Thomas Harrold was born June 12, 1814, in Sands Point, Long Island, New York, the son of William Harrold and Mary Probasco Harrold. Thomas married Mary Anne Bullock on December 8, 1836, in Macon, Georgia, and they had eight children: Mary Elizabeth, Uriah Bullock, Louisa Evangeline, William, Caroline Bragg, Maria, Eliza Clifford Cotton, and Caroline Clifford.

Uriah Bullock Harrold was born in Macon, Georgia, on February 17, 1839, the son of Thomas Harrold and Mary Ann Bullock Harrold. He married Mary Elizabeth Fogle and they had four children: Mary Lavinia, Theodore Fogle, Thomas, and Frank Probasco.

Thomas Harrold and his son Uriah were major cotton factors in Americus, Georgia. Uriah Harrold also served as a director of the Central of Georgia Railroad for twenty years.

During the Civil War, Uriah Harrold served as Confederate commissary agent for Americus and was asked by Confederate authorities to find a site in remote southwest Georgia for a prisoner of war camp so that United States POWs could be shipped from Richmond. Harrold selected Anderson Station, Georgia, which became Camp Sumter Military Prison (known as Andersonville Prison) after the railroad station in neighboring Sumter County. By the summer of 1864, the camp held the largest prison population of its time, with numbers that would have made it the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy. Harrold testified at the war-crimes trial of Andersonville commander Captain Henry Wirz in Washington, D.C. after the war.

Thomas Harrold died on November 7, 1887, age 73. Uriah Bullock Harrold died on September 10, 1907, at age 68. They are both buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Americus, Georgia.

The Thomas and Uriah Bullock Harrold Fund was established in 2001 by Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Hale in memory of Mrs. Anne Sheffield Hale’s great-great grandfather and great-grandfather, ensuring that the Hale’s shared commitment to Georgia history education will continue in perpetuity.