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.