“At the junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the year it is inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague, and death…. A hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre, a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is this dismal Cairo" — Charles Dickens, American Notes, 1847.
Fast forward 60 years from the city Dickens knew to Cairo (pronounced kay-ro) in the early 1900s. Seventy-six saloons and other drinking establishments flourished. In addition, local wholesale and mail order liquor houses did a rousing business. Estimated by the Cairo Bulletin newspaper to ship 200,00 packages a week, the booze traffic was enough that railroads serving Cairo put on extra trains. Awash in alcohol, prostitution and gambling, Cairo’s reputation for crime and violence made it notorious. According to Author John A. Beadles, the city was “stained with blood and tears.” John Ford, who operated a successful liquor house on the outskirts of Cairo, was well acquainted with both.
Born in Union City, Tennessee in October 1870, the son of William and Mary Valentine Ford, John Ford gravitated fifty miles north to Cairo as a young man recognizing the opportunities that the whiskey trade offered there. As many saloonkeepers cum retailers did, Ford featured his own brand of liquor. He called it “Monogram Whiskey,” advertising it as “a blend of straight whiskies” and guaranteed it under the “Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1806.” As shown below, he even provided the label with a trademark, although there is no record of his having registered the brand with the government.
Ford was not a distiller but a “rectifier,” that is, blending whiskeys from several sources brought to Cairo via the Mobile & Ohio Railroad and other carriers. His objective was to achieve a specific color, smoothness and flavor likely to draw a customer base. Like many other dealers, he gave away advertising corkscrews to both wholesale and retail customers for his “Monogram Whiskey.”
This “whiskey man” had married at 25, his bride was Cora, a slightly younger woman of German heritage born “at sea” according to the 1920 Census. They had no children but kept a lodger named Bam West, who worked as a bartender in Ford’s Ohio Street saloon, located near the riverfront. Ford called it “The Two Johns Saloon.” Nothing in the proprietor’s past predicted the series of events that ensued.
On a day in late October 1907, Ford — possibly drunk, definitely on a rampage —was being sought by Cairo police for a fracas he had caused in a local billiard parlor by beating man named Brown over the head with a billiard cue during a quarrel. Brown had sworn out a warrant for his arrest. Meanwhile Ford was still on the street and entered Lee Beckworth’s Saloon at Fourth and Commercial Avenue where he called for drinks for the crowd.
For an unexplained reason, Ford’s presence triggered a dispute with another patron, John W. Lewis, a well known figure in town who ran a ferry between Cairo and East Cairo, Kentucky. That ended when Lewis and a friend left Beckwirth’s and headed to the nearby Riddle’s Saloon at Eighth Street and Commercial Street. They were sitting by the stove in a back room talking whenFord burst into the room. According to press accounts, Ford said, "Aren't you the fellow I had the quarrel with back at Beckwith's?" Lewis replied, "I think that I am.”
Armed with a 44 Colt pistol, Ford pulled the gun and struck at Lewis three times with the barrel, holding the handle in his hand. Lewis got up and began to run out of the saloon. As he did, Ford shot him. Lewis continued for a few steps to the front of the saloon and fell to the floor. Ford continued after him, cursing witnesses said. Finding that the man was dead, Ford is said to have given over his gun, called the coroner, and waited until a trio of local policemen took him into custody.
From the outset, Ford insisted he had acted in self defense, claiming that Lewis had threatened him with a knife. Indeed, a pocket knife was found not far from where the dead man’s body lay. Friends of Lewis insisted, however, they had never known him to carry a knife. They intimated that Ford had planted it to excuse his shooting. Local opinion ran strongly against the assailant. According to the local newspaper, Lewis: “…had acquired a reputation that appeared to be entirely in his favor. He was very accommodating and frequently delivered things in Cairo for the people across the river who could not take the time to come over.” Moreover Lewis was a widower caring for a 12 year old son, who now was orphaned.
For the moment at least, Ford evaded arrest and incarceration. A sheriff’s deputy into whose custody he was given, allowed him to go home for the night. The following day he returned to the Cairo courthouse, shown here, to stand before by a coroner’s jury inquiring into Lewis’ homicide. After a series of witnesses gave conflicting testimony about the circumstances of the shooting, the jury found: “…The said John R. Ford was not justified in the act and we therefore recommend that he be held until discharged by due process of law.”
The Cairo Evening Citizen newspaper reported: “Ford was lodged in jail last night and put in the steel cage. When seen by The Citizen representative this morning, he said that he had nothing to say about the tragedy. In the cell with him were three negroes who were amusing him by dancing and singing.” While awaiting trial, Ford was allowed to make bail and returned to running his liquor business.
For reasons not supplied in the record, Ford’s murder trial did not occur for almost two years. In the meantime a key witness, the only one who had seen the earlier encounter of the two men, died. Over time memories had fogged over and public anger subsided. On May 24, 1909, probably to no great surprise, a jury of his peers acquitted Ford of killing James Lewis.
Ford long since had settled back into his lucrative liquor trade and had even expanded his Cairo business interests. According to the 1915 city directory, he now owned and operated a wholesale liquor house at 703 Ohio Street, a saloon at 607 Ohio, a restaurant at 8-10 Sixth St., and a barbershop next door at 12 Sixth. Apparently the lynchings and other violence during that period in Cairo’s history had overshadowed memories of that fatal day in October 1907 when John Lewis was murdered.
John Ford lived another 27 years before dying of natural causes in September 1934 in Cairo. He was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Fulton County, Kentucky, about 50 miles south of Cairo on the shores of the Mississippi River.
Note: Internet sites record local newspaper reports on the rampant violence that characterized Cairo during the early 1900s. John Beadles’ book on the city’s lawlessness and decline is called “Stained with Blood and Tears: Lynchings, Murder and Mob Violence in Cairo , Illinois, 1909-1910.” Although the author treats the Ford-Lewis murder only in passing, the book sets the backdrop of anarchy for the homicide narrated here.
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