Jefferson Alexas Hendley

Author of "History of Western Pasco County" (1944). Graduated from Neophogen and Washington and Lee University, 1879. He began practicing law at the age of 14. After graduation, he moved to the Western Texas frontier, where he helped to organize Mitchell County and was elected its first prosecuting attorney. He returned to Kentucky briefly in 1881 and joined a group of young men preparing to settle in Florida. He resigned as prosecuting attorney and drove to Florida with them in a mule-drawn wagon. In 1883, he was elected county surveyor of Hernando County, Fl, which at the time comprised what is now Pasco county. In 1885, he was elected to the convention that drafted a new state constitution for Florida. He served four terms in the Florida state senate, beginning in 1896. He was honored by the Florida state legislature in 1939.