Florida Myrtle NORTH

  General Notes:

Florida Myrtle North, who was born in this county, daughter of Henry and Florida (Bone) North, and to this union two sons have been born, Robert, born in 1907, and Albert, 1911. Mrs. LeFavour also was a teacher in the schools of this county before her marriage. She also is a member of one of the old families of the county. Her father, Henry North, was born in Jay county in 1854, the son and only child of Zachariah and Catherine (Halterman) North, who were among the pioneers of Jackson township. Zachariah North was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, in 1829, and was twelve vears of age when he came with his parents to Indiana. His son Henry grew to manhood in this county and in the fall of 1878 married Florida Bone, who also was born in this county, one of the six children born to Henry and Margaret (Birch) Bone, pioneers here, the former of whom was born in Greene county, Ohio, the son of John Henry Bone, who was a soldier of the Revolution. In an interesting review of his life written in 1915 Mrs. LeFavour's father, Henry North, pointed out for the information of his kinsfolk that he was born in the hamlet of West Liberty, this county, January 21, 1854. West Liberty later came to be known as Mills Corner, the proprietor of the store there securing that name for the place when the postoffice was established and he was appointed postmaster, there then having been another West Liberty postoffice in the state (in Howard county). In the spring of 1857, Henry North then being three years of age, the North family moved to a tract of forty acres of land on the north side of Jay county, which Mr. North's review describes as "a clay knoll that was too poor to raise an umbrella on, the knoll being completely covered with heavy timber such as whiteoak, blackoak, red oak, burroak, hickory and so on, this clay knoll of about twenty acres being entirely surrounded by water covered with willows, water frogs, mosquitoes and snakes-snakes any length from six inches to eight feet." Concerning the establishment of the family home there, Mr. North's review went on to say that "of course the first thing to do was to put up a dwelling house; so father took his chopping ax and broadax and started out in the woods to saw the lumber, which was done, of course, by cutting down timber, trimming it up and cutting off logs 18 and 24 feet long, which he managed to drag to the highest point on the knoll by means of a plug team he had, then calling the neighbors to help erect it, they being few and far between. After being erected the house, of course, had to have a floor; so father went to the same sawmill, this time taking a maul and wedge, and cut down trees, cutting off ten-foot logs and splitting them about 4 to 5 inches thick and hewing the ends of them so they would lay still on sleepers about ten inches thick. Of course, the next thing was a roof over it. Going back to the same lumber yard, father-taking a froe and ax this time-cut logs four feet long in small enough pieces so that he could split them in shingles about ten inches wide and four feet long. The next winter he had the house far enough along to live in, it being up and the roof on, but no chimney; so he split some slats about like lath and laid them up, daubing them inside and outside with mud-that constituting the chimney for the first winter."

Florida married Augustus J. LEFAVOUR in 1905 in Jay Co., Indiana. (Augustus J. LEFAVOUR was born in 1879, died in 1940 in Jay Co., Indiana and was buried in Gravel Hill Cem., Jay, Indiana.)