So, have you been to Karina Island or Pelican Island? Even readers who are very familiar with the Marco Island area and the adjacent 10,000 Islands may ask “Where?” to that question. But even more amazing, for some local residents the answer is not only “Yes,” but that they currently live there. Many others have actually been there often without realizing it!

Tigertail Beach and Lagoon with the former Pelican Island now incorporated into Marco Island and almost invisible lying north of South Seas condominiums and extending into the western part of Hideaway Beach.

We need to travel back in time 120 years to 1893 and take a peek at a U.S. Coast and Geodetic Nautical Chart of that era to help answer the question.

First a little background may help. When I was growing up on Marco in the late 1960’s, my Boy Scout troop would often camp on the “north beach,” which was located on what is now known as Hideaway Beach. In those days the north beach faced the Gulf of Mexico with the landward side of the beach bordered by a large strand of tall Australian pine trees. Our troop would arrive with our tents and gear via pickup truck, driving up a dirt road which was west of the current Spinnaker Drive. We set up camp on the beach above the high water line and close to the pine trees – but never under the trees as the mosquitoes were intense and would swarm in an area with no breeze. We often swam out into the Gulf a few hundred feet over deep water to a place where we could actually stand; an underwater sandbar which was covered with sand dollars. They could easily be picked up with one’s toes and brought to the surface and were all live creatures: some large, others very small, all brown and furry. While some beach goers were into filling buckets with them and killing them with bleach for their shell collections, we Scouts kept them alive and tossed them in a Florida version of skipping stones.

It was not very long ago, in fact in the 1970’s, that this sandbar arose from the sea and became its own island known as “Sand Dollar Island.” Later, in the 1980s, it was big news when it attached itself to the main beach in the area, which was just north of South Seas Condominiums, and then continued to grow and curve around the north beach creating an inland lagoon where previously we had once swam across deep water. Looking at a current aerial map one can see that this new huge beach, now part of Tigertail Beach, added greatly to the westward protrusion of the north end of Marco’s unique crescent shaped beach.

Sand Dollar Island is only the most recent example of how Marco Island has widened over a mile to the west from its original historic beachfront located along the current Bald Eagle Drive. Sandbars rose up, connected, created trapped lagoons behind them, mangroves and vegetation grew and filled the lagoons, and the entire process repeated itself generation after generation as the Island grew wider and wider. An excellent book, “Naples Waterfront: Changes in Time,” by Todd T. Turrell provides 1952 aerials of Marco and includes transparent overlays showing the current platted lots and their locations over the historic topography. One can find their own or friends’ properties and see how Deltona carefully designed the Island to locate as many streets and lots as possible in the areas of beach ridges, and constructed the canals and waterways in the areas which had been former lagoons.

So that brings us back to “Pelican Island” – a name lost to history. However, if you carefully examine the attached 1893 coastal chart, you will find it. A narrow spit of land, on the north end of the beach looking very similar to the future Sand Dollar Island: attached to the main beach at the south end of the spit, and also with a lagoon on its east side. Examining a little closer the 1893 Coastal Chart you can see that the lagoon adjacent to Pelican Island exits north into Big Marco Pass.

South of this area, years before Clam Bay was created in a similar fashion by a sandbar that arose and formed the beach ridge that the South Seas Condominiums are now built on. Unlike so many other trapped lagoons that grew over with mangroves, Clam Bay escaped that fate because of the tidal flow via Clam Slough which went through Marco’s beach (“slough” being another name for a “pass” which is not always navigable).

When the first permanent settler of Marco Island, W. T. Collier (the father of Capt. Collier, the builder of the Old Marco Inn), arrived on the Island, he settled his family in the area of Hideaway Beach and built a small bridge over Clam Slough in the 1870’s. A hundred years later in the early 1970’s, one walking the beach would still have been forced to forge a deep pass cutting through the beach where Clam Slough exited into the Gulf. It was actually quite dangerous to wade across if the tide was high as the flowing water moved rapidly and was deep. However, nature was slowly closing this pass. In fact, but for the Corps of Engineers granting Deltona’s permit for the Collier Bay area in 1976, Clam Bay would have followed Marco’s natural geologic history and become a trapped lagoon, later to fill up and be a swamp covered with mangroves. To avoid this fate, Deltona built the flat bridge on North Collier Blvd. and another bridge at Hernando Dr. to flush Clam Bay with tidal flow to keep the Bay from stagnating.

The Island claimed by Shipp’s Landing on July 4, 1998. Jim and Karen O’Donnell with their daughters Kelly and Trish.

So, back to our original question – where is the Pelican Island of the late 1800’s? Clearly, over time it lost its name as the former island became part of the main beach, widened, became more stable and turned into beachfront. Today the south end of the former Pelican Island is the original Tigertail beach located on the eastern side of the current lagoon; Spinnaker Drive is located in the center while the north end of Pelican Island is Waterside Drive in the Hideaway Beach subdivision.

And where is the former lagoon shown in the coastal chart of 1893? It clearly became a trapped lagoon as the pass flushing north into the Big Marco River closed off. Later the south parts of it were dredged to create the waterways east of the Tigertail Beach’s parking lot and waterways east of Spinnaker Drive in the Blackmore Street area. To the north, the 1893 lagoon still remains in its natural state as a remnant leaving inland ponds full of mangroves and vegetation between Waterside Drive and Hideaway Circle.

What of Karina Island? Again, if we look at the map, you will see a very small island located in the middle of the Caxambas Pass. This pass has been very dynamic over the years and sand has shifted in and out creating sandbars and small islands. Many who are familiar with the pass know that there is currently a small sandbar in the pass due south of Shipp’s Landing which, until last year, was an island with a bird and turtle nesting site, but was over-washed after a tropical storm. This unnamed island also previously appeared after the Shipp’s Landing Condominiums were first built. In fact, by around 1998, the Shipps’ condo owners mounted a flagpole on the Island, flew their condo flag and claimed the island as part of their domain! It became a favorite place for beach parties. If you examine the 1893 Coastal Chart, Karina Island appears to be slightly west of the current sandbar, but is still in Caxambas Pass. As a result “Karina” would be a logical, as well as a historic name, if a new island ever re-forms.

What do we learn from all of this? First, it is amazing how tides, storms, shifting sands and currents quickly destroy or create islands, spits of land and beaches. In just a short time, in fact in less than 20 years, a sand bar that arose became Sand Dollar Island, lost its “island status,” attached to the beach and became a large land mass and rookery for birds and marine animals – in the exact same way and in same place at least 100 years prior. Pelican Island also become an integral part of Marco’s beach and in fact, largely helped to create its crescent shape. Secondly, that shape, a crescent, is due in part to sand and movement from our two major passes: Marco River to the north and Caxambas Pass to the south. Lastly, it is clear that our beachfront is a dynamic environment, ever changing and, if left alone, over time natural forces would continue to grow the Island larger and larger in a westward direction.

A special thank you to Jim O’Donnell for his photo of the flagpole on the Island claimed as Shipp’s Landing Phase IV.

1977 Aerial of the former Coconut Island located due north of Hideaway Beach’s Royal Marco Point, and west of Isle of Capri. SUBMITTED PHOTO

The former Coconut Island was a traditional place to raft up your boat, along with your friends’ boats, on a lazy Sunday afternoon and have a cookout on the beach while everyone swam and simply relaxed. It was a beautiful location – just north of the future Hideaway Beach, due east of Isles of Capri, situated in the mouth of the Marco River and the view to the west was of the Gulf of Mexico and the setting sun. Hurricane Donna created Coconut Island in 1960 when the south tip of Cannon Island was cut off; over time this little Island shifted and moved some but was mostly stabilized by tall Australian pine trees that dominated the north end of the island.

Few of the many visitors to Coconut Island, as they swam off the beach, knew that these waters formerly held hundreds of hooked sharks, and even fewer sun worshipers realized, as they lay on the beach, that they were tanning in an area where the sharks had been pulled ashore, killed, skinned and the meat butchered for sale.

The son of the local barber in the small village of Marco (now known as Old Marco), Francis Howard, was one fisherman who made his living in the shark business. Francis would take his boat offshore and, with hundreds of feet of chain, set a floating line of 50 gallon drums secured by anchors at the ends and attach numerous strong fishing lines off of the chain with large baited hooks creating what is known as a “long-line.” Dave Johnson, who grew up in Old Marco and whose father Roger participated in the early 1960’s in some of the “sharking,” describes this type of fishing as “a trout-line on steroids.”

Francis would return to Marco after setting his baits and would check the lines daily. It was important to keep the sharks alive so that their meat would be fresh for processing and, in addition, a hooked shark could be quickly damaged. Male lemon sharks, sensing that other sharks were hooked, would often swim along the line taking a bite out of almost every other shark, damaging each hide and, upon finding a bait available, would swallow it hook and all. Upon getting enough sharks attached, Francis would release a long line and drag it with the hooked sharks behind his boat back to the beach for processing.

After a shark’s skin has been removed and dried it is known as shagreen. For many years there was no commercial market for shagreen as the skin protecting the shark has a hard exterior, horny layer with small denticles (placoid scales) that are impossible to remove by mechanical means. Shark skins were used by Southwest Florida’s native Calusa Indians as coarse sandpaper to polish wood and also by South Pacific natives as the membranes on drums. However, on April 27, 1920, shortly after WWI, a U.S. patent was obtained by Allen Rogers for the “Improvements in Treating of Shark-Skins and the like Preparatory to Tanning” to remove the “hard or horny coating known as dermal armoring.” Rogers assigned his patent to the Ocean Leather Company of New York who, for over 60 years, held a virtual monopoly on the production of shark skin. The chemical process used was to soak the skins in a solution of salt and hydrochloric acid which, after a couple of hours, dissolved the denticles, and then the hides were colored as part of the finishing process. The final result was smooth skins much more elastic than pigskin, 150 times more resistant, and sturdier than cow leather. The market for shark skin was in making cowboy boots, handbags, belts, key and lighter cases, watch straps, sandals, gun holsters, cigar cases, briefcases, wallets and purses, and the like.

In the Journal of American Leather Chemists Association in a 1920 article, Allen Rogers, inventor of this patent, wrote that after being brought to shore, the sharks were killed using an axe (later they were often shot) and stated, “Dressing starts at once. Fins and tails removed – fins tacked on a rack and allowed to dry in the sun – used by the Chinese for making soup. Fish cut down the back and circular cut around the neck and gills. Skin removed so only the holes of the pectoral fins and rectal opening remains in the pelt. Flayed skins placed in salt for 24 hours.”

