Charles Henry FONDE

                   Charles Henry Fonde was a noted engineer.  As a civil engineer, and patentee of the first bucket-wheel-dredge, which revolutionized dredging of present days.  Also, he was a manager of the large syndicated operation from New York City, and which under his management dredged in New York Harbor, or North River, Baltimore, Havana, Cuba, Savannah and Harbor of Marseilles, France.  He also did some engineering work in Austria.  Having been born in Virginia, and later a resident of New Orleans and Mobile, his home at the time of the Civil War was Mobile, Alabama.  He happened to be in Cuba but returned at the outbreak.  

The business success and brilliant outlook for the future was blasted by the seizure of property and confiscation of patent rights.  He was also the originator of the revolving cannon which is the mother of the idea of Mettraillense, the famous French and of the American Gatlin Gun.
His schooling was in the country home in Wayne County, Mississippi with private tutors, and in country schools up to sixteen years of age.  He then returned to Mobile and entered George B. Clevelands Business School, with high school qualifications.
Seven years later, he entered the Medical department at the University of Alabama and graduated in medicine and pharmacy in 1897.
He wrote a key document entitled: An Account of the Great Explosion of the United States Ordinance Stores on 25 May 1865.
Charles married 3 times: (1) Elizabeth R. McClesteer, 1851; (2) Camilla Welch, 1855; & (3) Lydia Wragg, 1865 (Notes by Melvin Scott Jr.)

Fonde, Charles Henry 1827-1881Who Was Who in American Art. 400 years of artists in America. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999.The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860. Yale University Press, 1957.