The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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John T. Hendricks

John T. Hendricks (22 December 1851 – 20 November 1917), recorded in local directories and press reports as J. T. Hendricks, was a pioneer Avon Park title abstractor, notary public, horticulturalist, and municipal official.[woodruff-genealogy-1963][gaz-1895] Settling in Avon Park with his wife’s extended Woodruff and Daugherty kin in the early 1890s, he cultivated a widely publicized one-acre pineapple and subtropical fruit garden on Pleasant Street, served on the town’s first council after Avon Park incorporated in January 1897, and later moved to Orlando while retaining Avon Park real estate that he cleared by chancery suit in 1915.[fa-1896-09-30][savannah-1897-01-15][dsc-1905-11-17][dcn-1915-02-18] Through his son Laird Woodruff Hendricks, he was the paternal grandfather of First Lieutenant Laird Woodruff Hendricks Jr. (1916–1941), the World War II Army Air Corps officer for whom Highlands County’s Hendricks Army Airfield (Hendricks Field) was named.[woodruff-genealogy-1963][fg-laird-hendricks]

Origins and Marriage into the Woodruff and Daugherty Families

John T. Hendricks was born on 22 December 1851 in Canada.[woodruff-genealogy-1963][census-1900-desoto-ap] On 6 November 1882, in Wisconsin, he married Florence Adell Woodruff (2 May 1850 – 8 January 1909).[woodruff-genealogy-1963]

Florence Adell Woodruff was the daughter of James W. Woodruff (22 March 1819, Attica, New York – 26 December 1901), a Green Bay, Wisconsin lumberman, and Almira Henshaw (Daugherty) Woodruff (born October 1826 in Massachusetts), who had married in Milwaukee on 27 May 1846.[woodruff-genealogy-1963][fg-woodruff][census-1900-desoto-ap] Almira Daugherty Woodruff was the sister of charter Avon Park settler William F. Daugherty (1827–1904; father of 1913 town alderman William H. Daugherty), and Florence’s brothers Herbert Eugene Woodruff (born 27 March 1847) and Walter Harold (“Harry”) Woodruff (31 July 1853 – 19 January 1936; father of Erie Railroad president Robert Eastman Woodruff and of Avon Park pioneer Margaret Woodruff Mandis) also settled at Avon Park in the early 1890s.[woodruff-genealogy-1963][maxwell-1976][fg-woodruff]

John and Florence Hendricks had two children, both born in Wisconsin before the family moved to Florida:[woodruff-genealogy-1963][census-1900-desoto-ap]

Abstractor, Notary Public, and the Pleasant Street Model Acre (1894–1897)

By the summer of 1894, Hendricks was established in Avon Park’s business and civic circle. On 18 July 1894, he rode in Oliver Marvin Crosby’s carriage alongside the Rev. F. D. Rood and Avon Park Idea editor A. L. Blue to the second-anniversary celebration of the Pabor Lake Colony, bound onward for a railroad immigration convention at Arcadia.[plp-1894-07] In Belden’s 1895 Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory, he was listed at Avon Park as "Hendricks J T, notary, abstracts", serving alongside attorney Clark D. Knapp, postmaster Dorr D. Kinney, and Florida Development Company vice president N. S. C. Perkins as one of the settlement’s four notaries public and its sole specialist in land-title abstracts.[gaz-1895]

Alongside his title and notary office, Hendricks cultivated a one-acre residential plot on Pleasant Street inside the town plat that local and state agricultural papers held up as proof of what intensive cultivation could achieve on Lake Wales Ridge sandhill land after the freezes of 1894–1895. In September 1896, The Florida Agriculturist reprinted an inventory of his lot from The Avon Park Idea under the headline “An Acre of Land”:

What can be done in the way of agriculture upon one acre of land upon the Florida sand hill known as Avon Park? Our townsman, John T. Hendricks, we knew to be somewhat industrious, and knew that he had an acre of land on Pleasant street that was properly cared for. We investigated, and found the following trees and plants, all in a thrifty condition on our neighbor’s acre; 2,875 pineapple plants, nineteen orange trees, twenty-two grapefruit trees, two lemon, six Chinese and twenty-two Brazilian guava trees, five lime trees, one persimmon, four figs, forty peaches, three pears, two apples, two royal poinciana, one Australian oak, thirty Orinoco, six Hart’s choice, and twelve cavendish bananas, eight egg plants, thirty-one tropical yams, twelve rose bushes, two beds chrysanthemums, four beds of geraniums, one bed of tube roses, one century plant, one sisal hemp, one great cactus and one oleander… Mr. Hendricks gets plenty of pineapples, guavas and figs from his one acre garden. He has plenty of fruit and vegetables. So could every other resident of Avon Park if they did a little more work and a little less growling at hard times.[fa-1896-09-30]