Other reports said that saltwater was brushed on the skin’s surface or it was hosed well with saltwater to remove the impurities before the hides were soaked in salt brine. Upon removal they were dried in racks in the shade overnight, salted more on the flesh side with a preservative, and placed in piles about three feet high. The piles were laid out to dry for up to a week. It was a major problem if it started to rain or fresh water ran on the skins during the drying process as that would create “sour spots” or discolor them and significantly reduce the value. At one time, Ocean Leather Company was paying a 20 percent bonus for hides without any cuts or flaws. After drying, the skins were re-salted and folded into flat bundles, flesh side inwards, with the bundles wrapped so air could get in, usually with burlap, and sold that way.

Faye Dickerson Brown remembers in 1959 when she was a senior at Naples High School and her good friend Lois invited Faye to go “sharking” with Lois’s brother, Francis Howard, his wife Emily, and Lois’s sister, Lettie, and her three children. At the time Francis was using the “north beach” or what is now known as Hideaway Beach for shark processing. Faye remembers Howard bringing their party to the beach after already having pulled in a long line.

Faye describes what happened: “Francis’s wife Emily sat upon the bow of the boat and cut the shark meat up into steaks which she said they sold to the Rod & Gun Club in Everglades to be sold on the menu as swordfish steaks. Once we found something in a shark’s belly and it was sized and shaped like a man’s lower leg! We all held our breath while Francis split open the stomach and pulled out a smaller shark from the larger shark’s belly. A four foot shark had taken the fish bait and the larger shark swallowed the smaller shark behind its head and was caught. I remember eight to ten foot sharks, mostly Tiger, Nurse and Lemon sharks.”

Of all the Florida sharks fished for, the most sought-after and profitable was the Tiger shark. In 1968, the skin of a 12-foot Tiger shark brought a base price of $12.50, added was a bonus of 50 percent because it was a Tiger; the meat sold for at least $10; and the fins (which were small) $3 additional, resulting in more than $30 for the one catch.

Faye continues her story about that day in 1959 with her friends on north beach: “We went dressed in our swim suits and sometimes swam near where the sharks were being skinned which was a crazy thing to have done.” Apparently they were simply following local tradition; in 50 years not much had changed.

A Tiger shark being pulled out of the water by Francis Howard assisted by Roger Johnson on the block and tackle, and Francis’ sister, Lois (Howard) Crews on the dock. PHOTOS BY Dave Johnson

Julian Dimock, with his father, headquartered their Everglades adventures on Marco, wrote in 1908: “In Marco women and children swim about the dock from which men are fishing for sharks, and more than once, while swimming there with my daughter, fifty feet from shore, I have seen a shark glide between us and the bank.” Clearly Dimock did not seem the least bit worried about his daughter repeatedly swimming with sharks while today this activity would seem worrisome as many are paranoid about sharks. In earlier times, when people were much closer to nature, they understood that, for the most part, sharks were pretty harmless and they held no cause for alarm. However, it is fortunate that humans do not taste as good as a tarpon, as Dimock also writes about fishing for tarpon and ending up with a shark on the line: “A fourteen foot shark is likely to have taken in half of your six-foot tarpon at a single bite.”

Shark meat that was not good enough to be sold to restaurants could be made into fish scrap for fertilizer as it contains about 15 to 17 percent nitrogen. Another profitable part of the shark was the removal and processing of its liver. One Tiger shark caught was 7’8” long, yielded nine square feet of skin, weighed 128 pounds and its liver weighed 24 pounds – slightly over the average for Tiger sharks whose livers normally weigh about 17.5 percent of their total weight.

Inventor Allen Rogers, in 1920, again describes the process: “Livers go into a barrel to disintegrate them in steam jacketed kettles and heated to boiling for about one hour. From kettles the oil is run into washing and settling tanks where the gurry is separated, oil runs into a tank, is washed and then stored for shipment.”

Sharks are unique sea animals as they have no swim bladder and their buoyancy in water is maintained by their large livers saturated with oil. The processed oil from shark livers was used as fine machine oil or as a lubricant as it has a very low melting point and a very high boiling point. It was also used in cosmetics, skin healing and for health products. During WWII, a large boom in the business occurred as it was discovered that shark oil could be used to produce Vitamin A which helped the night vision of fighter pilots. That market collapsed when synthetic Vitamin A was discovered in 1947.

Ocean Leather Company started production around 1923 in the Florida Keys where, by 1930, they were catching and processing an average of 100 sharks a day. Almost everything connected with the sharks was used with the oil being processed by Hydenoil Products. One comment at the time about the harvesting process of sharks was that “the odor was quite strong.” By 1964, Ocean Leather Company, in its northern plant, was processing about 16,000 shark hides annually. Because 98 percent of its production was sold in Texas, the company did not try to market elsewhere as they could hardly keep up with the demand from the Lone Star State.

Dave Johnson mentioned one spectacular day of Marco sharking: “The day they brought in the Great White was quite an event. Nobody had ever seen one before. It was 19-feet long and as you can see from the photo, something pretty big as well had bit a large chunk out of its pectoral fin before it was harvested.” Presumably that bite was from a male lemon shark.

On Marco, the sharking business died off around 1963 or 1964. Dave mentions living on the north end of the Island at the time: “A little down side to the enterprise was the fact that when the wind blew from the west, the smell of those drying shark fins was strong enough in Old Marco to make you think twice about ever trying the soup!” Development was coming to Marco Island and Coconut Island itself was divided up into 100 foot strips and sold off as privately owned parcels by the mid 1960’s.

Francis Howard standing on a makeshift dock at Coconut Island bringing in a shark for processing. Just off the dock can be seen the Great White Shark caught that day with a bite taken out of its pectoral fin.

A major change also happened in the shark skin business: while Francis and other fishermen of his time had caught a few sharks by hooks and lines, the industry changed after sharking on Marco had ceased, as it became routine for large vessels to net hundreds of sharks at a time. In fact, by the mid-1980’s, from its world production of shark hides, Ocean Leather Company was handling around 50,000 shark skins annually. That number probably pales by the amount of sharks caught for their fins by the Chinese.

Meanwhile, the growing environmental movement did not bid well for the growing shark industry. Research revealed that sharks have a very slow growth rate, come to sexual maturity late in life and have relatively few offspring after a long gestation period. For a number of years, the number of sharks harvested was twice the number of new sharks born, creating an alarming situation.

Between 2004 and 2008, an estimated 800,000 sharks were killed by recreational fisherman off the Gulf coast and the Atlantic Ocean. Research from North Carolina pointed out that when the shark population declined, the ray population increased from having no natural predators. As a result, more rays ate more bay scallops creating an economic loss of local commercial scallop fisheries. As the predator of the seas, sharks keep fish populations healthy by eating the sick or injured and by scavenging the dead.

There are now Federal and Florida laws protecting sharks with Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission listing 25 different varieties as Protected (Prohibited) Species. A year ago, on January 1, 2012 Florida added Tiger sharks and three different types of Hammerheads to the list of sharks that are prohibited from all harvest, possession, landing, purchase, sale or exchange because their populations had declined by over 50 percent. Ocean Leather Corporation (as it was later known) is no longer in existence. The decline of business in shark skins is attributed to the popularity of eating shark meat which requires that the shark be put on ice, which spoils the hides while the skin remains intact to protect the meat. Today, many shark products including shark skin, as well as shark cartilage pills (presumably to ward off cancer) are produced in China.

Coconut Island continued to grow smaller and smaller and shifted to the south and then completely disappeared in 2005. Coconut Island had existed for 45 years, from 1960 to 2005, and in similar fashion, the knowledge that there once was commercial shark fishing on Marco has also faded away.

I want to thank David Johnson, Faye Brown and Lois Crews for sharing their memories of Marco commercial “sharking” with me.

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com 

On Wednesday, November 14, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, a church which first opened 46 years earlier in November of 1966, many old timers came together to celebrate the life of a Modern Marco pioneer – Helen Tateo. She and her husband, Vince, moved to Marco Island in August of 1966, just a little over a year and a half after the official grand opening of the Island on January 31, 1965. They had first visited in February of 1966 and within eight months moved here permanently, bringing with them their three young sons: Paul, age 11; Jess, age 10; and Todd, age 6. In unique fashion like other pioneers before them, they arrived by water, traveling aboard a 36’ cruiser south from Norwalk, Connecticut on an almost two month voyage down the inter-coastal waterway and crossing the Florida peninsula via the Lake Okeechobee Waterway.

Vincent and Helen Tateo.

The Tateo family was exactly what the Mackle Brothers, the developers of Marco Island, were seeking as permanent residents: as developers their emphasis was not just in building roads, seawalls, and creating lots and constructing houses, but they were also building the fabric of a healthy, vibrant community. Extensive marketing was done to draw purchasers wanting to be a part of the Mackle vision of a unique tropical Polynesian lifestyle: an outdoor lifestyle focused on boating, fishing and sports, situated on an Island with an unparalleled pristine crescent beach. While other Florida developers of the era simply platted large tracts of land into rectangular lots, constructed roads and drainage, the Mackles were specifically chosen by the heirs of the county’s namesake, Barron Collier, to participate in an exciting joint venture on the development of Marco Island. The Colliers knew the Mackles had an exceptional performance record and that the Mackles understood the real key to building a community was the human side, the people; the first pioneers who moved to a raw, undeveloped area and created the dynamic energy and excitement that drew others in. Marco was to be a totally planned community with 71 acres set aside for schools, 55 acres committed for churches, 90 acres for parks and beach access, and thousands of acres as preserves and native habitats. Over 11 acres were set aside for libraries, a youth center and an art league and, in addition, 275 plus acres were committed for the building of a yacht club, a country club and other places for people to meet and socialize.

Not only were the Mackles visionaries, but early pioneers buying into the dream of Marco Island could also see into the future. While many purchased Marco property with the plan to retire years later or purchased lots as an investment, there were those who simply took the plunge, transplanted themselves, and chose to raise young families here; actions that took a true pioneer spirit and courage. Today it is almost impossible to look around and see what this Island was like in 1966, or even to understand what was not here.

What was here? Mosquitoes – so thick that as a person walked, they could literally swing their hands back, clinch their fists and kill large handfuls. Also, hundreds of construction workers swarming over the Island, driving over daily from Miami to build roads, dig canals, survey lots, and then leave the island when the construction whistle would blow in the late afternoon.

