Leon County FlArchives Biographies.....Henderson, John A. 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 January 29, 2014, 2:28 pm

Source: The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. II , page 7-8 , 1923.
Author: The History of Florida: Past & Present

        HENDERSON, JOHN ALEXANDER Col. was one of Florida's most conspicuous 
figures not only in the law but public affairs during and subsequent to the 
Civil war.
	He was born in Clark County, Georgia and during his youth he had only 
those advantages and opportunities that a determined ambition made available.  
As young man he read law in the office of Judge GETTIS of Tampa, and was 
admitted to the bar.  At the outbreak of the war between the states he enlisted 
in the South Florida Infantry, which did some duty at Tampa and New Smyrna, and 
on April 26, 1862, was mustered in at Gainesville as Company B, Seventh Florida 
Infantry.  He served as lieutenant with this regiment in Tennessee under 
General Bragg until mustered out April 10, 1865.
	Colonel HENDERSON took a prominent part in reconstruction affairs, was 
a member of the State Senate, and in 1876 moved his home from Tampa to 
Tallahassee.  For over a quarter of a century he was one of the political 
dictators of Florida.  He was very successful in his profession, having a 
statewide reputation, and for many years was general counsel and vice president 
of the F. C. H. P.  Railroad, now part of the Seaboard Airline.  His last years 
were spent in retirement, and he died at Tallahassee in 1904, at the age of 
sixty-two.  Colonel HENDERSON served as one of the original directors and 
trustees of the West Florida Seminary at Tallahassee.  Gov. W. D. BLOXHAM 
appointed him to the United States Senate, but he was never seated.  Col. 
HENDERSON married Miss MATTIE WARD, a native of Leon County, who died at 
Tallahassee in 1903, at the age of fifty-three.
	GEORGE T.  WARD, her father was another important figure in early 
Florida history.  He married JANE CHAIRES, of the well-known family of that 
name.  GEORGE T. WARD was a planter and one of the early settlers of Florida.  
He served in the Territorial Legislature, was a member of the First 
Constitutional Convention of the state, in 1838, and subsequently was a member 
of the Secession Legislature.  He was elected a member of the Confederate 
Congress, and served from 1861 until February 5, 1862, when he resigned to 
become colonel of the Second Florida Infantry.  He was killed at Williamsburg, 
Virginia, in the early part of the war.
	JOHN WARD HENDERSON, a son of the late Col. JOHN A.  HENDERSON, was 
born at Tampa, October 28, 1873, was educated in the public schools and the 
West Florida Seminary at Tallahassee, and finished his law course at the 
University of Virginia in 1895.  He has since been engaged in practice at 
Tallahassee, and in 1920 he became vice president of the Lewis State Bank, the 
oldest bank in Florida, organized in 1856.  Mr. HENDERSON served as mayor of 
Tallahassee in 1905, was elected in 1906 and reelected in 1910 to the State 
Senate, and in 1911 was appointed by Governor Gilchrist to a vacancy in the 
office of state’s attorney.  In 1911 he was vice president of the Florida State 
Bar Association, and during the World war was a member of the District Draft 
Board and chairman of the Liberty Loan drives in his county.
	In 1897, at Tallahassee, he married Miss SARAH E. LEWIS, whose father, 
GEORGE LEWIS, was president of the Lewis State Bank.  They have four sons, 
GEORGE LEWIS, WILLIAM DOUGLAS, JOHN WARD, Jr., and EDWARD EVERETT.


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