James Ford (pirate)
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James Ford, born James N. Ford, also known as James N. Ford Sr., the "N" possibly for Neal, was an American civic leader and business owner in western Kentucky and southern Illinois, from the late 1790s to mid-1830s. Despite his clean public image as a "Pillar of the Community", Ford was secretly a river pirate and the leader of a gang that was later known as the "Ford's Ferry Gang". His men were the river equivalent of highway robbers. They hijacked flatboats and Ford's "own river ferry" for tradable goods from local farms that were coming down the Ohio River.
A blockhouse fort similar to the one used by Captain James Ford when he was in command of the Grand Pierre area militia, 4th Regiment of Illinois Territorial Militia, January 2, 1810, which may have used later by the Sturdivant Gang in 1820s-1830s for their counterfeiting operation overlooking the bluff of the Ohio River at Rosiclare, Illinois
This is an early 19th-century horse-powered ferry boat of the kind used by James Ford, the prominent Kentucky civic leader who secretly was an outlaw on a ferry he operated across the Ohio River of western Kentucky to southern Illinois in the late 1790s to mid-1830s.
Along the Ohio River, James Ford and his gang of outlaws, chose flatboats, keelboats, and rafts, as profitable targets, to attack, because of the valuable and plentiful cargo on board.
Cave-In-Rock on the Illinois side of the Ohio River, where James Ford and his gang would meet to run their criminal operations in the region
River pirate
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A river pirate is a pirate who operates along a river. The term has been used to describe many different kinds of pirate groups who carry out riverine attacks in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. They are usually prosecuted under national, not international law.
The Yangtze River of China, a hotbed of river pirate activity from the nineteenth century until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which was combated by patrols of American and European gunboat flotillas.
The Mekong River, where modern-day Asian river piracy exists.
A Mekong River sampan boat, typically used by modern-day Asian river pirates
The Balkan Narentines, of the ninth and tenth centuries, were known for piracy on the River Neretva. The Ushkuiniks were Russian Novgorodian Volga river pirates from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. Both medieval river pirate groups were Slavic versions of Viking river raiders.