Over the land and sea
Is felt the swooping of thy ebon wings,
And on my ear thy demon-chuckle rings,
Over the feast the panting summer brings,
“For me—’tis all for me!”
All seasons and all climes—
In city crowded, and in solitude,
Ye gather your unsatisfying food;
Ev’n through the rosy gates of joy intrude
Thy deep, sepulchral chimes.
I know thee well, though young;
Thrice, ruthlessly, this little circle broke
Hast thou. A brother, sister—then the Oak,
(Ah, hadst thou spared that last and hardest stroke,)
Round which our young hopes clung!
Ye wantonly have crush’d,
By your untimely and avenging frost,
The buds of hope which bid to promise most;
Oh! had ye known the heart-consuming cost,
Could ye, O! Death have hush’d
The music that endears,
And makes this chill’d existence tolerable?
Yet will I not such selfishness—’tis well;
I hear, I hear a happier, holier swell
From out the eternal spheres!
I do defy thee, Death!
Why flee me, like a debtor in arrears?
To weary out the agony of years,
With nothing but the bitter brine of tears,
And scarcer existing breath.
My soul is growing strong,
And somewhat fretful with its house of clay,
And waiting quite impatiently to lay
It off, and soar in light away,
To hymn th’ “eternal song.”
This is a cowardice
Perhaps—a deep, mean selfishness withal.
That whets our longings in the spirit’s thrall
To lay aside these trials, and forestall
The hours of Paradise.
Thou wise, Eternal God!
Oh, let me not offend Thy great design!
Teach thou thy erring mortal to resign,
Make me be patient, let me not repine
Beneath this chast’ning rod;
Though storm and tempest whelm,
And beat upon this naked barque, ’tis well;
And I shall smile upon their heaviest swell—
Hush, rebel thoughts!—my heart be calm and still,
The Master’s at the helm!
[Henry Vanderford.]
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.