Born Francis Marion Vanderpool, 29 December 1829 around Boone, North Carolina, which at that time was in Ashe County, but today is in Watauga County. He was the oldest of 10 children born to William and Mary Fuson-Vanderpool. In 1852, at age 22, he connected up with a wagon train traveling across the Oregon Trail and stopped at what at the time was known as Cascades, Oregon Territory. The town had been named for the stretch of impassable rapids or cascades on the Columbia River.

Cascades was the largest settlement on the north side of the Columbia River, in what is now the state of Washington. The town later became known as North Bonneville, Washington. He stayed there and worked on the portage railroad being built around the rapids. Years later after The Bonneville Dam was built, both the rapids and the portage railroads were covered over by the large lake that formed behind the new dam.

On Jan 24, 1853, Francis Marion, age 23, married Nancy Priscilla Shepard, age 15, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bush in Cascades. In June of that same year he went up river to work in Wasco County, Oregon, and Nancy went down river to Portland to work. He stayed away for about three years and then they both came back to the Cascades area and settled for some time.

One mile east of what is now the city of Stevenson, Washington, is a small creek called Nelson Creek. An early settler, Nels Nelson, had taken a land claim there and built a log cabin for his wife and two small daughters. When the Nelsons left for other parts, Francis and Nancy settled on the property. Later, they moved down river to the Portland area and today that property is the location of the Stevenson Cemetery. Their property was located just east the Donation Land Claim that had been settled on by Nancy's father Henry and her step-mother Lucinda Nelson-Shepard. Both properties were right on the north bank of the Columbia River.

In the 1879, Francis and Nancy settled in West Chehalem, Oregon, about 8 miles northwest of Newberg, in Yamhill County. The area today is called Ribbon Ridge. He was a carpenter and blacksmith, like his Father, William, and followed those trades all his life. He spent most of his life in Oregon & Washington and died of heart disease in 1891. He and Nancy had ten children.