Ford also learned about the state legislature while serving as clerk for various committees, and would later claim that he attended every legislative session from 1825–1847. In 1829, with Forquer's aid, Ford received a gubernatorial appointment as the state's attorney (prosecutor) for the Military Tract District in Western Illinois (a huge district between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers). He soon moved his family to his father-in-law's farm in Versailles (then in Schuyler County, Illinois, but since 1839 in Brown County, Illinois).