A follow-up inspection of Avon Park’s pineapple plantations in The Florida Agriculturist on 8 September 1897 noted that "Mr. Hendricks has a model garden and depends on Cayennes, Abakas and Spanish for shipping."[fa-1897-09-08]

Town Councilman in the 1897 Incorporation

When Avon Park’s remaining business proprietors and homesteaders incorporated the town under Florida’s general municipal statute in the first week of January 1897, Hendricks was elected one of the five inaugural town councilmen. The Morning News of Savannah reported the slate on 15 January 1897:

Avon Park was incorporated last week and Clark D. Knapp elected mayor; B. F. West, L. W. Mix, H. B. Todd, J. T. Hendricks and William King councilmen; R. D. Hall, clerk and treasurer; J. J. Dobbins, marshal.[savannah-1897-01-15]

The first municipal corporation lasted until 1 March 1899, when town electors voted 35 to 12 to dissolve the municipality during the post-freeze depression.[savannah-1897-01-15]

In the federal census of Avon Park (Precinct 14, DeSoto County) enumerated on 25 June 1900, while John T. Hendricks was away on business, his wife Florence A. Hendricks (mistranscribed "Frances?" in the USGenWeb transcript, listed as married and working as a "Manager") headed Household 387/388 with their 13-year-old son Laird W. Hendricks (mistranscribed "Louis W.", born March 1887 in Wisconsin) and 8-year-old daughter Ruth M. Hendricks (born November 1890 in Wisconsin), immediately adjacent to her parents James Woodruff (81), Almira Woodruff (75), and Allie May Woodruff (26, who married Hollyhurst caretaker Ben Hinkley in Green Bay in 1901) in Household 386/387.[census-1900-desoto-ap][maxwell-1976] Florence’s father James W. Woodruff died on 26 December 1901 and was buried in Bougainvillea Cemetery.[fg-woodruff]

Removal to Orlando and the 1915 Avon Park Chancery Suit

Between 1900 and 1905, Hendricks relocated to Orlando, Florida, while keeping his real estate and fruit groves in Avon Park. On 17 November 1905, O. R. Thacher’s Avon Park column in The De Soto County News reported:

Mr. J. T. Hendricks of Orlando came in Monday evening to look after his property here and to gather some fruit.[dsc-1905-11-17]

Florence Adell (Woodruff) Hendricks died on 8 January 1909.[woodruff-genealogy-1963] In early 1915, represented by the Arcadia law firm of Jones & Jones, John T. Hendricks filed a bill in chancery in the Circuit Court of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of DeSoto County (John T. Hendricks vs. William H. Garrecht, et al., Bill to Quiet Title) to clear title to three platted Avon Park town lots against the unknown heirs, devisees, and grantees of deceased record owners Sophia P. Lowndes and Mark Wood.[dcn-1915-02-18] The constructive-service order, first published in The De Soto County News on 18 February 1915 and returnable on the rule day of 3 May 1915, described the parcels as Lots 2 and 5 of Block 7 (in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 22, Township 33 South, Range 28 East) and Lot 4 of Block 35 (in the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 22, Township 33 South, Range 28 East) of the Town of Avon Park.[dcn-1915-02-18]

John T. Hendricks died on 20 November 1917 at the age of sixty-five.[woodruff-genealogy-1963]

Grandfather of the Namesake of Hendricks Field

John and Florence Hendricks’s son Laird Woodruff Hendricks (1887–1923) and his wife Bernice (Alfred) Hendricks were the parents of First Lieutenant Laird Woodruff Hendricks Jr. (born 3 June 1916 in Ocala, Florida; died 28 July 1941 in England).[woodruff-genealogy-1963][fg-laird-hendricks] A 1939 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an Army Air Corps four-engine bomber instructor, Lieutenant Hendricks was killed on 28 July 1941 when his B-17C Flying Fortress crashed near RAF Polebrook while training Royal Air Force pilots, making him the first Florida-born officer killed in World War II.[fg-laird-hendricks] When the War Department constructed its heavy-bomber training base in Highlands County six miles east of Sebring in 1941–1942, it named the installation Hendricks Army Airfield (Hendricks Field) in his honor—returning the Hendricks family name to the county where his grandparents and Woodruff great-grandparents had pioneered nearly half a century earlier.[fg-laird-hendricks]