In 1966 Marco had a permanent population of maybe 500 people, one grocery store – if we wanted to call it that – a 7-11 located where Kretch’s restaurant is now on Bald Eagle Drive, a hardware store, barber shop and a Gulf gas station next door: the Island’s sole “shopping district.” No traffic lights existed, but it did not matter as there were no roads. Your only option for travel east to west was SR 92, later named San Marco Road (from which you could drive on to the beach); while your sole choice from north to south was CR 953 (re-named Bald Eagle Dr), with the north end in Old Marco called Lee Avenue, where the post office was located, and the south end heading through “The Pines” toward Caxambas. By mid 1966 only fifteen miles of new paved roads had been constructed and 4 . miles of concrete seawalls built.

Sword.

The Tateos, like all residents, drove over the old Goodland swing bridge installed in 1938, out to Royal Palm Hammock and then to U.S. 41, adding an additional 14 miles to the trip to Naples. Naples was not much more developed. Islanders picked up their groceries at the closest Publix which was located across from the current Coastland Mall. Paul Tateo remembers trips to Naples where his parents would “totally fill up both the trunk and the backseat of their car with groceries to be brought back to the Island to feed three growing boys.” His school bus ride to downtown Gulfview Middle School was equally long until May of 1969 when the Marco Bridge (now re-named the Jolley Bridge) opened and everyone happily paid a 40 cent toll to return to the Island and cut the travel time. It is hard to imagine today, but it was difficult to purchase clothes or shoes in Naples unless one shopped at the more upscale stores on 5th or 3rd Avenues. The only department store was Grants and, because there was no orthodontist in Naples, Paul’s parents drove him on the old U.S. 41 north to Ft. Myers to get braces, where they often took the opportunity to buy items at the Edison Mall – the closest mall to Marco.

For early Islanders there were few restaurants and most social activities were at the new Yacht Club or County Club or entertaining at newly built homes with lanais overlooking canals and bays. The Tateos constructed a “Mackle Built” Polynesian style home and in 1968 moved in. The Tateos, like many who followed them, were into boating, keeping their boats at the new Yacht Club. The “Sea Witch”, the 35’ Chris Craft, a wooden cruiser they arrived in, required lots of varnish and kept the boys active. When Vince Tateo sold it, he then purchased a Tahiti 33’ Ketch sailboat named the “Ichiban,” also wood. After the maintenance on wooden boats got too much, “The Sword,” a 28’ fiberglass Irwin Sloop, replaced it. By 1976 it was sold and “Shellback,” a trawler purchased; within a ten year period, they had four boats. Not only was the entire family into boating but so was the second monkey they kept as a pet named “Charlie Brown,” who hung out with Vince and was often taken aboard to “assist” as he worked on his boats. One day Charlie was spotted sitting at an open tool box picking up each tool, examining it and tossing it overboard, another time he got a hold of a can of WD 40 and sprayed himself all over until he was caught by Paul, bit him and then Todd says as a result Charlie, “got deported to the Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs, to live out the remainder of his days with another tribe of monkeys in a large cage, surrounded by a pit of alligators.”

In a brand new community there were many opportunities and Vince Tateo decided to pursue his passion and started the first sailing school on the Island, as well as brokering boats. Meanwhile, his wife, Helen, followed her dream of having an art studio and gallery – both located upstairs in a two story commercial building in Old Marco (where Pier 81 condos now are built), above Lowe’s Marina and Jonnie Gantt Realty on the ground floor. The Tateos’ interest in boating resulted in numerous trips with family and friends north to Sanibel/Captiva, Useppa Island, Boca Grande, and south to Everglades City, the Keys, and to the Bahamas. Annually, Vince would race The Sword in the Summerset Regatta from Ft. Myers to Marco Island and back. In 1968 he was instrumental in the founding of the Sailing Association of Marco Island (SAMI) and was named its first Commodore. He also was involved in the formation of Marco’s Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 95, and was a Commodore. Boating classes were then held in the old Deltona Administration building where Marco’s main fire station is now located. Meanwhile, Helen’s art studio gallery evolved into the foundation for the Marco Art League.

Helen Tateo

For the Tateos, Marco was not a sleepy little island, and while TV reception via antenna was almost non-existent for the first three years, the boys were involved in more than just boat maintenance. Paul and Jess got jobs delivering the Marco Eagle, a new eight page newspaper costing 10 cents, written and published by Bill Tamplin, with its first issue dated March 31, 1968. Paul would later get a job scraping barnacles off boats at Marco River Marina and an after school job at Island Drug, while Jess went on to bus tables at the Old Marco Inn and Todd got a job as a beach boy at the Marco Beach Hotel & Villas. Their parents saw other opportunities and changed careers, obtaining their real estate licenses and after being employed by another company, decided to open their own in 1980 – Horizons-by-the-Sea Realty. By then Paul had gotten out of college and joined them; sadly, nine months after opening the business, Vince Tateo passed away at age 56. For the next thirty two years until her death earlier this month, Helen continued to enthusiastically sell Marco Island by communicating to others the vision and the dream that she and her family had achieved here and, as a result, she assisted hundreds of people make Marco their home. The Tateos’ three sons stayed on Marco and each continued to help build the Island like their parents had done, by pursuing their own careers: Paul as broker of Horizons Realty, Jess as a painting contractor, and Todd as a licensed appraiser. Helen would stay active as a member of the Episcopal Church and involved in the lives of her seven grandchildren, all raised on the Island and attended our local schools.

We often take for granted the relaxed outdoor lifestyle of Marco Island, the many clubs and organizations that are available, and the numerous activities we have, but none of it was by chance. Instead, it was the result of a fifty year old vision for this Island being fulfilled and the efforts of pioneers, like Vince and Helen Tateo who saw what Marco could become, pursued their dreams, raised their families and made Marco Island what it is today.

In 1969 at age 13, shortly after Vince Tateo had taught my family how to sail, I went with the Tateos and their boating friends on an overnight sailing trip to Everglades City –it’s all about the memories!

“The Perfect Formation” Bill Blair flying Kingfisher plane #13.

As we reflect on a peaceful Veteran’s Day with great weather and our local beaches full, it is hard to envision a time when Florida skies were full of fighter pilots, our coasts under constant watch for enemy attack, and U.S. sailors both dead and wounded were being brought into Florida hospitals. World War II was not only fought in Europe and in the South Pacific, but was also fought here at home. Few remember that Nazi Germany brought WW II literally to our shores, with U-boats (submarines) paroling up and down our coasts looking for allied ships to destroy.

Along only a portion of Florida’s coast, in 1942, eight freighters carrying cargos including phosphate, lumber, lead, tanks, trucks, airplanes, ore, sugar, and general cargo for the war, along with eight tankers carrying millions of gallons of oil, aviation fuel, and even drinking water were attacked and most were sunk. These 16 ships fought their battles just off of Florida’s eastern shore, south of Cape Canaveral and north of Ft. Lauderdale – a distance of a little over 150 miles. At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean today are shipwrecks off of Cocoa Beach, Jupiter, Cape Canaveral, Melbourne, St. Lucie, Delray Beach and Boca Raton. 158 seamen and crew were killed off the Florida coast during one year, 1942, in these 16 vessels. After the war, German navy records show that the commanders and crew of seven U-boats were involved in the attacks on the 16 ships. German U-boat commander Peter-Erich Cremer in charge of submarine U-333 attacked three of these vessels; on May 5, 1942 close to midnight he heavily damaged the first, the Java Arrow, a tanker, at 3:40 am in the morning of May 6^th he sank a large freighter, the Amazone, and a few hours later at 4:55 am he and his crew sank a large tanker, the Halsey carrying 3 ½ millions gallons of oil. Cremer would later recount what happened in his book: “U-Boat Commander: a periscope view of the Battle of the Atlantic.” Regarding the sinking of the Amazone he would write: “The boat sank like a stone.”

Portrait of Bill Blair done by Malenda Trick.

To stop the destruction, save lives and insure the safe passage of war materials, the U.S. Navy equipped and flew squadrons of the Vought OS2U nicknamed the “Kingfisher.” The plane had a pilot and a radio man/gunner and carried two 325 pound depth charges under its wings and had a range of 805 miles and a maximum speed of 164 mph. Piloting one of them was Lieutenant JG William D.C. “Bill” Blair of Grand Forks, N.D. who had finished flight training in Pensacola, Fl. Bill now resides on Marco Island and was recently honored by being one of twenty veterans whose portraits were painted by Malenda Trick as part of Iberia Bank’s Veteran Portrait Project, a celebration of our local veterans. Bill explains the mission: “Flying south of Cape Canaveral, off the coast of Miami we would pick up convoys of ships coming out of Galveston and other ports in the Gulf of Mexico. Our planes would lead the convoys east into the Atlantic Ocean as far as our fuel would take us. After leaving the convoy we would fly back to “The Rock” now known as Walker’s Cay in the Bahamas.”

The German submarines were diesel powered and would run on batteries when submerged to conserve their oxygen for their crew’s use. During the day using batteries the U-boats did not have the speed to keep up with the convoys, but at night when they came up for air and started their diesel engines they could run much faster. It was no coincidence that German U-boat Commander Cremer’s three battles occurred in the middle of the night. His and the other U-boats also refueled at night by use of “milk ships” or German mother ships.

Dusty Rhodes of Marco Island, a Navy aviator flying out of Jacksonville in the 1960s, explained the secrecy: “During WW II there was little to no publicity regarding the presence of German subs off our coasts because the government frankly did not want to frighten our citizens.” He explained that even when he was flying similar missions looking for and tracking Russian nuclear subs in and around Florida there was no publicity for the same reasons and even today, unknown to the public, U.S. Navy airmen remain in the air to monitor and safeguard our coasts.

In 1944 Blair was forced to land his Kingfisher in the Atlantic Ocean as his radio man/gunner called “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” over their radio. Their single engine had mechanical problems and they floated for nine hours in the Bermuda Triangle before being rescued by a U.S. Torpedo boat and taken back to “The Rock.” Blair and two other fellow pilots flying in formation were photographed by Newsweek. The photograph appeared on the cover of that magazine and was titled “The Perfect Formation,” he is flying the closest plane #13.

Photo of Bill and Miff Blair, with his portrait and daughter Bonnie Woodward. PHOTO BY CRAIG WOODWARD

Bill Blair’s portrait and story along with the 19 other veterans will be exhibited at the Marco Iberia Bank branch until November 16th, then in Iberia’s North Naples branch on Pine Ridge Road for a week, moving on November 29^th to the Naples Backyard History Museum on 3^rd Street South until early January 2013. These 20 excellent paintings done by artist Malenda Trick are well worth seeing. If you are unable to visit them, I suggest you view the slide show of them at her website:http://malendatrick.com/vets2/index.html

I want to thank Bill Blair, who I am fortunate to have as my father-in-law, for his information for this article, as well as thank Dusty Rhodes, Malenda Trick, Keith Dameron of Iberia Bank and all of the veterans and heroes who have served our country and preserved our freedoms.

