The Arizona sentinel., 1891-03-07
HEROIC JOHN FORD.
A Kansas Pioneers Death Struggle wit
 R Cruel Blizzard.

following graphic sketch ot 8 Kansas
 pioneer was given:
 I remember when John Ford settled
 In Grant County in 1885 and built his
 dug-out on the Surprise Flats, with a
 little window in the end, and brought
 his wife and little baby to live there,
 and happy, yes, happy, were they; and
 8 noble man was John Ford, strong as
 an OK, with a lions heart, and as true
 to his wife and baby and home as men
 are made to be, and the hardy settlers
 who passed him by watched his fine
 envied his tireless energy and his
 happy, careless air; 215 pounds he
 weighed, and was about thirty years
 of age, and in stature and proportion
 like Absalom, perfect physical man;
 and in mind and will and courage, too,
 as perfect as he was in form. Among
 the crowd of gallant men that have
 made this world what it is, you have
 never heard, and perhaps the world
 will never know, what hero was John
 Ford
 On the afternoon of January 4, 1886,
 he kissed his wife and baby goodbye,
 and left for Lakin. Driving his team,
 going for load of lumber, earning his
 daily bread, and he never came back
 any more. On the evening of January 6, as it was after dark, he reached the
 prairie south of the sunk well with
 load of lumber and lump of coal for
 his family. As he pulled out onto the
 level prairie away over to the south
 west light fickered from a window,
 and he knew his loved ones were safe,
 and then he logged on over the prai- rie half an hour, steering toward that faint, fickering light, and his heart throbbed with thoughts of home. But that home was to be his never more, for out of the North came wind from the far-off Manitoba, a wind which for 2,O00 miles winged its way on the mys- terious mission of the Creator, winged its way to the mark, gathering force as it followed on, till at last it swooped down on this giant on Surprise Flats and drove him before it like little child; and the terrible blizzard was on, the shrieking wind was thick with snow, and it bullied and clustered and burned it's way through every crevice, every hole, chilling and burning the worn team, driving before it man, team and all. He passed within two hundred yards of lis door, where, strange to say, the wagon track turned sharply away and rolled zig-zag down the Cimarron. All night he fought against the bliz- gard on the wild prairie, and his strong arms and legs tugged away at his impossible task to reach his home. Over the Cimarron and back again, facing and fighting with his horses in the teeth of the storm till the frozen ice, as he tore it from his mouth, car- ried parts of his lips along and filtered the snow with blood; but his heart throbbed with thoughts of home, and he tore fresh chunks of his lips away to get his breath and boldly faced the blizzard again. All night long he wandered. all day the next day, blinded by the snow, moving, moving on, on, on. "Was not that the light again?" and up, up, and he stumbled on. His ankles froze and he had to lean on the lumber to follow the wagon, his arm froze before his face, and in such position was he found with 8 mute and frozen arm raised stiff before him as if protesting to Heaven against his fate; his knees froze and he staggered, no longer could he hold to the wagon, so he wan dered by the side. This. too, was late in the second night, more than twenty hours after the blizzard begun, but still he felt the fingers Of his baby in hls hair, and on, on he struggled, and the mad light from the window danced before him again, and using his yet unfrozen arm he tore the last sem blance of his lips away and boldly bat tied alone with death. Over sand-hillg and sage-brush he tumbled and rolled, to his feet, then falling over and over and up and on. trying to reach his wife, his baby and his home, till struggling, fighting, crawling for more than two miles through the eau5. hills after his knees froze. then beat ing the sand and 1rs1 with 14 1-u- limbs elte. he could 40 longer stand tho great hero Of our first civilization here atL8st lay stiI ureo t'4 sand and the warm a.aezes from the celestial land warmed his spirit 5-t of its f.aaa temple of clay, and good eol laid hold ot taarainz and gu,ued him home. 1
 America -4s great Generals, great l -.esmen and great philanthropists, i but I doubt if 5ne has truly greater hero +i...n John Ford. Fighting for Iome against the implacable elements; every pain, doubtless, which he body is subject to; wrestling like | Jacob, as it were, alone with his God; lying in a protracted struggle of two nights and day-let me hear of him that no nobler bones than his lave christened the Cain-cursed soul ,f earth since the Son of God took his ,ody with Him into the clouds. Thus ,erished martyr of emigration. and ,e his name enrolled along with that 'f Whitman and Spalding, who fell Lmong the Indians in Oregon after hey drove "The Old Wagon" across he plains; and thus he perished, the lero as well of the fist civilization of Southwestern Kansas! May he restin Inter Ocean.