Mary Adele Howry, DeLand, Florida 

𝟏𝟖𝟒𝟕 When MARY ADELE HOWRY was born November 28 in Lebanon, Ohio, who would have guessed that a street in DeLand, Florida, would one day bear her name misspelled though it was? In fact, three of the city’s earliest thoroughfares are linked to her: Adelle Avenue, Howry Avenue for her brothers John W. and Charles Howry, and Voorhis Avenue for her husband, Dr. Manlius W. Voorhis.

The daughter of Henry and Catherine Howry, Mary Adele grew up in Lebanon, where her future husband, an Ohio native, attended normal school after four years of service in the Union Army’s medical corps during the Civil War. They married October 14, 1869, in Lebanon, but spent the greater part of their married life in DeLand, where Mary’s brothers had purchased extensive acreage. 

Mary and Manlius were among the earliest homesteaders to build small homes on the pine ridge that became DeLand. Mary arrived by steamboat at Cabbage Bluff in 1876, but she and her six month old baby had a long, slow trip through the woods in a springless, coverless mule cart before reaching their cabin in Westwood.

The couple later built an elegant house (which still stands) on the southwest corner of West Howry and South Clara avenues. On Thanksgiving Day (November 30) 1882, they hosted an organizational meeting of the Old Settlers of DeLand, Florida. Active in her community throughout her life, Mary Voorhis served on the solicitations committee, with Hettie Austin and Clara Rich, to raise funds to build the first schoolhouse and was one of eight charter members of the Methodist Church. 

Dr. Voorhis, a citrus grower, county commissioner, and real estate agent for his brothers in law, he apparently did not practice medicine or dentistry in DeLand— was only 47 when he died Sept. 10, 1890, in Lebanon, where he had gone for treatment of a throat problem. Mary Voorhis lived in DeLand for 55 years, until her death on April 2, 1930. She was buried next to her husband in the Lebanon cemetery. The couple had two children: a daughter, Guilda (Mrs. Curtis Crenshaw), with whom Mary lived in her last years, and a son, Virgil H. Voorhis, later a dentist in Ft. Myers.

ADELLE AVENUE was first listed on the 1878 Howry’s Addition to the City of DeLand plat and appeared in the first city directory in 1907. 

SOURCES : MEMORY LANE, by Louise Caccamise; STORY OF DELAND AND LAKE HELEN, by Helen Parce DeLand; DELAND SUN NEWS, 3 April 1930. The early photo of the Voorhis family on the porch of their home is from the Bill Dreggors Historical Photo Collection.