Craig Woodward 

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com

Part of John Lee Williams’ 1837 map showing the Caximba route around Cape Roman. SUBMITTED PHOTO

The last few issues of this newspaper have contained excellent articles about Cape Romano, regarding the history of the dome house and the former pyramid house built in the early 1980s. This large point of land is one of Florida’s earliest recognized geographic features similar to Florida’s other large cape, Cape Canaveral. So, let’s investigate the early history of Cape Romano.

Our story started 500 years ago when, in 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed up the Southwest Coast of Florida on his first discovery trip of Florida. A few years later in 1521, he returned to our area only to be wounded in a battle with the Calusa Indians and was taken to Havana where he died as a result of his injuries. Either because of his discovery of this area, or perhaps to acknowledge his death, the Spanish named the large bay stretching from Cape Sable north to Cape Romano as “Juan Ponce de Leon Bay”; it retained that name for centuries. By 1762 the English had invaded and taken control over Spain’s principal colonial city Havana, the hub for its holdings in the Caribbean. They almost immediately traded Havana back to Spain in 1763 in return for what the English would call East Florida (now known as the peninsula) and West Florida (now known as the panhandle). The British sent out surveyors to chart their newly acquired coasts and, in 1765, surveyor William G. De Brahm, started working his way around the Florida coast routinely changing Spanish names to proper English ones. The old “Juan Ponce de Leon Bay” became the new large Chatham Bay with Gullivan’s River (now Blackwater River) in the bay’s northeast corner.

“Our story starts 500 years ago with Ponce de Leon.” 

The next surveyor appointed by the English, Bernard Romans, who despised De Brahm- probably because Romans was owed money for surveying work he had done when De Brahm was his employer- said this about De Brahm’s work:“I have carefully avoided the change of well-known names of places; but preserved the old ones, except only in two or three places where the name was not well known, or where there was none at all. Nothing can be more absurd, or productive of confusion, than the assuming new and fantastical names in places of so much danger; yet the author of a certain pamphlet, published two years ago, has done this at no small rate.”

This statement, however, did not stop Romans in 1771 from seeing an opportunity to change the old Spanish name of “Punta Larga” (Large Point) to a new, and in his mind, more fashionable name of Cape Romans! Shortly after the end of the American Revolution in 1783, Spain once again acquired all of Florida back from the English. Apparently it was not worth their trouble to re-establish the old Spanish names for rivers, places and islands and, for the most part, Spain simply left the English names intact, but in some cases those names evolved to sound more Spanish – Cape Romans eventually became Cape Romano.

Nautical Chart of 1893 showing the Cape Romano Astronomical Station established 1886. SUBMITTED PHOTO

By 1821, the United States obtained Florida from Spain for $5 million (a way to repay debts Spain owed us). As the U.S. developed nautical charts of the area, they showed the heavy shoaling south of Cape Romano with numerous ever shifting sandbars, and before long American guidebooks were suggesting that this dangerous area could be avoided by using the “Caximba,” a channel or route that would have taken one up and around the shoals via the current Marco River entering at Coon Key, passing the current Goodland, and exiting out to the north through Marco Pass. By 1837 John Lee Williams, who traveled around the exterior of Florida, wrote, “Punta Longa, or Cape Roman, is situated in latitude 26° and longitude 6° 46’ W. It is the south point of a large island, and projects fifteen miles from the main land, and from a S. W. point a succession of sandy shoals extend fifteen miles farther, in a S. S. W. direction. Vessels drawing six feet water may avoid this cape, by passing through the Caximba and by a passage of nine miles, shun a dangerous voyage of sixty miles.”

Florida evolved from a territory to becoming a U.S. State in 1845 and one of its first obligations was to survey land and divide the state into “government lots” for sale. Cape Romano was surveyed by John Henderson in 1878 and was subdivided into parcels for future government sale. However, again recognizing the historic shoaling to the south of Cape Romano, the official government surveyor noted on the survey that the U.S. Secretary of Treasury had ordered that Cape Romano be set aside for a future lighthouse.

Our story picks up in 1886 when charts of the area show the “Cape Romano Astronomical Station” in the area of the current dome house, leading one to wonder what is an Astronomical Station? A 1913 government book entitled “Triangulation along the West coast of Florida” describes the station: “On Cape Romano 6 meters back of high-water line and 315 meters north of the most southern point of the cape. The station is marked by a hole in the top of a marble post. A tile is buried 16.04 meters due north of the station and another 15.50 meters east by north. A large buttonwood tree marked with a blazed cross is at the edge of the woods about 125 meters north-northeast from the station and a large red mangrove tree similarly marked is at the edge of the woods about 160 meters east by north.” So what was this station? It was not a building and no one lived there, it was simply a government marker – a small round brass disk with a hole in the center and a legend that said “U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Triangulation Station. For information write to Superintendent, Washington, D.C. $250 fine or imprisonment for disturbing this mark.”

“Our story picks up in 1886 when charts of the area show the “Cape Romano Astronomical Station.”

The station had been established in 1885 and later was revisited in 1887. It was one of 1,150 different stations around the Gulf Coast of Florida, others nearby included one at Pavilion Key, Horse Key, Coon Key, Johnson Station on top of Indian Hill (Charles Johnson owned Indian Hill selling it later to the Barfields), Caxambas, Big Marco, Little Marco, Gordon Pass, and so on. The purpose of these stations was to create points along the coast where triangles could be established in order to “trigonometrically correlate on one geodetic datum” the specific locations of Florida’s Gulf Coast. They were called Astronomical Stations because the origins and standards for latitude and longitude were usually determined by astronomic observations.

As can be seen from a map of their work, some of the points of the triangles were out in the Gulf waters and had strange names like “Flossy.” It is not clear how these were established or ever found again. In 1901 the Federal Government adopted the U.S. Standard Datum – which in 1913 became the North American Datum after both Canada and Mexico adopted the same system. The data collected for this effort was used by geographers and cartographers to create early maps, including correcting the attached 1893 chart. Today’s Global Positioning System (GPS) makes this early effort in mapping our coast look like enormous work and at huge expense, but it was the technology of the day.

A portion of the Triangulation Map of the Astronomical Stations printed in 1913. SUBMITTED PHOTO

On April 12, 1898, two months after the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, which started the Spanish American War (and would bring Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders to Florida and then on fame winning the battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba), President William McKinley issued an executive order permanently reserving the southern point of Cape Romano for a lighthouse. The reason given was to protect the heavy ship traffic which was expected between Tampa and Key West, for transporting military supplies and troops to the war front in Cuba. The war against Spain only lasted 64 days and Cuba gained its independence as a result.

The closest lighthouses to Cape Romano are in Key West, built in 1826, and the one at the south tip of Sanibel Island, constructed in 1884; both still exist and are worth visiting. The 1901 minutes of the Annual Lighthouse Board show that the U.S. Secretary of Treasury asked the Speaker of the House of Representatives for $45,000 for a lighthouse to be built at Cape Romano, it was requested because of the 100 mile spread between the Sanibel and Key West lighthouses and the large shipping commerce between those points. For years there were discussions in Congress about funding a lighthouse at Cape Romano due to the danger to vessels of the heavy shoaling, but sufficient funds were never appropriated and it was never built.

“For years there were discussions about funding a lighthouse, but it was never built.” 

Today, while most of Morgan Island is government owned, other parts of this large island, including Cape Romano, remain in private hands; yet this historic Cape remains one of the most dramatic, windswept, natural places in Florida.

We invite you to broaden your horizons with a concentration on the history of Fort Myers.

On May 1, our regular monthly meeting will begin at 7:00 P.M. in the Rose History Auditorium with our featured speaker Matthew Johnson, Director of Cultural and Historic Affairs or the city of Fort Myers.  His power point presentation will include references to the time 10,000 ago when stone age people inhabited Florida, and will bring us up to date with the ancient Indians of SW Florida, the beginnings of Fort Myers and Lee County.  Photographs and illustrations will pinpoint the changes along the way, with a commentary by the speaker.

A follow-up to this program will be a field trip on May 11 to the Fort Myers Historical District.  We well meet at 9:00 A.M. in the museum parking lot on Marco for carpools, and maps will be furnished.  We will visit the Cracker House, the old railroad car, the museum itself and have lunch across the street in a charming restaurant.  The cost for this event is $30 which includes lunch and admission to the museum.  Call Jerry Masters at 239-394-3917 for reservations.

Craig Woodward 

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com

Alfred Weeks the son of John J. Weeks and Lizzie Weeks at the Marco Cemetery 1948. PHOTO COURTESY OF FAYE BROWN

An article titled “The Headstone Project” was published in this column on October 7, 2011. Donations were requested for the purchase of a headstone for Elizabeth (Lizzie) Weeks Barnes Sawyer. Granny Sawyer, as she was known before her death, was buried in an unmarked grave at the Marco Island Cemetery. She died in 1939, in the middle of the depression and her family had a simple burial at the cemetery, later adding a tabby mortar slab, where her name had once been scratched in the surface. For over half a century there was no visible clue on the slab; it was a local mystery who was buried there.

Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Raulerson, born around 1858, would have been about age 4 when she moved with her mother, Sarah Weeks, step-father John J. Weeks, Jr. and her older sister, Martha, to the mouth of what is now known as the Barron River, where the river enters Chokoloskee Bay near current Everglades City. The river was then called Potato Creek. The location of their homestead is now within the city limits of Everglades City, currently the headquarters of Outward Bound. It is difficult to imagine how remote this area was in 1862 – the nearest neighbors were either in Key West or near Sanibel Island. The Weeks were clearly a struggling family with young children – Martha age 6, and Lizzie, 4. They made a living by fishing and farming; the market for their produce being Key West, shipped there by passing vessels from Charlotte Harbor.

