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George Ford
b.20 Mar 1816 Delaware, Ohio, United States
d.5 Feb 1905 Caldwell, Sumner, Kansas, United States
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 8 Dec 1812
(edit)
m. 11 Jan 1838
Facts and Events
[edit] Personal History"During the American Civil War the Cooper family were Southern Sympathizers. Jennie Cooper wore a butternut pit, the badge of a southern woman sympathizer. She was said to have hated Abraham Lincoln. The story which was whispered in a hush-hush way was handed down that her family stole horses and hid them in a hollow back of the West Salem School. At night they were ridden to Kentucky to help in the Southern cause. If the story was true, it would seem more likely to have been the horses were hidden in the valley behind the Symaria Church, which was across the road from the George Ford home. The cave was perhaps used for the riders to hide in as it is there also. Jennie Ford was a very good rider when a young girl. Was she a rider for the Cause? After the War some members of her family went west as their activities were very dangerous. Jennie Always carried her pin in her purse. On 14 February 1866, after the Civil War, Jennie met and married William Henry Cooper, of Pike Township, Marion County, Indiana. His folks were Quakers and were for the North. William Henry had joined the army but his mother got him out and paid someone $800 to go in his place." - Taken from Memoirs of Iva Dell Eudaly Craver “After her divorce from George Ford, Araminta went to Kearney, Nebraska, and entered land from the Government. She lived in a sod shanty and burned buffalo chips for fuel. I do not know how long she stayed, but she came back to the community in Morgan County, Indiana, and built a new house at Wakeland. The place consisted of twelve acres. She made her living with a saw mill. Her ex-husband George had also done that kind of work. Uncle Grant Cooper owned a farm which joined the place in Wakeland. He purchased it for sentimental reasons a few years before he died. It had changed hands several times since Grandma Ford's death.” - From the “Memoirs of Iva Dell Eudaly Craver,” Iva Craver, abt 1966 From an unknown source: “Della Cooper was fourteen years old when her grandmother, Araminta July Ann Carpenter Ford died 10 December 1894. Della knew her grandmother quite well and would talk to her children of her grandmother. Araminta was 21 when she eloped with George Ford, a lumber buyer, and they were married 10 January 1838 in Bartholomew County, Indiana. This was George's home. George's father, Frederick, had died around 1835 and he and his brothers and sisters inherited a small amount of land. Araminta and George went west soon after they married. Their eldest child, Philitus May Ford, was born in Illinois. They were back in Bartholomew County by 1850. The Fords left their home in Bartholomew County about 1859 and bought a farm consisting of a whole section of land in then Ray Township, Morgan County, Indiana, excepting three acres which had been given by the previous owner to the Symaria Baptist Church. George and Araminta did not have a happy life together. They were divorced in Morgan County, Indiana, 23 October 1871. They separated, it is stated, over the Civil War and the Mormon Church. George and his younger brother, Elisha, went to Macon County, Missouri, where other Fords and Carpenters lived.” “West Salem was in Section 26, near the crossroads of Shuler and Potteroff roads (950 West and 200 north), in the south central part of Ashland Township, west central Morgan County, Indiana. Rolling fields and an occasional rural home fill the modern landscape. Salem School is the only remaining structure. The one-room brick building still stands, on private property, and can be seen from Potteroff Road, formerly called Old Salem Road.The father of the current owner was a student of the school. Early settlement records for this area show that George Shultz and William Johnson bought land in the area of West Salem in 1824. Hiram Alexander and Levi Meafield settled in 1825, followed by Jacob Bullen in 1826 and Jacob Seachrist in 1829. Postal records show West Salem having the first post office in the area. It was established March 24, 1848 with Jacob Secrest, formerly Seachrist, as the first postmaster. Jacob Bullen was the proprietor when the town was platted, May 30, 1849. It consisted of eight blocks of two lots each on Cross and Main Streets. In 1855, records show the town had a store and a blacksmith. The same year the post office changed to Graysville, which was to become the area of Sheasville-Alaska. By 1874 none of the land owners previously mentioned were listed in the Ashland Township Directory. Araminta July Ann Carpenter Ford bought the land, and what was left of the town, from Jeremiah Davis in 1875. As a child she is reputed to have survived an indian attack in which she was scalped, ever after she wore a cap or bonnet. Her parents were killed in the attack. A bear attacked her and her sister Sarah in Switzerland County, Indiana shortly after moving there from Kentucky. She moved to Morgan County with her husband from Bartholomew County where they had sold their 157 acres. They were reported to be ‘set in their ways.’ George was raised a northern Mormon. Araminta's parents and grandparents were from the south, didn't like Mormon customs, and they differed strongly in their views during the Civil War. They were divorced in 1871. The land was deeded to her daughter, Eliza Jane Cooper, in 1892. She lived in the house until 1935. Eliza's husband, William Cooper, was a wagon maker, together they had seven children. Other town names in the area are Graysville, Sheasville, Lewisville, and Alaska which had a post office until 1909.” - http://www.sweetowen.net/westsale.htm References
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