OF TIE HIENDRY FAMILY


of property.
 James Edward Hendry was the progenitor in florida of
the Hendry family. He was a native of Georgia and died in
that state after making his home in Florida, being on a vis-
it to Thomasville, Georgia,'at the time of his last ill-
ness.
 Francis Asbury, the son of James Edward Hendry, was
born in Thomas County, Georgia, November 19, 1833, and came
to Florida with his parents in 1851. He drove an ox-team
the entire distance, and they became pioneers of illsbo-
rough County, the mother county of South Florida. After
the death of his father Francis Asbury Hondry settled the
fonrer's estate and comnonced business on his own account
as a farmer and cattle raiser. Ho made his home in the east-
orn part of Hillsborough County in the early days before
it was 3urv,3yod, and when that w~s done he, being familiar
with the country, pro-ompted large treats of land near Fort
LIeade, now in Polk County, but at that tine constituting
a part of iillsborouh. Hie was one of the prime movers in
the organization of Polk County.
 During the Indian war of 1856-57 '.r. Hendry was an
active member of one of the military companies that were
raised among tl~e settlers for tho protection of this fron-
tier region from'the depredations of the savages. He was
also a soldier of the War Between the States, in which he
served at first in the commissary department of the mili-
tary division of South Carolina, CGeorgia and Florida, and
afterwards, eighteen months before the close of the war,
he raised a cavalry company in Polk County, and became its
captain. This company was attached to Major uinnerlyn's
independent battalion, with which Captain Hendry served un-
til the command was surrendered at Tampa at the end of the
war,
 After the war he resumed his former business of farm-
ing and cattle raising at his home, at Fort Meade, which
remained his headquarters until 1869, when he removed all
of his stock to the south side of the aaloosahatchee river
for the sake of the superior range of that section. He made
his home at Fort Myers, then in Monroe County, but now the
county seat of Lee, in the following year, 1870. Captain
Hendry became the earliest settler of the new town, which
had been a military post in the Indian war times, but had
then been for some time abandoned.
 For a long time he was the largest individual cat-
tl-owner in Florida, and was one of the originators of the
Cuban cattle trade from the ports of Ylorida, the principal