-to-day operations of Ford’s Ferry. He was also known to be bitterly unhappy with Ford, who had recently humiliated him by winning their nasty lawsuit over the sale of a slave and then crowing over the victory afterward. Simpson was the ideal man to rat Ford out. It wasn’t long before a new rumor was spreading around town: Simpson had confessed to the regulators that he was a member of the gang, and he was going to reveal to a grand jury everything he knew, including the identity of the gang’s leader.
It’s not clear whether Simpson did in fact confess, or for that matter whether he had ever talked to the regulators at all. What is certain is that he never ended up testifying before the grand jury. It so happened that he was involved at that time in another nasty lawsuit with an associate of Ford’s, a man named Henry Shouse. Simpson, evidently a hot-blooded man even by the standards of the river valley, decided to have it out with Shouse before the lawsuit was heard. One afternoon he planted himself in Shouse’s front yard and began yelling for Shouse to come out. Nobody answered. But as Simpson bellowed and taunted and challenged Shouse to show himself, a shot was fired from the upper window, and Simpson fell dead.
Shouse was immediately arrested. He maintained (and went on maintaining through his trial, and all the way to his execution) that he’d had no secret motive; it had simply been an act of self-defense when he saw Simpson trespassing on his property. But nobody believed him. Obviously he’d done it at Ford’s behest, to keep Simpson from testifying before the grand jury. So, after Shouse was in custody, the regulators next went to arrest Ford.
Ford had been away when Simpson had been killed. He’d been visiting one of his farm properties about a day’s ride from the ferry. The regulators found him coming home on a remote country road. They told him what had happened; they said they were going to escort him to the county seat, where he would be expected to appear before the grand jury and tell what he knew about the dispute between Shouse and Simpson.
This was toward sundown. There were several hours of riding ahead of them. Ford declared that he would stay the night at a nearby roadside inn and proceed on with the regulators the next morning. The entire party went to the inn. Ford took a room, while the regulators made as if to camp outside. Sometime after sunset, before Ford retired for the night, somebody asked him for a favor. In one version of the story, it was an associate who had been traveling with him back from the farm; in another, it was one of the regulators. In any case, somebody produced a letter he’d recently received and asked Ford to read it aloud—Ford was known to be one of the few literate men in the county. Ford agreed. He was sitting then in the common room of the inn. A candle was set on the dining table in front of him, and he began reading out the letter. The candle was the only light in the room. This was a moonless night; Ford’s face, shining in the candlelight, was the brightest object not just in the room, but for miles around. The regulators used it as their target. They gathered outside and opened fire through the window, the doorway, and the chinks in the log walls. Ford was hit seventeen times.
Ford’s death marked the end of the investigation into the Ford’s Ferry Gang. Nobody was ever charged with Ford’s murder, and no further evidence was found about his involvement in the gang.