My Genealogy Hound

CAPT. CHARLES F. VANDERFORD, a well-known and prominent farmer of Rutherford County, Tenn., was born in South Carolina August 21, 1833, and is the son of Charles and Eliza (Duatt) Vanderford, natives, respectively, of Massachusetts and South Carolina. The father was a sailor, being the captain of the first steam-boat that went up Cape Fear and the Peedee River, and mate of the privateer “Obellina” in the war of 1812. His death occurred in 1843 and the mother’s in 1870. Our subject received a good education and engaged in business as a telegraph operator, being one of the first operators in the country. After being with them about eight months he was employed by Henry Misroon as shipping merchant and steamship agent, and here he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. He then took the position of assistant secretary of an insurance company of St. Louis, then book-keeper, and afterward manager of a firm at St. Louis. At the beginning of the war he returned to Nashville, offering his services to the vigilance committee to put electric torpedoes in the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers to protect the forts. In 1861 he enlisted in Capt. W. H. Sike’s company, Forty-fifth Tennessee Regiment, as a private, but was soon appointed ordnance officer of the troops. Afterward he was transferred to the brigade commanded by Col. Palmer. He soon received the rank of captain, and received orders to report to Gen. P.R. Cleburne, and afterward to Gen. Johnston, then commander of the Confederate forces in Mississippi. He was afterward made acting chief ordnance officer of the army, and discharged the duties of that position to the satisfaction of the generals. At the close of the war Mr. Vanderford returned to his present home and engaged in farming and stock raising. He has been postmaster and agent at Florence Station for twenty years. In politics he is a Democrat, and he and family are members of the Presbyterian Church. December 16, 1858, Mr. Vanderford was united in marriage to Florence Anderson, a native of this State, and to them were born six children: Eugene S., Charles R., Harry A., Mary F., Silas M., Bertha E. Capt. Charles F. Vanderford is one of the energetic and successful farmers of the county, and is a moral, upright citizen.