After Braddock's Defeat in 1755 that area became too hostile so James Ward Sr. moved his family closer toward Staunton while he joined several expeditions during the French and Indian War.

[1] In 1758 – five years before James was born – his father managed a mill on the Jackson River near Fort Dinwiddie, which was located five miles west of Warm Springs in present-day Bath County, Virginia.

James would spend the first three decades of his life looking for his older brother – a quest which would continuously drive him deeper into the frontier and on countless encounters with the Shawnee and other tribes.

[3] James Ward has been immortalized in the 19th century books of adventure on the western frontier with the tale of his flatboat cruise down the Ohio River in 1785.

Ward had travelled several days without incident and had become complacent when they drifted toward the north bank, or the Ohio side of the river, and were attacked by several hundred Indians.

Ward, who would have been a mere lad of 22 years old at the time, knew that he needed to navigate the boat to the center of the river to ensure safety.

[8] Ward was an officer of a party led by Simon Kenton to follow a group of Shawnee who had stolen horses in Mason County.

Kenton and Ward found the party of Shawnees, which included Tecumseh, at Paint Creek in Ross County, Ohio, in April 1793 and surrounded their camp at night with a plan to attack at first light.

A chronicler of the event wrote: "…and then came Captain James Ward, whose encounters with and escapes from the Indians are of the most remarkable that the annals of Kentucky – nearly every page of which is the recital of boldness and bravery – furnish.