The new headstone for Elizabeth Weeks (aka Lizzy) with her great, great grandson Melvin Brown who helped install it. PHOTO BY CRAIG WOODWARD/COASTAL BREEZE NEWS

Unknown to them at the time, the Weeks family would make history as the first permanent settlers of the future Collier County. Sarah Weeks would die at their home in 1865 giving birth to her 4th child, the second daughter she would have with John. At her death, John was left with the four girls, two from Sarah’s first marriage and two from his marriage to Sarah. John appropriately named the new baby after his wife, Sarah, born the day of his wife’s death. Before long the census records in 1870 would show that Martha, the oldest child, moved away leaving Lizzie and her step-father raising her two younger step sisters. In a strange twist of fate, John married Lizzie in a Catholic ceremony in Key West on March 18, 1878. During their twenty two year marriage, they lived in various places including Cape Sable, Chokoloskee Island, northern Rookery Bay, Marco Island and were living at the Blue Hill Plantation on the eastern side of Horr’s Island (now called “Key Marco”) when John died in June of 1900. John and Lizzie had seven children together. Three years after John’s death, Lizzie married Andrew Barnes and they lived at Grocery Place (see the prior article on this remote settlement at coastalbreezenews. com) – one daughter was born from that marriage. After Andrew’s death, Lizzie married in 1908 for the third and last time to Richard (“Dick”) Sawyer and helped raise his young son, Preston Sawyer, age 9. Preston Sawyer’s life is told in the local history book “The Caxambas Kid.” Lizzie lived in Marco Island (now known as Old Marco) until her death at age 80 in 1939. She was described by her granddaughter as being a “quiet, gentle woman” who didn’t have to raise her voice to get across what she meant, also known as a woman who kept an immaculately clean house.

Of the four original Weeks family members who moved here 150 years ago, John is buried in an unmarked and, to date, unfound grave on Horr’s Island. His wife, Sarah, as mentioned above, is also buried in an unmarked and unfound grave near what is now known as Outward Bound at the mouth of the Barron River. Daughter Martha Raulerson Lanier died in 1939, and is buried in Morriston, Fl. and Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Weeks Barnes Sawyer’s grave at the Marco Cemetery is now identified and honored by her family.

On March 5, 2012, I assisted Lizzie Weeks’ great, great grandson, Melvin Brown to unload and place her headstone on top of the slab that her sons had originally installed so many years before. The new headstone is a fitting tribute to a pioneer woman who moved here 150 years ago and to whom literally hundreds of people alive today count as their direct ancestor.

Everyone who donated to this cause is appreciated, but especially Faye A. Brown who raised funds by the sale of her book “Weeks Family Connections” and also to Chris Durfey for her contributions and assistance on this project.

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com

The Mackle Brothers who owned most of the Deltona Corporation. SUBMITTED PHOTOS

The one single document with the greatest impact on the growth and density of Marco Island would be, without a doubt, the “Deltona Settlement Agreement.” This document created much of the current developed and undeveloped “eastern” Marco Island, as well as much of Rookery Bay and also created a great deal of the “951 Corridor” south of U.S. 41. The Agreement was not your normal arm’s length negotiated “deal” but was, in fact, the end result of years of complex litigation between the Deltona Corporation, who were the developers of Marco Island and of Marco Shores, and a multitude of governmental groups including the U.S.A., the State of Florida including a number of its sub agencies – the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection (“DEP”), The Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (which consists of the Governor and his Cabinet), South Florida Water Management District, as well as many environmental groups including the National and Florida Audubon Societies, the Environmental Defense Fund, Collier County Conservancy, etc. The Settlement Agreement immediately settled nine separate lawsuits, five of them with the DEP and one with the federal government, being an off-shoot of a case that had just been denied a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court a few months earlier. It is not an exaggeration to say that this document, dated July 20, 1982, created the Marco Island we know today.

Recent newspaper articles report controversies that have historical roots in this now 30 year-old Agreement. For instance, a recent story reported that the DEP had filed suit against a number of property owners with boardwalks constructed to gain access to Barfield Bay – why was the State objecting? Because, the development rights to all of the lots abutting Barfield Bay that Deltona had owned were given up in the Settlement Agreement. The Agreement rezoned this strip of land as “Environmentally Sensitive.”

Map showing part of Deltona’s original land holdings.

Additional stories appear about the dead mangrove areas near San Marco Road and the cost to restore them. A contributing cause: the Agreement allowed the development of the adjacent “John Steven Creek” (the location of condos of the same name, Stevens Landing), “Barfield Bay Multifamily Area” (now where Estuary and Vintage Bay Condos are) as well as “Horr’s Island” (Key Marco Development) to be constructed without having to meet the full requirements for surface water management.

But, there are more far reaching provisions of this Agreement. It carved out “specific developable areas” that were deemed high and “upland” enough to build upon. These include the now completed areas of: Goodland Marina (now called the Calusa Island Marina), Horr’s Island (The Key Marco development), the Barfield Bay single family area (streets behind the “Big Publix”), the Barfield Bay multi-family area (condos mentioned above) and a parcel of land known as “Isle of Capri” – at the corner of Capri Blvd and S.R. 951 (Collier Blvd) which is currently being developed by Collier County into a canoe and kayak park. All of these projects were possible because of this Agreement and, in fact, parts of each continue to be constrained by the Agreement; for instance, the approval to develop Horr’s Island into the Key Marco project permitted only a small portion of the center ridge of the Island to be developed, while the many mangrove and preserve areas were placed under the protection of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Recently this was in the news regarding the extent to which the vegetation could be trimmed without environmental approval.

Map showing the extent of Deltona’s ownership in 1982 – to the south is Kice Island, to the north U.S. 41, and to the west is part of now Rookery Bay.

Deltona amassed and owned 24,962 acres of land on or around Marco Island. However, by the date of the Settlement Agreement in July of 1982, they had been only able to develop and improve less than a fourth of it, only 5,518 acres, leaving 19,444 acres yet to be developed, almost 70% of which (13,500 acres) were classified as “wetlands.” Where are these thousands of undeveloped acres? Two large parcels, which Deltona had already totally presold, were the “Big Key” and the “Barfield Bay” areas located to the north and south of San Marco Road as one heads toward the Goodland Bridge – 5,889 planned residential units were never built here. Meanwhile, a third, and even larger tract, the controversial “Unit 24,” also known as “The Collier-Read Tract,” consisted of 3,564 acres, platted to contain 6,604 units and was located due west of SR 951 projecting directly into the middle of Rookery Bay (now a National Estuarine Research Preserve). In total Deltona planned 12,493 potential single family and condominium dwelling units in these three developments. Their presale of all of the lots located in the Big Key and Barfield Bay areas and over half of those in Unit 24, never to be completed, put a huge financial stress on the company to repay its customers. In addition, the large Kice Island project (which Deltona envisioned connecting via a bridge from Horr’s Island) located north of Cape Romano included 2 . miles of pristine gulf front beach, was never constructed and title to 4,032 acres was transferred to the State of Florida.

Meanwhile lands to the east of S.R. 951 and north of Marco were deemed less environmentally sensitive. This included Marco Shores where Deltona had constructed its airport, a country club and adjacent multi-family parcels. To the north of that was the huge parcel known as “Unit 30” – now incorporated into the current “Fiddler’s Creek” project. As a strategic move, Deltona acquired the properties that made up Unit 30 after 1976, when the Corps of Engineers announced their denial of the development of the Big Key and Barfield Bay permits. The rest of Deltona’s undeveloped 19,444 acres included hundreds of mangrove islands located in and around Addison Bay (to the east of the Jolley Bridge), and in the areas of MclIvaine Bay, and south of Horr’s Island, all of which were deemed environmentally sensitive.

Environmentalists Opposed to Deltona.

In a stroke of a pen thousands and thousands of acres of land were designated for transfer to Rookery Bay, the DEP, or set aside with conservation easements never to be developed. In addition the Settlement Agreement cancelled virtually all of the existing permits and approvals. So what did Deltona obtain by signing it? Obviously the end to expensive litigation (which did not look promising as the U.S. Supreme Court had just refused to hear their case), but also immediate approval by all of the ten agencies who signed it for the completion of the “developable areas” and established an expedited procedure for any other approvals needed. Deltona was given 50 acres owned by the State near the Miami International Airport and the ability to quickly develop or sell off as “fully permitted projects”: Horr’s Island, John Stevens Creek area, Goodland Marina, the Barfield single family area and multi-family areas, and the Isles of Capri parcel. But what else did Deltona get? An enormous concession, and clearly the single largest impact on modern day Marco Island, they received the right to transfer their remaining vested density of 14,500 dwelling units (less the units which remained permitted to be constructed on Marco Island) north along the 951 corridor. So when you drive north and see the large high rises of Hammock Bay or the scope of the Fiddler’s Creek project, know that, but for this Agreement, some of the units you are seeing were once planned to be built on Marco Island.

The Deltona Corporation took the high ground, repaid all of its customers and refused to file bankruptcy. The company never fully recovered from these financial setbacks as well as from the repercussions of the litigation (despite this Settlement Agreement), and in 1986, Deltona was sold for its assets, primarily the water, sewer and other utilities it had retained in the various developments around the State, including those on Marco Island. This sale led to private ownership of Marco’s water and sewer franchises, resulting in a later purchase of them by the City of Marco Island, which in turn led to more controversy and litigation. Without a doubt, the events of today are impacted by the decisions of yesterday, and only those who take the time to analyze the history can fully understand it.

Craig Woodward 

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com

G.W. Storter’s Store on the Allen River with the Storter home in rear (currently the Everglades City Rod & Gun Club). PHOTO BY ALVIN LEDERER

The first full time minister in Southwest Florida was George W. Gatewood. Before Reverend Gatewood, at age 24, came to scout out the area in 1886, there had been traveling Protestant preachers who held periodic revivals as well as Roman Catholic priests, from Key West, who came to the Chokoloskee area to attend to the spiritual needs of the Santini family and other Catholics; but none of them actually resided here. In the late 1800s, Key West was the principal city of the area and a number of the Conchs were Methodists. “Conchs” being the name given to transplanted white Bahamians who had moved to the Keys, many of them were descendents of British royalists who had escaped to the Bahamas after the Revolutionary War. Rev. Gatewood was a Methodist minister and was based out of what is currently Everglades City. He traveled the Ten Thousand Islands area (Marco Island, Fakahatchee Island, Halfway Creek, and Chokoloskee) for four years as a “circuit preacher.” In 1892, at age 30 he married his wife, Minnie Clark of Leesburg Florida, who was 16 at the time. The couple would document their adventures in the Everglades– Minnie by keeping a diary and George, years later, by writing two books about his days in Southwest Florida, one published in 1939, and the other in 1944.

