A. F. D. Gifford (A. F. D. is for Adolphus Frederick Danberry) was an widowed Englishman who initially came to Virginia as the attorney for the Chesterfield Coal and Iron Mining Company. However, the company had declined since 1844 when a major explosion had killed 11 miners. Gifford later became the vice president of the Richmond and Danville Railroad and was involved in local politics. In 1845 he married Mary Ann Johnson, daughter of the Virginia lawyer Chapman Johnson. They had three children between 1847 and 1853 and also took care of Mary Ann's deceased brother Carter Page Johnson's two children. In 1850 A. F. D. Gifford had 124 slaves (119 men and boys and 5 women and girls), making him a very wealthy man and in 1861 he had two slave children. During the first couple years of the Civil War, Gifford traveled to England in an attempt to secure munitions for the Confederate Army. Upon his return to Virginia in January 1862, however, his ship sunk, probably while trying to run the Union blockade. Gifford's death led to his widow, Mary Gifford, becoming dependent. She, along with many other Southern dependent women, had to apply for a job "signing and numbering Confederate notes" at the Confederate States Treasury office.