Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 826 of 894

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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

the common schools of his native county and at
McKenzie College, at Clarksville, Texas.
From 1862 to 1865 he served in the Confederate
army as a member of Whitfield's Legion, Ross
Brigade, and participated in all the battles in which
that famous brigade was engaged.
In 1872-73 he served as Sheriff of Newton
County, studied law at leisure moments, and when
he retired from the office attended the law school at
Lebanon, Tenn., from which he graduated.
In 1875 he moved to Jasper, Jasper County, and
formed a law partnership with his brother, which
continued until 1880.
In 1878 he was appointed District Attorney of
the First Judicial District of Texas by Governor O.
M.'Roberts, and two years later was elected District
Judge of the district, which position he filled
until 1893.

He is a member of the M. E. Church South, and
Masonic fraternity, in the latter of which he has
taken the Royal Arch degree.
His first wife was Miss Octavia Coleman, of Sabine
County, Texas. There was no issue by
this marriage. She died at Beaumont, April 6,
1893.
Later he married Miss Evalyn Thompson, of
Beaumont, by whom he has one child.
Judge Ford is a member of the firm of Ford success must have no power to spoil him,
danger no power to daunt, and disaster no power

to chill. He must toil in the sunshine and the rain
and in the winter's blasts, not only for himself, but
for all about him; not only for those of his own
generation but, as far as in him lies, for mankind
in all time to come. There is a nobility that no
king, though an autocrat, can confer. The patent
is issued by the Almighty and it is conferred alone
as a reward of right living, of work well and ably
done
of true merit, whose truth has been tested
by trial.
While we are subject to misapprehensions with
reference to those who surround us in the land of
the living, we are enabled, in a measure at least, to
construct a connected history and fathom the meaning
of a life that has been lived. If there were
more real biography there would be more real history,
for such history as we have is a patchwork,
poorly put together, made up of parts of many
lives. And when we speak of history it is well to
reflect and ask ourselves ", What is the utility of
history? " Its true office is not merely to inform
us of what has happened nor why it has happened,
but to bequeath to us that wisdom that is to
be gathered alone from the dust of ages, that
wisdom which teaches men and nations how to
avoid mistakes and to live nobly, to catch up the
threads.that lead through the labyrinth and advance