George Gatewood built a church along the then Allen River (now the Barron River) in the town of Everglade (the name later changed to add the current “s”) and organized, as Rev. Gatewood would call it: “a little group of Methodists,” who became the core of a larger congregation which included Seminole Indians. The Seminoles were in town to deal at G.W. Storter’s store near the current Rod and Gun Club. George Storter was a key member of Gatewood’s church. Gatewood reported that the Seminoles insisted on first selling their hides and furs and receiving their cash before they, in turn, purchased any supplies. The seating at the church during service was no problem, as the Indians refused to sit on the benches and would sit cross-legged on the floor.

Methodist Circuit Preacher George W. Gatewood. PHOTO BY CHARLOTTE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Transportation at the time was solely by sailboat as there were no roads in Southwest Florida. Many of his reminiscences had to do with bad weather, boating accidents and delays in travel. He reported that his 1893 trip to the Florida Methodist Conference in Palatka, Florida, took eight days of travel time. Rev. Gatewood accepted part of his pay in produce, including bananas and sugar cane syrup, and took those items with him to sell to finance the trip. On December 5th he started out from Everglades City toward Marco with another man and, when their borrowed sailboat capsized near Fakahatchee Island (due to a strong northern headwind and a “head tide”), a barrel of syrup poured out and “sweeten the bay for a considerable distance.” They waded out into the water and pulled the boat ashore. On December 18th he again started out for the Conference, this time accompanied by his wife with Captain R.B. Storter at the helm, but they immediately got stuck in Chokoloskee Bay at low tide. Later, when the tide came up, they were able to get to Coon Key and anchor for the night. The next day they got to Marco and ate dinner with George Gatewood’s friend, Capt. Bill Collier, and the following day sailed north facing a strong headwind but were able to get to Punta Rassa (at the base of the current Sanibel Bridge) by 4 AM. The following day they sailed to Punta Gorda and it took several more days by train to Bartow, to Orlando, then to Leesburg and finally to Palatka where the Methodist Conference was being held.

Sunday school - Town of Everglade – 1906.

Gatewood, during his 62 years here, was a keen observer of this area and especially the fishing industry. He reported that Captain Fred Quednau (later the mayor of Punta Gorda and the sheriff of Charlotte County), had once been in a boat off of Cape Romano seeing “50 acres of redfish where the water was about 25 feet deep and they were stirring up the sand from that depth. So many (redfish) were there that the fish at the surface were being lifted up by those below, creating the appearance of a coral oyster rock rising slightly above the water-level. The red cast of color was from the red color of the fish and their rippling of water helped give the appearance of being above the general surface level.” In 1892 Rev. Gatewood reported seeing a 56 foot long whale, “nearly dead,” that had drifted in to a pass west of Chokoloskee Island. The whale, tied to a mangrove tree, was being harvested by the Santini family of Chokoloskee who reportedly got 30 barrels of oil from the whale. When George and his wife Minnie rowed their boat around it they estimated the jawbone to be ten feet in length and the teeth to be “the size of a Jersey’s cow horn.”

Minnie Gatewood with her dog. PHOTO BY CHARLOTTE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In 1900 George Gatewood was appointed the “federal census enumerator” and sailed the islands in a light draft sailboat locating citizens and taking down data. He stumbled upon a vacant cabin and, while looking for the residents, found a moonshine still in the back yard, he quickly left and headed across the bay to another house where he found two men both drunk with “a barrel with the makings in it.” They had seen him and knew he had landed at the cabin and had discovered their still. They were not reassured that Gatewood and the man with him (named Parker) were not “revenue agents,” but finally they answered the census questions that Gatewood posed to them. It helped a lot that Parker was armed with a six-shooter.

Being a Methodist Circuit Preacher was also a risky profession at the time. Captain Bill Collier tipped Gatewood off that: “a certain old man around here who, with a shotgun, was hunting you a while ago saying he was going to kill you because of something you said last Sunday in the pulpit.” The old man was a Civil War veteran who had heard Rev. Gatewood had made “certain unfavorable remarks about old soldiers.” Gatewood avoided the old man until he and his wife Minnie and her sister, “Bird” were going from Chokoloskee to Marco and got stuck on a little island for three days during a huge storm. They ran out of fresh water and had no choice but to go to the old soldier’s home to get water. Minnie objected as she did not want to carry her husband’s body “as a corpse home,” but in the end the old soldier and his wife were very cordial and the threats apparently forgotten.

One incident that did not turn out as well involved residents of Marco Island and their lack of Christian zeal. Gatewood built the first chapel on Marco. One of Rev. Gatewood’s Methodist congregation in Everglade, “Brother Lockhart,” who lived at Halfway Creek, and was described as “a steward, and an exhorter and was very zealous” became concerned over the “flock at Marco.” When Rev. Gatewood told him that he did not see “any change in them”, Lockwood, who had been recently licensed as an exhorter by the church, preached a sermon to Gatewood to demonstrate what he believed it would take to convert the Marco folks. At Rev. Gatewood’s request, Lockwood accompanied him on the next trip to Marco and did the preaching. Gatewood thought Lockwood did well, but noted that after the service those who attended chatted among themselves for a while then all went home. Lockwood said nothing as he and Rev. Gatewood went to their boat to prepare their dinner; when asked why he was so silent, Lockwood replied: “Well, I was just thinking about Paul when he was shipwrecked on the island of Melita where barbarous people showed him no little kindness and these folks here haven’t even asked us to dinner.”

Both of George W. Gatewood’s books are long out of print and his wife Minnie’s original diary is now located at Florida Gulf Coast University. They provide a rare look into everyday life at the turn of the century. George Gatewood died in 1947 at age 87 and his wife predeceased him in 1944, however their home still exists in Punta Gorda.

I want to thank Marya Repko of Everglades City for providing me copies of part of one of George Gatewood’s books for this article.

A Surveyor in 1885, photo courtesy of Alvin Lederer. SUBMITTED PHOTOS

Imagine not being able to obtain a deed to property on which you have built a house and lived in for years! That was just one of the problems faced by pioneering settlers in “Florida’s Last Frontier”.

Surveyors faced myriad obstacles such as shifting coastlines and, of course, mosquitoes. Meanwhile, the State was transferring vast tracts of land to railroad companies without regard to pioneers’ homestead rights.

To learn more about early attempts to establish property boundaries and obtain titles, you can attend an illustrated presentation: “Surveying Problems in the Ten Thousand Islands” on Friday, February 24, at 6:00 PM at the Everglades Seafood Depot Restaurant in historic Everglades City.

Survey Party Everglades (AL).

The speaker is Craig Woodward, a Marco Island attorney with a passion for local history. He spoke on this subject to professional surveyors at their annual conference in October of last year. “Two murders, an inept government, pioneer Crackers pitted against large railroad interests, years of frustration in getting legal title to homestead property, and a local story that hit the Associated Press wire and went national in the 1920s – this topic is interesting even to those who know nothing about surveying”, said Woodward.

This event is presented by the Everglades Society for Historic Preservation. Cost is $25 per person, which includes dinner. To make reservations, see www. evergladeshistorical.org where you can download a form to send with your check or book online with a credit/debit card. For more information, phone Marya at (239) 695-2905.

Fakahatchee Strand in the Ten Thousand Islands. PHOTOS BY MARYA REPKO

Join us for a really unique “Olde Florida” treat. The Friends of Fakahatchee are hosting Coastal Cruises through the mysterious mangroves of the Ten Thousands Island. On the way, you will probably see dolphins cavorting with the tour boat. When you arrive at Fakahatchee Island, a naturalist will point out unusual plants on the path up the ancient shell mound to the old cemetery. On the return journey, the boat passes by a famous rookery where the birds will be settling down for the evening.

We might think of “Fakahatchee” as a swamp with Ghost Orchids and Florida Panthers but to many local Gulf Coast families, it was the Fakahatchee Island that was important. In fact, it even had a school!

Ready for passengers.

That was back in the early 1900s when farmers and fishermen had settled around Fakahatchee Bay, west of Chokoloskee, and scratched out a living. They grew fruits and veggies to sail to market in Key West.

And, they fished. Salted mullet by the barrel brought in much-need funds. What remains today is memories – and a cemetery, cisterns, a cow dip, and some wonderful unspoilt landscape with rare plants.

You will see local wildlife.

The Friends of Fakahatchee are repeating their successful Fakahatchee Coastal Cruise on January 21, February 25, March 10, and March 25. The event begins with a talk about the history of the area at the Everglades National Park Ranger Station in Everglades City at 3:00 p.m. Participants will then be ferried to the island by Everglades National Park Boat Tours. The event ends around 6:00 p.m. back in Everglades City where there are interesting restaurants in which to enjoy the area’s signature stone crabs and other delicacies.

This is a unique opportunity to learn about our outer islands and the communities that existed in olden times. It is also a chance to see a Ten Thousand Islands ecology that has not changed for over fifty years!

For information about the Fakahatchee Coastal Cruise, phone Marya at (239) 695-2905 or see www.orchidswamp.org and click on Events Schedule. Places (at $75 per person) are limited.

CWoodward@wpl-legal.com

While most know that the Spanish discovered Florida and that the U.S. later purchased it from Spain, few know that for 20 years England owned and controlled the state, which they divided into East Florida (the peninsula) with its headquarters in St. Augustine, and West Florida (the panhandle) with its headquarters in Pensacola. These twenty years were a critical time for the U.S – from 1763 to 1783 – the years encompassing the American Revolution, a time when life might have been much easier if an ally like Spain and not England controlled the area south of the colonies.

Soon after the British took control of Florida in1763, they had it “surveyed” – that is to say, they had maps made of the coastline showing the mouths of rivers, inlets and bays. Hired as the Surveyor General was William Gerard de Brahm who renamed the large “Bay of Juan Ponte de León” – located north of Cape Sable and south of Punta Larga (large point) with a more proper English name of Chatham Bay. He also added other English names to the area such as Delaware River – in the area of Collier Seminole State Park and Youngs River – in the area of Everglades City.

The English next engaged Bernard Romans – who had served as deputy surveyor for de Brahm, but had no liking for the man, probably because Romans was not paid for the work he did for de Brahm. In discussing de Brahm’s book Romans, says: “…this narrative deserves contempt…. Evidently bearing marks of insanity, demands our pity…” and with sarcasm, refers to de Brahm as a “singular genius.” He blasts de Brahm for re-naming coastal locations: “Nothing can be more absurd, or productive of confusion, than the assuming new and fantastical names in places of so much danger; yet the author of a certain pamphlet, published two years ago, has done this at no small rate.” Romans did his mapping of our area in the first part of the year 1771. In doing so he noticed that Punta Larga had not been renamed by de Brahms, interestingly Romans apparently had no reservations about naming it after himself, he added Cape Roman to his map, later changed on Spanish maps to be the current Cape Romano.

