Henry Vanderford.
Reading edition
Henry Vanderford, editor and journalist, was born at Hillsborough, Caroline county, Md., December 23, 1811. His maternal ancestors were from Wales, his paternal from Holland. He was educated at Hillsborough Academy, a celebrated institution at that time, having pupils from the adjoining counties of Queen Anne’s and Talbot. He acquired a knowledge of the art of printing in the office of the Easton Star, Thomas Perrin Smith, proprietor. From 1835 to 1837 he published the Caroline Advocate, Denton, Md., the only paper in the county, and neutral in politics, though the editor was always a decided Democrat, and took an active part in the reform movement of 1836, which resulted in the election of the “Glorious Nineteen” and the Twenty-one Electors. The press and type of the Advocate were transferred in 1837 to Centreville, Queen Anne’s county, where he founded the Sentinel, the first Democratic paper published in that county, in January, 1838. He was appointed for three successive years by Governor Grason chief judge of the Magistrate’s Court, but declined the office. In 1840 he was appointed Deputy Marshal for Queen Anne’s, and took the census of that county in that year. In 1842 he sold the Sentinel and removed to Baltimore, where, three years later, he resumed his profession and founded The Ray, a weekly literary and educational journal, and the subsequent year published the Baltimore Daily News, and the Weekly Statesman, in company with Messrs. Adams and Brown, under the firm of Adams, Vanderford & Brown. The News and Statesman were Democratic papers. In February, 1848, he bought The Cecil Democrat of Thomas M. Coleman, enlarged the paper, quadrupled its circulation, and refitted it with new material. In 1865 he sold out the Democrat to Albert Constable and Judge Frederick Stump, and bought a farm in St. Mary’s county, Md., and engaged in agriculture. Three years later, failing health of himself and family, induced him to sell his farm and remove to Middletown, Del., where he founded the Transcript, and resumed the business of a printer and publisher. The Transcript was the first paper published in that town, and was a success from the start. It was transferred in 1870 to his youngest son, Charles H. Vanderford. From 1870 to 1878 he was associated with his eldest son, William H. Vanderford, in the publication of The Democratic Advocate, Westminster, Md. In 1873 he was elected to the House of Delegates from Carroll county, and in 1879 to the Senate, in which body he held the important position of Chairman of the Committee on Finance, and was a member of the Committee on Engrossed Bills and the Committee on Printing.
On the 6th of June, 1839, he married Angelina, the daughter of Henry Vanderford, of Queen Anne’s county, a distant relative of his father. Mr. Vanderford is a member of the Masonic Order, and he and his wife are both communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Church of their ancestors, as far back as the history of the Church can be traced in the Eastern part of Maryland. Charles Vanderford, great grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a vestryman of St. Paul’s Parish, Centreville, Md., in 1719. Charles Wrench Vanderford was his grandfather, and a member of the Old Maryland Line, in the Revolutionary war. William Vanderford, his father, was a native of Queen Anne’s county, where the family held a grant of land of one thousand acres from the crown, located between Wye Mills and Hall’s Cross Roads, on which the old mansion was built of brick imported from England.
Mr. Vanderford is now in retiracy, in the 76th year of his age, but still active, and in the possession of good health and as genial and cheerful as in the days of his prime.
On the Mountains.
Written after a visit to Rawley Springs, in the mountains of Virginia.
On the mountains! Oh, how sweet! The busy world beneath my feet! Outspread before my raptur’d eyes The wide unbounded prospect lies; The panoramic vision glows In beauty, grandeur and repose. I gaze into the vaulted blue And on the em’rald fields below; The genial sunlight shimmers down Upon the mountain’s rugged crown, The eye sweeps round the horizon Until its utmost verge is won. The hoary peaks, with forests crown’d, Spread their vast solitudes around, And intervening rocks and rills The eye with very transport fills. The bosom wells with joy serene While viewing all the lovely scene, The spirit soars on airy wings Above all sublunary things. I peer into the depths profound Of the cerulean around, And ether’s far-off heights I scan, As if, to feeble finite man, The power of vision here were given To view the battlements of heaven. But, though I gaze and gaze intent, Close scanning all the firmament, No Mount of Vision unto me Does this bold summit prove to be. Though in elysian wrapt the while, Where sublimated thoughts beguile, Icarian pinions, all too frail, Were sure my fancy’s flight to fail. Confined within this mortal clod, Vain man would yet ascend to God, Presumptuous, as of yore, to be The heir of immortality. But, from those fair, celestial heights Of fervid fancy’s loftiest flights, My airy visions topple down To where cool reason’s realm is found, And fancy folds her weary wings, Content, the while, with earthly things.
Progress.
“Man hath sought out many inventions.”
