Charles Hansford, Revolutionary Privateer
Calhoun, McLean County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Charles Hansford. A privateer in Virginia's Navy during the American Revolution, Hansford sailed off eastern coast of U.S., West Indies, and Spain. He was captured three times by the British. Only he and one other of 36 prisoners survived a three-month confinement on the prison ship Jersey, nicknamed "Hell Afloat." Presented by Descendants of Charles Hansford. (Reverse) Charles Hansford (1759-1850) - This Revolutionary War soldier enlisted in Virginia in 1775 and served six months; enlisted in 1777 and discharged in nine months. Charles Hansford then ran away and went to sea as a privateer. Buried NW of here on Mayo Hill, Scotts Bridge Road. Presented by Descendants of Charles Hansford.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Charles Hansford (1759–1850) enlisted in Virginia in 1775 and again in 1777 before going to sea as a privateer in Virginia's navy during the Revolution, sailing off the American coast, the West Indies, and Spain. Captured three times by the British, he endured a brutal three-month confinement aboard the prison ship Jersey—nicknamed "Hell Afloat"—which he survived along with only one of thirty-six fellow prisoners. He later settled in Kentucky and is buried on Mayo Hill near Calhoun.
Why it matters
Hansford's ordeal on the Jersey, where thousands of American captives died, is a stark reminder of the Revolution's naval war and the terrible cost borne by ordinary sailors.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the American Revolution turned into a shooting war, most people pictured the fight as one fought on land, in places like Lexington, Saratoga, and Yorktown. But the young United States also fought a desperate war at sea — and it did so with almost no navy of its own.
To fill that gap, individual states like Virginia commissioned their own small fleets and, just as importantly, licensed privateers: privately owned ships authorized by government commission to prey on enemy shipping. A privateer was part patriot, part entrepreneur. The crews shared in the value of whatever they captured, and the raids bled Britain's merchant trade in a way the fledgling Continental forces never could on their own.
It was dangerous, roving work. A Virginia privateer might sail the length of the American coast, slip down into the West Indies where sugar and supplies moved, or range clear across to the waters off Spain. And it carried a special risk: a captured privateer was not always treated as an honorable prisoner of war. That backdrop is what gives this quiet Kentucky roadside its weight.
People & events
Charles Hansford's story does not begin at sea. He first enlisted as a soldier in Virginia in 1775, at the very outset of the war, and served a short term; he enlisted again in 1777. Then, as the marker plainly tells it, he left the army and went to sea as a privateer — trading the drill field for the deck of a ship in Virginia's naval service.
What followed was punishing. Hansford was captured by the British not once but three times. The worst of it came aboard the prison ship Jersey, a hulk so notorious among American captives that they gave it the grim nickname "Hell Afloat." He endured three months of confinement there.
The number the marker records is the part that stops you cold: of thirty-six prisoners, only Hansford and one other man came out alive. He survived to live a long life, dying in 1850 at the age of ninety-one, and he is buried a short distance from this spot, on Mayo Hill along Scotts Bridge Road. The marker itself was placed by his descendants — a family keeping the memory of an ancestor's ordeal alive generations later.
Its place in the American story
The prison ships anchored in the waters off New York during the Revolution are among the war's darkest chapters, and they are far less remembered than the battles. Confined below decks in overcrowded, disease-ridden holds, captured American sailors and soldiers died in staggering numbers — historians have long held that more Americans perished in British captivity, much of it aboard these ships, than fell in combat during the entire war.
Hansford's survival, and the loss of nearly everyone confined alongside him, puts a single human face on that statistic. It is easy to honor the Revolution through generals and famous documents; it is harder, and more honest, to remember the ordinary sailors who paid for independence in a fetid ship's hold.
That a Virginia privateer's grave and story ended up marked in western Kentucky also tells you something about the young nation. Veterans of the Revolution carried their experiences westward as the country expanded, and the memory of the war traveled with them — which is why you can stand in McLean County and touch a piece of the naval war fought a thousand miles east.
If you visit
This is a landmark marker, not a museum, so come for the story and the setting rather than for exhibits. Read the reverse side as well as the front — that is where you learn about Hansford's enlistments and his burial place, and it turns a name into a life.
The marker points you toward Mayo Hill, along Scotts Bridge Road to the northwest, where Hansford is buried. If you go looking for the resting place, treat it as you would any old burial ground: with quiet respect, staying to what is public and welcoming.
Standing here in rural Kentucky, it takes a moment to reconcile the peaceful countryside with the salt water, the West Indies, and the horror of a prison ship that fill the inscription. That gap is exactly the point. Let it remind you that the reach of the Revolution ran far beyond the famous battlefields — and that the man who survived "Hell Afloat" chose to spend his long final decades in a place this calm.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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