Of the Pioneers bf Tampa


 THE GIVENS FAMILY

 JO1N GIVN was born on a farm in Abbeville district (now
 county), South Carolina, September 15, 1815. He first saw
 Florida as a volunteer soldier in the United States service
 in the Seminole Indian war, which coimenced in 1835.
 He was a member of the mounted regiment commanded by
 Colonel Childs. This regiment came by sea to St. Augustine,
 and thence marched overland to Tampa Bay, as it was then
 called, on which Fort Brooke, the government post, vMas sit-
 uated. The old fort and the camping place of Childs' South
 Carolinians are now covered by the streets and squares of
 the busy modern city of Tampa. After the expiration of the
 term for which the regiment had been enlisted, thich was
 six months, its members wore disbanded and returned home.
 In the same year that he retrn.od from Florida, in
 1836, John Given was ia-ried to "3. b C. WaLker, then but
 fifteen years of age, he bin: .im seli' but t*:eonty-one.
 Seven years after, in 1843, 3 o moved with his family,
for there had been born to them in the meantime, in the old
home, three sons, to Madison County, Florida. There they
remained five years, during which time two other children,
both daughters, were born.
 About the time of his removal to Florida, or just bo-
fore, John Given commenced writing his surname with a final
s, and this has been kept up by all of his descendants to
the present time. He also, thinking, perhaps, that his sig-
nature would look more symrmtrical, adopted an extra letter
and wroto it "John T. Givens."
 The family reached Tampa on Christmas day, 1848, just
after the famous storm known in the annals of those times
as "the gale of 1848." Lany houses in the then rising vil-
lage were destroyed by the storm, and there was much work
to be done in rebuilding the old and erecting new houses
for the settlers that were then beginning to come in in large
number, and 2 r. Givens engaged in the business of an archi-
tect and builder, which he followed as his principal line
of activity during all of the remainder of his stirring life.
 In those days one man had to fill sometimes more than
one place in the community life. In this way, and especial-
ly as there was no one engaged regularly in the business of
an undertaker in Tampa, and as people in the course of na-
ture really did occasionally die even in the salubrious oli-
mate, Mr. Givens, as a "side line," combined undertaking
with his other business.
 John T. and Nancy C. Givens were among the original