The planets, forced by Nature’s law, Within their orbits ceaseless roll, And man the lesson thence may draw— By industry to reach his goal.
Hail! industry’s all-conquering might! Hail! engineering’s giant skill! That clambers up the mountain height, And intervening valleys fill.
The enterprise of man shall know No bounds upon this mundane sphere, Whate’er his hands may find to do He executes with skill and care.
His genius Nature’s self subdues, And all her powers subservient lie At his command, and pleas’d he views His great resources multiply.
He mines the earth and skims the air, He plows the main, descends the deep, And through its silent chambers there, Electric forces flash and leap.
He flies, upon the wings of steam, Mounts up with ærostatic pow’r, He paints with every solar beam— Unfolds new wonders ev’ry hour!
Not in material things alone Does Progress mark its high career, Fair science builds her regal throne, And morals her triumphal car.
Man stands erect—his image fair In God’s own likeness first was cast, His high prerogatives appear, He seeks his destiny at last.
Upward and onward is his course, In mental and in moral life, With higher purpose, now, perforce, With loftier aspirations rife.
In matters both of Church and State, A high ambition spurs him on, With buoyancy and hope elate, He plies his task till it be done.
Winter.
Written in the month of January, the ground covered with snow.
’Tis winter, drear winter, and cold the winds blow, The ground is all cover’d with ice and with snow, The trees are all gemm’d with a crystalline sheen, No birdling or blossom are now to be seen.
The landscape is wearing a mantle of white, Its verdure lies wither’d and hidden from sight, Rude Borean blasts bleakly blow o’er the hills, ’Till the life-current, coursing, his icy-breath chills.
The rills in their ice-fetters firmly are bound As the frost-spirit breathes o’er the face of the ground The icicles pendant hang over the eaves, And the wind whirls in eddies the rustling leaves.
It shrieks through the casement and in at the door— All through the long night hear it fitfully roar, The mitre ethereal silently flies So keen and so cutting through storm-troubled skies.
The dark leaden clouds dim the light of the sun, And the dull dreary hours drone slothfully on, Euroclydon forges the cold biting sleet, And the snow-drifts he piles at the traveler’s feet.
The wealthy, at ease in their mansions so warm, Heed not the rude blast of the pitiless storm— The loud-roaring tempest, the elements din, Serve only to heighten their comforts within.
The poor, in their hovels, feel keenly the blast, And shudder and shake as the storm-sprite goes past; Oh! pity the poor, in their lowly estate, And turn them not empty away from your gate.
Lines
On Witnessing Three Sisters Depositing Flowers on the Grave of a Friend, in St. Ann’s Cemetery, Middletown, Delaware.
At an early hour of the Sabbath morn, Beside the ancient, sacred pile, I stood Of old St. Ann’s. The ivy careless clamber’d Along its moss-grown, antique walls; The sun-light bathed in golden glory The calm, sequester’d scene, and silence Reigned through all the leafy grove, Save where the warbling songster pour’d His wood-notes wild, or where “the gray old trunks That high in heaven mingled their mossy boughs,” Murmur’d with sound of “the invisible breath That played among their giant branches,” And “bowed the wrapt spirit with the thought Of boundless power and inaccessible majesty.” Within the lone church no loitering footfall O’er threshold, aisle, or chancel echoed, No sound intruded on the hush profound Of that ancient temple. The pale sleepers In the weird city of the dead lay mute, Their mouldering ashes mingling with the dust, While sculptured tablets with memorial brief, Their memories from oblivion rescued.
As thus upon the scene around I gazed, The fresh-turned earth upon a new-made grave, Within its marble confines neat enclosed, My vision steadfast fixed, and I beheld Three maidens, bearing each a rich bouquet, Approach the tomb, and softly by its side Stoop down and place thereon their floral gems In token of the love they bore the friend So late inurned, whom yet they fondly cherish’d. Full preparation one had duly made To stand beside her at the bridal altar; But now, beside her early grave she stood, With floral tokens of unfailing love For the fair young wither’d flower beneath. Touching and beautiful the lovely sight Of such devotion deep at friendship’s shrine. My sterner heart, in welling sympathy, Throbb’d its response to this ennobling act Of these fair sisters, and did them homage Deep down within its silent recesses. Oh, when with them life’s fitful fever ends May ne’er be wanted hand of sympathy To strew affection’s token o’er their graves.
Merry May.
Ethereal mildness, gentle showers. Springing verdure, opening flowers, Apple blossoms, bobolinks, Budding roses, blushing pinks, Cherries snowy, peach buds sleek, Rivaling a maiden’s cheek, Balmy zephyrs, halcyon hours, Song of birds and scent of flowers, Vernal season, swelling spray, All belong to Merry May.