“FREDERICK FLOOD, Superintendent of water supply Vandalia Railroad, Effingham, was born on the high seas and has been told that his birth occurred on board an English man-of-war or transport on British waters about 1820 or 1830.  His father Daniel, was a Captain of the Forty-second British Regiment on foot of Highlanders, all over six feet tall.  His father was six feet four inches.  His mother, who was a lady named Kate Cole, died when the subject was very small, on the Plains of Abraham, where she is buried.

Subject was left in the care of a French nobleman call Sir Biongeon, and was taken to L’Islet, Quebec, Canada, where he was kept until about the age of twelve years, when he ran off and went to the city of Quebec, and there got aboard a vessel–steamer Alliance– and, being too little for the work, was put off near Three Rivers.  He next stowed himself on board the ship George H. Thomas, and was not found until in mid ocean, and was taken to Liverpool and got the position of cabin boy on another vessel and came back to the coast of Maine, United States, and stopped in the village of China, where he went to school, working two days in the week, and going to school four days in the week for two years.  He then yielded to his desire for the ocean and went on a brig on an Arctic expedition commanded by Capt. Allen; went up Davis Strait to a point where, during part of the year, the sun never sets for several months.  He returned to Liverpool and went to Africa, touching at the Cape of Good Hope, Calcutta and Australia, and then he took a French transport to Algeria and again visited Sidney, Australia, and from there shipped to Boston, Mass., on the bark Iowa.

He then left the sea and went to work on the repairs and construction of the Boston & Maine Railroad, and came West in 1853, where he worked on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad for nineteen years, and he was first located at Lebanon, Ill., for about two years, Olney five years and Sandoval for twelve years, all this time on the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad as foreman of water supply.  In 1872, he came to Effingham, and has since been foreman of water supply of the Vandalia Railroad, and has charge of this department for 167.5 miles, which have sixteen tanks.  He averages 100 miles travel per day.

He was married in Maine–the first time to Harriet  Ware, in about 1856.  She died in about two years after their marriage, and the second time to Miss Zella H. Roy, of Caseyvill, Ill., January 31, 1860; had ten children by this marriage; six are living…”

Source:  History of Effingham Co., Illinois, by William Henry Perrin, O.L. Baskin and Co., Historical Publishers, Chicago, 1883, pages 21-2