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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Yell County, Arkansas published by Southern Publishing Company in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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Benjamin L. Ford, prominently identified with the farming interests of Dardanelle Township, was born in Pope County, in 1850, the eighth child in a family of twelve born to Malachi and Sarah Frances (Dawson) Ford, originally of Tennessee, but who came to Arkansas in 1840, settling in Yell County, subsequently moving to Pope County, coming back to Arkansas, settling on a clearance of 150 acres, where they remained till their deaths, the mother dying in 1879, and the father in 1881, being members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he an officer in the church, and politically voting the Republican ticket. The principal of this sketch was reared in his adopted county, having acquired but three months’ schooling, and what knowledge he now possesses has been gained by his own efforts. In 1877 he settled on 124 acres of land four and one-half miles northwest of Dardanelle, and soon put thirty acres under a good state of cultivation, and in 1887 built for himself a neat cottage; he raises such stock as cattle, horses and hogs, also owns 200 acres on the La Fave, and twenty-seven in Delaware Township. When nineteen years old he wedded Amanda Ellen Brewer, born in Yell County, and a daughter of John and Nancy Brewer, formerly of Tennessee, but afterward residents of Yell County, where they lived until their deaths. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Ford were born nine children—three sons and six daughters—three of whom are living: Rebecca Jane, Nancy (who died at the age of fifteen), Horace, Harvey (died in infancy), Eliza (died in infancy), Alice, Ethel, Amy and Genie. The entire family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the father filling the office of steward. Socially he belongs to the Masonic fraternity.

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This family biography is one of 124 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Yell County, Arkansas published in 1891.  For the complete description, click here: Yell County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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