DAVID FORD. – This highly esteemed citizen, a portrait of whom is placed in this history, was born in Indiana July 27,1837. After his marriage to Miss Mary Medler, October 11, 1857, he was occupied at his home until the war of the Rebellion, in which he served as a soldier in the Union army, bearing an honorable part, and making a brave record up to the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, where he received a wound which made him unfit for service. He belonged to Company A, Eighty-fourth Indiana Volunteers.
In 1872 he came to Missouri, and five years later to California. A year’s residence in the land of gold and semi-tropical fruits convinced him of the desirability of removing to Washington; and two years at Yakima led the way to his residence at Ellensburgh. There he was very active in all of the best enterprises, being a trustee of Ellensburgh Academy, and treasurer of the church with which it is associated, and a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic, James Parsons Post, No. 11, holding the office of quartermaster. The home which he left is a mile and a half from town, on a farm consisting of one hundred and sixty acres of the best of land. The house is superior, and all the accommodations are such as to make comfortable his family of wife and six children. His death, which took place in 1887, was universally deplored; and he left a place in society which cannot be filled.