References

  • woodruff-genealogy-1963 — Susan Woodruff Abbott (Milford, Conn., 1963). Woodruff Genealogy: Descendants of Mathew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut (entry 669, James W. Woodruff, and entry 1077, Florence Adell Woodruff and John T. Hendricks). 1963. https://archive.org/details/woodruffgenealog00abbo_0
  • gaz-1895 — Belden Publishing Company. Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory, 1895, p. 97: ‘Hendricks J T, notary, abstracts’. 1895. https://archive.org/details/floridarailroadg1895beld
  • plp-1894-07 — W. E. Pabor (reprinting A. L. Blue, The Avon Park Idea). The Pabor Lake Pineapple, Vol. II, Nos. 10–11 (July–August 1894), p. 1: ‘Anniversary Day at Pabor Lake’ (reprinted from The Avon Park Idea, 26 July 1894). 15 August 1894. documents/pabor-lake-pineapple.md
  • fa-1896-09-30 — The Florida Agriculturist (reprinting The Avon Park Idea). The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), 30 September 1896, p. 6: ‘An Acre of Land’ (reprinted from The Avon Park Idea). 30 September 1896. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn96027724/1896-09-30/ed-1/?sp=6
  • fa-1897-09-08 — The Florida Agriculturist. The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), 8 September 1897, p. 1: Avon Park pineapple growers and Mr. Hendricks’s model garden. 8 September 1897. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn96027724/1897-09-08/ed-1/?sp=1
  • savannah-1897-01-15 — The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.). The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 15 January 1897, p. 6: incorporation of Avon Park and election of J. T. Hendricks as councilman. 15 January 1897. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1897-01-15/ed-1/?sp=6
  • census-1900-desoto-ap — United States Census Bureau / USGenWeb Archives transcription. 1900 United States Federal Census, Precinct 14 (Avon Park), DeSoto County, Florida, enumerated 25 June 1900, Households 386/387 and 387/388. 25 June 1900. http://web.archive.org/web/20250905025829id_/http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/desoto/census/1900ap.txt
  • dsc-1905-11-17 — O. R. Thacher, The De Soto County News. The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 17 November 1905, p. 8: ‘Department of The South Florida Sun, Avon Park Locals’ (‘Mr. J. T. Hendricks of Orlando’). 17 November 1905. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95026908/1905-11-17/ed-1/?sp=8
  • dcn-1915-02-18 — A. L. Durrance, Clerk of the Circuit Court, DeSoto County. The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 18 February 1915, p. 11: Notice in Chancery, John T. Hendricks vs. William H. Garrecht, et al., Bill to Quiet Title. 18 February 1915. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95026908/1915-02-18/ed-1/?sp=11
  • fg-woodruff — Find a Grave contributors. James W. Woodruff (22 Mar 1819 – 26 Dec 1901), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park, Find a Grave memorial 34560394. 7 March 2009. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/34560394/james-w-woodruff
  • fg-laird-hendricks — Find a Grave contributors. 1st Lt. Laird Woodruff Hendricks Jr. (3 Jun 1916 – 28 Jul 1941), Arlington National Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 49202250. 7 March 2010. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49202250/laird_woodruff-hendricks
  • maxwell-1976 — Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida. 1976. documents/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md

Where this comes from

Evidence
corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
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Sources

  1. Susan Woodruff Abbott (Milford, Conn., 1963), Woodruff Genealogy: Descendants of Mathew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut (entry 669, James W. Woodruff, and entry 1077, Florence Adell Woodruff and John T. Hendricks) (1963) · book
  2. Belden Publishing Company, Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory, 1895, p. 97: 'Hendricks J T, notary, abstracts' (1895) · book
  3. W. E. Pabor (reprinting A. L. Blue, The Avon Park Idea), The Pabor Lake Pineapple, Vol. II, Nos. 10–11 (July–August 1894), p. 1: 'Anniversary Day at Pabor Lake' (reprinted from The Avon Park Idea, 26 July 1894) (documents/pabor-lake-pineapple.md) (1894) · newspaper
  4. The Florida Agriculturist (reprinting The Avon Park Idea), The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), 30 September 1896, p. 6: 'An Acre of Land' (reprinted from The Avon Park Idea) (1896) · newspaper
  5. The Florida Agriculturist, The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), 8 September 1897, p. 1: Avon Park pineapple growers and Mr. Hendricks's model garden (1897) · newspaper
  6. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 15 January 1897, p. 6: incorporation of Avon Park and election of J. T. Hendricks as councilman (1897) · newspaper
  7. United States Census Bureau / USGenWeb Archives transcription, 1900 United States Federal Census, Precinct 14 (Avon Park), DeSoto County, Florida, enumerated 25 June 1900, Households 386/387 and 387/388 (1900) · official
  8. O. R. Thacher, The De Soto County News, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 17 November 1905, p. 8: 'Department of The South Florida Sun, Avon Park Locals' ('Mr. J. T. Hendricks of Orlando') (1905) · newspaper
  9. A. L. Durrance, Clerk of the Circuit Court, DeSoto County, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 18 February 1915, p. 11: Notice in Chancery, John T. Hendricks vs. William H. Garrecht, et al., Bill to Quiet Title (1915) · official
  10. Find a Grave contributors, James W. Woodruff (22 Mar 1819 – 26 Dec 1901), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park, Find a Grave memorial 34560394 (2009) · secondary
  11. Find a Grave contributors, 1st Lt. Laird Woodruff Hendricks Jr. (3 Jun 1916 – 28 Jul 1941), Arlington National Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 49202250 (2010) · secondary
  12. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (documents/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976) · book

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