Romans described in detail numerous ideas of how money could be made in the new Floridas (East and West) including bee-keeping, raising cotton, making indigo, producing special dyes from the bodies of insects, raising plants for medicinal purposes, the salt business and many other possible ventures. He specifically researched and described the “Pescadores Grandes” (Spanish large commercial fishermen), who used thirty vessels from ten to forty tons each during the months of September to March. Their main fishing grounds were the waters of Southwest Florida, plentiful due to the estuary system of the Ten Thousand Islands. Romans was not pleased by how the English handled this area of Florida: “… the extensive fisheries in the power of these colonies, with which they now supinely, not to say stupidly, allow the Spaniards to run away. The whole of the west coast of East Florida is covered with fishermen’s huts and flakes…” (Platforms built to dry fish.)

Bernard Roman’s English Map of 1776 showing the chart work by de Brahm and Romans including the newly named Chatham Bay and Cape Roman as well as the historic name “Caximbo”. CREDIT – DARTMOUTH LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTION

He described the Spanish bureaucratic regulation and taxation of this industry: a history lesson that confirms for us that some things never change! Cuban fishermen, in order to sell fish in the Havana market, first had to pay for and obtain government issued licenses specifying the quantity of fish that could later be sold. Only then could they purchase the salt required to cure their fish from the official government warehouse. Romans reports that the official rate was twelve “rials” (the currency in Cuba) or $1.50 at the time for less than two bushels of salt (one “fanego”). The government warehouse was kept full of salt due to the efforts of these same fishermen who were required to sail to Cay Sal (Salt Key) now part of the Bahamas (located northeast of Cuba), purchase salt there, load it onto their boats and bring it back to Havana, where the government paid them 3 rials or only 37 cents for the same approximate two bushels they would later re-purchase for four times as much! The salt in Cay Sal was produced in large swallow ponds laid out so that fresh saltwater would flow in at high tide and then was blocked off. Evaporation, as well as prevailing winds that drove the water into foam at one end of the pond, allowed the extraction of salt in large quantities. Romans’ vision for commercial salt cultivation in Florida was not achieved until over sixty years later in the 1830’s when the Key West salt ponds opened.

In addition, the Spanish fishermen were required to purchase their entire supplies for the seven months of fishing at the official government store. It was reported that, while some supplies were purchased, many fishermen chose to purchase only the bare necessities planning to catch their own food and on foraging for supplies when they got to Florida. One of the oldest names on maps in North America is “Caxymbas” or now “Caxambas” a Spanish name given to the southern part of Marco Island where the fishermen knew they could obtain fresh water.

The bulk of the cargoes the fishermen returned with were filled with red drum which Romans reported the French call poisson rouge (Redfish), and he remarked that if they can get Pampanos (Pompano) the price is three times as high as for any other fish. Rounding out the normal catch would be “a few soles, some sea trout, and the roes of mullets and black drum” along with “no inconsiderable quantity” of “oil from the liver of nurse and sharks.” Romans explains that the roe of mullets and black drums were “put into a pickle for about a quarter of an hour, then taken out and partially dried by the sun, then pressed between two boards and smoked in a small hut using corn cobs” as fuel (it is unclear where they obtained any corn cobs). The Spanish are said to be very fond of this roe and “use them instead of cavear.” Of the huge quantities of mullet netted, they only took the roe and tossed the rest of the fish. Romans reported that the “sounds” or air bladders of sea trout could be dried to make a “glew” which he called a “perfect and fine ichthyocolla” – a word that is now archaic and means a gelatin used as an adhesive.

Fish that were being kept for sale were brought on shore, cleaned and gutted, then layered and packed with salt. The salt pulled the moisture from the fish creating brine, and after about a week or two made the flesh of the fish translucent. The filets would be washed and pressed to squeeze more moisture from it as well as to lighten it and then hung up to dry on wood hooks suspended by “strings of silk grass from flakes or stages.” The wind and the sun would dry it completely in about a week. Spanish fishermen salted about a thousand tons of fish each year. This was clearly big business and was a major supply of food for the Cuban markets for literally centuries. After the fishing boat was full, they would return to Havana where there was a further government import duty of 2 . percent to be paid. On the sale of the cargo, the net proceeds (after all costs and taxes) were split up into 1/3 for the owner of the vessel, and the remaining 2/3rds split 20% to the ship master and 80% divided among the crew. In these calculations Romans notes that two boys were counted as being equal to one man or each getting a half of a share.

To make extra money in Havana, the fishermen would catch colorful song birds along the shores of Florida building cages for them and reselling them in the Cuba markets where they were in large demand by the women of the cities. Another author of the time said that the gooey sap from the Gumbo Limbo tree was used to make a “bird lime” which applied to limbs of bushes and trees caused small birds’ feet to get stuck and allowed their live capture.

Photo of a Cuban Smack washed ashore on Marco’s Beach after the October 1941 Hurricane. PHOTO CREDIT – FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES

Entrepreneurs established permanent fishing “ranchos” along Florida’s Gulf Coast, most of which extended between Tampa and Marco Island with Charlotte Harbor as the central area. These fishing ranchos, operated by settlers of Spanish nationality as well as Indians, assisted the Cuban fishermen with food and water, as well as provided extra manpower for the netting and curing of fish. In 1836, as the Second Seminole War advanced down into SW Florida, petitions from the owners of the ranchos that they were really U.S. citizens were ignored by the U.S. Government. Spanish rancho workers were forced back to Cuba or to other Spanish colonies and their Indian co-workers forced to relocate out west. Due to the number of mixed marriages at these ranchos, this resulted in many personal hardships.

The demands of the Cuban fish market continued to be so strong that the loss of the Spanish fishing ranchos along Florida’s Gulf Coast did not stop Cubans doing what generations before them had done: commercial fishing in our area. Modernization resulted in a newly designed vessel – the “Cuban Smack” with a lower area in the hull that allowed water to flow in through the bottom to a certain set depth. This allowed fish to be transported live, saving the tremendous expense and time of salting, although fish such as Spanish mackerel and cobia (pelagics) still had to be split and salted as they could not be transported live in tanks. Ice replaced salt in the early 1920’s as the preservation material of choice and the Cuban Smacks were reported to have been able to handle about 20 tons of ice, and the need to salt fish to preserve it almost ceased to exist. As U.S. commercial fishing based out of Key West and other ports along Southwest Florida grew, the Spanish commercial fishing for the Cuban market slowly died out along our coasts as did the knowledge that they had ever been here.

The WW II B -17 “Flying Fortress” flying over the water. PHOTO CREDIT – MUSEUMOFFLIGHT.ORG

During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps constructed training bases in Florida to try to fill the tremendous need for pilots and gunnery crews to fight in Europe. By the end of the war a total of 54 bases had been constructed with thousands of military men and women introduced to the Sunshine State for the first time. Buckingham Army Air Field, just east of Ft. Myers, opened in 1943 as home to the 2117th AAF Base Unit – a Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron. The air field was built for heavy bombers like the B-17, better known as the “Flying Fortress.” Buckingham’s commanding officer General E.B. Lyon stated the goals: “Operate attack missions on Buckingham’s B-17s in the development of student gunners of that base and to teach our own pilots the functions of combat training.”

An airfield was built in Naples to be used by fighter planes flying out to simulate attacks on the Flying Fortresses coming out of Buckingham. Limestone was planned to be the base for the Naples runways but was too expensive at the time, so shell from the Calusa Indian mounds of Goodland was purchased from the Pettits and trucked to the location of the current Naples Airport to be mixed with asphalt and native materials into a 6 inch sub-base with a two inch layer of asphaltic concrete added over the top. After 2 years, the Naples Army Air Field was completed on December 23, 1943, at a cost to the government of $1.5 million dollars.

Young men, who had graduated from Buckingham’s gunnery school, but were inexperienced in combat or aerial gunnery, were sent up in the air with pilots who, themselves, had just completed flight training. Two planes were typically used: an advanced trainer, the AT-6 (nicknamed the “Texan”) which held a pilot in the front cockpit and a gunner in the rear. The Texan’s 550 hp Pratt & Whitney engine could reach speeds of 205 mph and it could cruise for 170 miles at 5,000 feet, while the other aircraft typically used was the B-17 (“Flying Fortress”) a four engine bomber painted in olive drab that usually carried a crew of 8-10. Fully loaded the B-17 weighed up to 72,000 lbs and, as a result, could only make emergency landings at the Naples air field.

During the six weeks of training in SW Florida, each pilot was given 3,500 rounds of ammunition to be used, part of which was for the 15 hours of simulated combat attacks on the Flying Fortresses. They would fire 100 rounds from a fixed wing gun at a towed target while flying at 150 mph, the target was a mesh rectangle, 4’ x 20’, covered with colored grease that when hit stained the target.

Being assigned to a Florida air base was not “light duty” – within the first 20 months after the opening of the Naples field, 20 separate crashes or incidents occurred and over 15 officers lost their lives. During the year 1944, when pilots were flying B-26 medium bombers out of Tampa’s MacDill Air Base, the death rate for simulated combat pilots from DeLand, Vero Beach and Ft. Lauderdale was one per day – prompting the sad phrase: “One -a-day in Tampa Bay.”

The practice range for Southwest Florida was established off the coast from Naples to Cape Romano, an area where fighter planes would dive bomb the B- 17s shooting at the mesh targets pulled behind them. As a safety measure, the Army established an Air Rescue Service, leasing the Old Marco Inn and grounds as their headquarters during the war. Army barracks were constructed and a large Army pier built into the Marco River for their five vessels: an 83’, a 63’, and three 22 footers, all known as “Crash Boats.” In addition the military built themselves a source of water in the center of the Island (a well that is now located in one of the lakes at the Island County Club).

Thelma Heath, a school teacher on Marco Island, recalled that many of her students were at a birthday party on Saturday, January 22, 1944 when they saw planes going over. The students stopped and looked north, watching as a fighter plane never came out of its dive, crashing into one of the wings of the Flying Fortress, causing it to also drop from the sky. The last verbal contact of the Flying Fortress with the Naples control tower had been to obtain permission to proceed northward along the coast back to Buckingham, with only one more attack on it by an AT-6 to complete the day. That AT– 6 was piloted by Lieutenant Joseph O’Flaherty flying alone doing figure eights when, “Suddenly, something went terribly wrong. The two planes collided mid-air and sent pieces of planes exploding in a macabre pattern of grease, metal and fuel. The noise was deafening.”1 Lt. O’Flaherty was able to jump from his plane and parachute to safety, while the B-17 with a full crew of 10 broke apart and fell into the Gulf of Mexico killing all aboard.

