• August 1876 – August 14, 1877
• August 14, 1878 – August 13, 1879
• August 13, 1879 – August 14, 1880 ( President)
• August 12, 1881 – August 14, 1882
• August 14, 1882 – August 14, 1884
• August 13, 1885 – July 15, 1887
• July 15, 1887 – March 8, 1888
• March 4, 1891 – March 4, 1892

The following bio on W. B. Henderson was sourced and combined from:

• The City Council of Tampa and Celebration of Old City Hall's Centennial, a project of the City of Tampa, 7th Edition - December 2018.

• TAMPA HEIGHTS: TAMPA’S FIRST RESIDENTIAL SUBURB, By Marston C. Leonard
  THE SUNLAND TRIBUNE Volume IV No.1 Nov. 1978, Journal of the TAMPA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

• History of the City and the Tampa Bay Region of Florida, by Karl H. Grismer, edited by D. B. McKay, 1950.

• Genealogical Records of Tampa Pioneers, and some who came after, Charles E. Harrison, 1915.

• The Blue Book and History of Tampa Pioneers, by Pauline Brown-Hazen, 1914.

• History of Hillsborough County, by E. L. Robinson, 1928 at the University of S. Florida Digital Collections.

William Benton Henderson, 1891
Photo from Florida Memory, State Library & Archives of Florida

W.B. didn't have the advantage of an early school training.  His father died in 1852, so being the eldest child of a large family, he assumed the responsibilities of self-support and of making his own way at the early age of twelve years, He took a job in Kennedy & Darling's general store to help support his mother and his four younger brothers.

On Feb. 9. 1860, when he turned 21, he married Caroline Elizabeth Spencer, a sister of Sheriff and newspaper editor Thomas K. Spencer.  Thomas and Caroline were children of Palma Ceia homesteader William Samuel Spencer.  W.B and Caroline then bought a small farm on the Alafia River and there W.B. opened a small general store.  He continued merchandising and farming until the outbreak of the. Civil War a year later.

1860 Census, Tampa

W.B. and his young wife, Elizabeth Spencer, with his two youngest brothers Augustus and Wesley.

During the Civil War, W.B. served first in Capt. (judge) James Gettis’ Company D of the 7th Florida Regiment.  He went with this company to Kentucky and saw service there for about a year, when he was discharged because he had become ill with tuberculosis. He returned to Tampa and when recovered, he immediately reapplied to the Sec. of War for reappointment, but the response was slow in coming so he enlisted in Capt. John T. Lesley's company in Tampa.  When Capt. Lesley was severely wounded, Henderson took command until the CSA surrendered.  W.B. named one of his sons "Gettis Augustus" in honor of Capt. James Gettis.

W.B. quickly developed unusual talents in business affairs and financial management. After the war, he engaged in the cattle trade and stock raising business for the next 10 years, by which he accumulated a handsome fortune.

1870 Census, Tampa

W.B., a stock raiser, wife Caroline E, son Gettis A. Henderson., daughter Blanche, daughter Cora,
cook Ema Harrison, and probably her three daughters Sarah (servant), Malica, and Julia.

It was a conspicuous peculiarity of W.B's businesses that although he was the real head and the responsible financial backer of most of them, his name never appeared in the chief place as the senior partner or head of the business.  

In the 1870s, bought an interest in Captain John Miller's steamboat and mercantile business, forming the partnership of Miller & Henderson, which became Tampa’s largest store. With Miller he also founded the Tampa Steamship Company. Together, the steamship and mercantile business dominated Tampa’s commercial contact with the outside world, conducting the largest wholesale and retail grocery business in the southern half of the state.  They also owned a number of steamships and sailing vessels that plied the Gulf waters, and in those days furnished almost the only means enjoyed by the people of Tampa and this section of the state of communication with the outside world.   W.B. was a diversified and dynamic promoter: he introduced Durham bulls into the Florida cattle industry; he built Tampa’s first telegraph line; he started the banana trade with Central America, started Tampa's first suburb and was one of the founders of Tampa's first hook & ladder company. 

This ad below was one column, top to bottom of the page.  The unused vertical space has been removed and the ad split into 3 columns.

This partnership with Capt. Miller had continued about ten years, when the Tampa Commercial Company was organized with Mr. Henderson as President and A. C. Wuerpel as general manager. The Taliaferros, Stocktons and D. G. Ambler, of Jacksonville were also stockholders in this company.

