GENEALOGICAL RECORDS

 THE MITCHELL 'AMILY


 Thomas Mitchell, the father and founder of the family in
 Florida was a native of the state of Alabama, from,which sate,
 he migrated to this section in 1846, settling in the easternI
 portion of Hillaborough County, a few miles from the present
 town of Plant City.

 His family consisted of nine children, seven sons and two
 daughters. They were all born in Alabama, except the youngest
 son, Charles Lucian. The oldest child, a daughter, named Caro-
 line, married in Alabama and remained there. All the rest came
 to Florida with their parents.

 Caroline married Pinkney V'orthington. They had seven 4
 children who grew up namely, Mrs. Betty Neighbors, Mrs. Ella
 Graham, Mrs. Alice Neighbors, Mrs. Gussie Gunnells, Mrs. Marga-
 ret Nance, John, Mrs. Jane Bryant.

 The second child-was also a daughter named Virginia dhe
 married Joel Knight, and became the mother of a large family of
 nine children. (See Knight family.)

 The third child, and oldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth
 (Starns) Mitchell, was Henry Laurens, who grew up to be'one of
 Florida's most distinguished sons, -ocupying the exalted posi-
 tions at different times of judge of the circuit court, justice
 of the supreme court and governor of the state. He was born in
 Alabama September 3, 1831. .He accompanied his father and the
 rest of the family, with the exception of his oldest sister, to
 Florida in 1846. After spending eight years' on a farm in the
 Eastern part of Hillsborough County he removed to Tampa in 15A4,
 with the determination to become a lawyer. He entered as a stu-
 dent the office of judge JTams Gettis, one of the foremost law"
 Users and most distinguished practitioners of his day in Florida.

 In due time he was admitted to the bar and almost immndiate-
 ly elected state's attorney for the sixth judicial distriotj in
 which Tampa was then, and still is, situated. He filled this po-
 sition until the year of the breaking out of the Civil War, 1861,
 when at the call of his state, he, with so many thousands of
 others, enrolled himself in the Confederate Anw. He attaiL d
 the rank of captain in the Mhah florida infantry regimst abd .
 served till the end' of the Viksburg campaign, when he res ed
 to assume his seat in the state legislature, to which he haA been
 elected by the people of his county in his absence. He was Pwice
 re-elected to' this position.
 ....._-__/ ..
 the close of the war he resumed the practice of the law
 and continued the success that he had before achieved. hen'thi


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