The crash boats from Marco responded and were able to rescue Lt. O’Flaherty, who was taken to the hospital and soon recovered. But, after the first day of searching, only two additional bodies were recovered from the B-17, leaving both the air base at Buckingham, where the B-17 was stationed and the Naples air base, where Lt. O’Flaherty was stationed at a loss to understand the cause of the crash. It took much longer for the Army to retrieve the rest of the bodies and the crash debris.

Lt. O’Flaherty’s luck did not hold out that much longer; about six weeks later on March 4, 1944, he was the bombardier on board an AT-6 piloted by Lt. Devenport on a ground attack mission. As they dived down, their plane burst into flames and both were killed. Lieutenant Bornmann was assigned the duty of accompanying the body of Lt. O’Flaherty back to New York. Joseph O’Flaherty is listed on the New York Fire Department’s Honor Roll as a “Fireman, Ladder 105” having died “Mar 4, 1944, Naples, Fla, Plane Crash, Killed in Action, WWII”.

Postcard from Buckingham Army Air Field. PHOTO CREDIT – ALVIN LEDERER

In the 1960s, Henry Lowe from Marco Island spotted an engine and a propeller from one of the two airplanes that crashed in 1944 off the coast of southern Key Island (Keewaydin) due west of Little Marco. Today this is the area of Hurricane Pass and one of the busiest beaches on weekends in Collier County. One is left to wonder how many, if any, of the beach partiers realize that they are standing near the location where ten airmen bravely died in 1944: the single greatest loss of life of any accident in Collier County’s history? As we celebrate Veteran’s Day we need to remember the thousands of military who served in Florida during WWII both in training and in surveillance of our coastline.

1Information for this article came from “Pilots, Pinballs & Politics” by Nancy B. Fessenden, PhD. a book highly recommended to those with interest in the history of the Naples Municipal Airport, as well as from interviews with pioneers done by Virginia Carlin in her book “I Remember Marco” as well as discussions of the author with Henry Lowe, Dick Bergmann and Bill Blair. 

CREDITS – DICK BERGMANN Rare 1890 Envelope postmarked “Malco”

Craig Woodward 

It was like an episode from PBS’s popular TV show – History Detectives, a local historical item with a large mystery behind it. The item: a very rare envelope with a most unique cancellation showing it was postmarked at Malco Florida and mailed in 1890 to a St. Clair Whitman of Cedar Keys, Florida. “Malco” was the official name of the first post office established on Marco Island October 20, 1888 at the request of Capt. W.D. “Bill” Collier (the builder of the Old Marco Inn). Capt. Collier, when asked why the name was “Malco,” said the post office would not allow him to name it Marco. Three years after it was established, on June 4, 1891, Collier convinced the postal authorities to change the name to Marco, but only after they had established that there was no other “Marco” in Florida. Collier’s post office was located on the original Key Marco, now known as Old Marco Village. In 1896, the archeologist who dug up the Key Marco Cat near the Old Marco Inn, Frank Hamilton Cushing, referred to the large main island south of Key Marco as “Caxambas Island.” Clearly things would be very different today had that name been retained for the entire Island!

The Whitman Family c. 1900 - St. Clair Whitman shown wearing a black hat, his wife Nellie to his right, his father Charles with the long beard, daughters Hattie and Nellie in front and his son Charles standing behind his mother Nellie. PHOTO CREDIT – ANCESTORY.COM

But who was St. Clair Whitman of Cedar Keys? Unfortunately there is no letter contained in this 121 year old envelope, so we wonder what would have been the reason to communicate with Cedar Keys – a group of small islands located along the upper west coast of Florida north of Tampa and due west of Ocala? More research resulted in finding out that St. Clair Whitman was the head of a family which, around 1900, consisted of his wife Nellie, a son Charles, and two daughters Hattie and Nellie, who along with St. Clair’s father Charles lived together at Cedar Keys. A photo of the family, as well as a membership card of St. Clair showing he was a Master Mason was found in an antique store in Micanopy, Florida. St. Clair Whitman was born in 1868 in Missouri so we know at the time the letter was mailed to him from “Malco,” he would have been around age 22.

So what was the connection in 1890 between St. Clair Whitman and someone here on Marco? Further research shows historic and deep ties between the residents of the village of Marco and Cedar Keys. Before 1886 when Henry Plant brought his railroad down to Tampa, the principal port city in the area was Cedar Keys, Fl. Capt. Bill Collier, as a young man from 1871 to 1879, operated a shipping business via schooner between Ft. Myers and Cedar Keys. In fact, we know that on January 20, 1880 Capt. Bill Collier married Margaret (Maggie) Eliza McIlvaine of Cedar Keys, Florida when she was 22 years old and he was 28. Their first daughter Emma (“Nanny”) Collier was born later that same year on the schooner “Emma White” as it sailed back to Marco from Cedar Keys. After their first child was born at sea, Capt. Collier’s wife chose to go back to Cedar Keys for the births of her next two children: Florence Mcllvaine Collier born in 1882 and Mable Miles Collier born in 1884.

Captain W.D. “Bill” Collier with a model of the clam dredge he invented. PHOTO CREDIT – GLENN DUGGER

This tie to Cedar Keys, created by the marriage of Capt. Bill Collier, continued to impact Marco Island for generations. In fact, after Collier had invented the clam dredge and encouraged J.H. Doxsee to establish his clamming factory in Old Marco in 1910, Capt. Collier realized that many more employees were needed. The hurricane of September 29, 1896 hit Cedar Keys with 125 mph winds and a 10 foot storm surge sweeping over the town killing more than 100 people. The economy was damaged further two months later by a large fire and all of the trees which had supported the local pencil manufacturing industry were destroyed. Then, by 1909, the oyster beds were worn out. Capt. Collier’s encouragement for employees to come to Marco to work in the clamming industry was probably well received.

Workers moved from the Cedar Keys area of Florida to Marco to harvest the local clams which were cooked and shipped out by train. The small settlement where these families lived on Marco was known to the locals as “Cedar Keys” and was a group of homes located in an area northwest of Rose’s Marco River Marina; Bald Eagle Drive passes through the middle of this now invisible pioneer settlement.

The Fiber Factory near Cedar Keys where the Whitman family worked.

Today Cedar Keys, Fl. is now singular – Cedar Key– and there is only one inhabited Key as a result of the hurricane and problems in 1896 which forced a declining population to consolidate. We know that St. Clair Whitman and his family survived those problems and continued to live in Cedar Key for many years; in fact, the 1910 census shows him working as a foreman at a fiber factory with his son as a salesman for the company, and by the 1920 census both of his daughters were also employed there. This factory made brushes from Palmetto fibers, and a photo from the time shows palmetto fans outside drying. Today on the mainland near Cedar Key there is still a road named “Fiber Factory Road.”

So what is the relationship of St. Clair Whitman with Marco? The final answer may lie in the historical records of Cedar Key, Fl.; however, based upon his being 22 when he received the letter from Malco in 1890, a good guess for now is that either he or his wife was a childhood friend of Capt. Bill’s wife Maggie Collier.

I want to thank Dick Bergmann for sharing with me this unique envelope, and thank Faye Brown for her information on the location of the settlement of “Cedar Keys” on Marco Island and for sharing her mother’s recollections of the area.

Lastly, for “treasure hunters,” probably the only local envelope rarer than a “Malco” postmark would be one with a Comfort postmark; “Comfort” only lasted seven months before June of 1892 when the post office accepted Chokoloskee as the new official name. So remember to keep your eyes open for rare historical items!

The simple slab shown in the front is the location of Elizabeth (Lizzie) Weeks Sawyer who lived in Collier County from 1862 to 1939.

I appreciate the many people who commented or called about the last article written about John Weeks and his family. One point that concerned readers was the comment that his wife, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Weeks Sawyer was buried in an unmarked grave at the Marco Cemetery. Clearly the wife of the first settler of Collier County, who moved here in 1862, deserves more recognition. Lizzie died in 1939 in the middle of the depression and although there were four generations of Weeks living on the Island at the time, the family was not affluent. However, her grave site is clearly visible as her sons poured a tabby mortar slab in which they originally scratched her name into the surface. Tabby mortar is made by burning oyster shells to make a “quick lime” (the cement), then adding washed sand along with shell as the aggregate. It is a time consuming process, but is relatively inexpensive, being made solely from natural materials. At the request of the Mackle Brothers, Lizzie’s great granddaughter, Faye Brown, helped her father, Wiley Dickerson, prepare a map of the cemetery in the early 1960s. They found 93 bodies buried there, not an easy task as the area was overgrown, and many headstones had been damaged over the years. Faye and her father found out that Lizzie’s actual burial location is not directly under the slab but lies to the east of it under a low concrete fence constructed by Tommie Barfield’s sister, Mrs. Leo’s family. After that fence was built, Lizzie’s sons decided they needed to better mark their Mother’s grave and placed the slab as close to her burial site as possible. Over the years the scratched name and information they placed there disappeared – the results of the elements and lichen that grows on a porous surface and breaks it down.

Purchasing this history of the Weeks family will help support the effort to obtain a headstone for Lizzie Weeks’ gravesite

So, an effort is now being made to put up a suitable headstone for Lizzie Weeks Sawyer. The cemetery is operated by the New Life Community Church, Pastor Thomas McCulley, who has agreed to provide the headstone at cost. So, how can you help? There are two ways: 1) Faye has donated 20 of her books: “Weeks Family Connections” to the cause and each one sells for $20.00. The book includes a great deal of local history including information on the family’s involvement in the Seminole wars, John Week’s brother Madison who was the first settler of Naples, as well what life was like on Marco and in Collier County during the 1930s to the 1960s. So you could help by purchasing a book, available either at the Marco Museum Store at 180 S. Heathwood Drive or at my office 606 Bald Eagle Drive Suite 500, or 2) if you prefer, you can simply donate to this cause with a check made payable to the Marco Island Historical Society, Inc. Any funds raised in excess of what is needed will be used to provide markers for other pioneer gravesites at the Marco cemetery which have missing or broken headstones. Thanks for your support to a worthy cause.

This is part of the cemetery map made by Wiley and Faye (Brown) Dickerson at the request of the Mackle Brothers. Lizzie Weeks Sawyer is buried at location #57.