TAMPA'S FIRST HOOK & LADDER FIRE COMPANY

August Wuerpel came to Tampa from New Orleans with his wife and four children in the early 1880s.  He and W.B. Henderson were prime movers in another* effort to start Tampa's first organized fire department which consisted of volunteers.  On June 2, 1884, sixteen local citizens formed Hook & Ladder Company No.1, a volunteer department with W. B. Henderson as foreman, Fred Herman, assistant foreman, and C. P. Wandell, treasurer. Other members were P. F. Smith, Dr. Duff Post, Ed Morris, J. C. Cole, E. L. Lesley, Phil Collins, S. P. Hayden, Frank Ghira, H. L. Knight, A. J. Knight, C. L . Ayres, S. B. Crosby and A. P . Brockway.  In 1885, August C. Wuerpel was appointed to be the department Chief.

Read more about A. C. Wuerpel and the start of Tampa's first fire company here at this TampaPix feature (in progress.)

Five or six years later, on the dissolution of the Tampa Commercial Co., W.B.  retired from active business and channeled his energies into financial investments and public service.  But he still retained interests in various enterprises and became identified with others: the Tampa Harness and Wagon Co., a partnership with Henry Clay Giddens of the  Henry Giddens Clothing Company, selling men’s apparel. With real estate investor William H. Beckwith, they founded Beckwith & Henderson, a real estate firm which later became Beckwith, Henderson and Warren. This active involvement brought him even greater influence,

*A similar effort was begun in 1869 by a committee, with officers of the company chosen, but that was about as far as it got.  See "Who Was Ansel Watrous?"

W.B. served as presidents of the: Bank of West Tampa, West Tampa Land and Improvement Company, Tampa Building and Loan Association, Tampa Publishing Company (consolidating two local papers into the Tampa Times), Tampa’s first Railway Company, for ten years W.B. was the president of the State Board of Health,.

When he built a large house, complete with observation turret, on the bluff at Tampa Heights, he was soon surrounded by so many business and family associates that the two block section of Seventh Avenue East resembled a Henderson corporate center which would heavily influence Tampa’s economic growth for many years.

Unlike many of Tampa’s identifiable sections, Tampa Heights was an area of many small subdivisions, established by original homesteaders or developers. Most of the early homes were constructed by individual contractors and while the area had its share of land speculators, the Heights was designed for Tampans with little newspaper promotion and attractions for Northern winter visitors. Perhaps the four block Tampa Heights subdivision, created in September of 1889, by William Benton Henderson, best reflected the growing prestige of Tampa Heights in the last decade of the nineteenth century. 

W.B took a prominent part in fraternal and other organizations.  He was a member of the Order of Odd Fellows, a Mason, and a Confederate Veteran.  He also belonged to the Tampa Yacht and Country Club.

W.B. was largely interested in the orange business for many years.  At one time he owned nine groves, totaling 85 acres in fruit-bearing trees.  He owned property all over South Florida.  In De Soto, Manatee and Hillsborough counties, he owned 8,000 head of cattle; he was undoubtedly the principal shipper of cattle to Cuba from Florida for many years.

W.B. was also one of the founders of Tampa’s Board of Trade in 1885, being a part of it for over 25 years, and through all those years, he was one of the most active and steadfast workers in promoting its interests.

DEATH OF W. B. HENDERSON

W.B.  died on May 7, 1909 in Dwight, Illinois.  He had gone there to recover at  "a well known sanitarium" from what was described as "a nervous breakdown."

The relationship between him and the schools of the County and of Tampa were always very intimate to him, and as an appreciation of what he had done to promote education in the county, all the public schools were closed the day of his funeral, which was held on May 10, 1909 in Tampa.  It was one of the largest ever held in Tampa.  The Rev. W. J. Carpenter, Pastor of the First Methodist Church, conducted the service at the church building.

An extract taken from his eulogy:

     "History is made up of the acts and deeds of men and women.  The growth of the city, state or nation is the crystallized history of those who have been the leaders of its progress and the champions of its development.  Biography, expressed in the intellectual, commercial, social, and religious growth of a people makes the history of that period of that people.  Those, who in their public acts and in their progressive ideas reflect the growth and sentiments of their people, are the real makers of history.
     To attempt to eliminate the individual from the movements of civilization is to fail to truthfully record the real facts of history.  How true these observations are is most forcibly illustrated in the life and achievements of our friend and fellow citizen, W. B. Henderson.  No man can write the history of Tampa or of South Florida and leave his name out; and it is equally true that the biography of W. B. Henderson cannot be truthfully written without writing a large part of the history of the growth and development of Tampa and of South Florida."