March 2, 1997

American History Began Here Century Before Pilgrims

Demolition of the Knight-Willis store at Charlotte Harbor Town -- sought by residents there and the county administration -- has been blocked by court action pending settlement of legal action by the owner Eugene Plummer. He is president of the non-profit Knight Historic Building, Inc.

Plummer wants to restore the building which sits on the lot line with a motel next door. He needs access to his building from motel property in order to strengthen a bulging wall. The motel owner refuses access. Plummer believes "grandfather" laws permit him access when public safety is involved. The court will decide.

Too few Americans know that Charlotte Harbor -- the complex of harbor, bay, sound and estuaries -- is where their history began a century or more before Jamestown and Plymouth.

Yet, we know that some explorer, writing in a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, circumnavigated the Florida peninsula prior to 1502. In that year, a secret map of the new world was prepared for Alberto Cantino, agent for the Italian Duke of Ferrara. A bay that appears to be today's Charlotte Harbor was designated "Cigofabazo."

The Council of the Indies declared in a 1565 letter to the Spanish King Phillip II: "Since the year 1510, up til today, fleets as well as ships of this kingdom have divers times gone to occupy Florida in the name of your majesty."

There is strong evidence, therefore, that Ponce DeLeon did not discover Florida but was granted permission to try and establish the first colony on mainland America. Chronicles of his two visits indicate Ponce came into the lower reaches of the harbor in 1513 and 1521 -- probably at Pine Island. He was fatally wounded by a Calusa Indian arrow on the last expedition, and the colony was abandoned.

Panfilo Narvaez and his fleet were blown past Charlotte Harbor by a hurricane in 1527, but a young pilot named Juan Ortiz came here scouting for Narvaez the following year. Ortiz was captured by the Indians, probably the Timucua. He was saved by an Indian princess from being barbecued by her father -- an act of mercy that later was attributed to Pocahontas on behalf of Capt. John Smith. Ortiz lived among the Timucua until rescued by Hernando DeSoto.

Soto resumed the task of pacification in 1539 -- probably making his base camp at Charlotte Harbor Town. The DeSoto Trail Commission, appointed by Florida Governor Bob Graham, was unable to pinpoint Soto's landing site. However, the commission acknowledged arguments by your writer that a Charlotte Harbor landing best fits accounts by DeSoto expedition survivors.

A plaque saying "Some Scholars Believe DeSoto Landed In This Vicinity" was authorized by the DeSoto Commission for Charlotte Harbor Town. Soto explored the southeast for three years before dying of a fever at the Mississippi River. The arguments for Ponce, Narvaez and Soto landings are detailed in my book "Boldly Onward" available at Books-A-Million.

Pedro Menendez D'Aviles, founder of St. Augustine in 1565, came to the west coast of Florida a year later and established the San Antonia mission-fort somewhere in the Charlotte Harbor complex. He ascended the Peace and Myakka rivers seeking a water-route through Florida.

Menendez married a Calusa princess bigamously in an effort to woo her chieftain brother but abandoned the area after two years of bloody hostility. Nevertheless, Menendez stimulated a fishing industry in Charlotte Harbor which Spanish-Indian "ranchos" operated for Cuba until the United States acquired Florida in 1818.

Smugglers maintained a "cove" on Cayo Pelau near Boca Grande during the Seminole Wars -- providing guns and whiskey to the Indians in exchange for hogs, dried fish and alligator hides.

Charlotte Harbor Town surely was well known to adventurers (sorry, no pirates) because of its slight elevation. This topographical feature is notable for the area -- so much so that pre-historic Indians built two huge mounds there which provided fill for home sites during the Land Boom of the 1920s.

Early maps referred to it as Live Oak Point. The first settlers called it Hickory Bluff. The oaks are still there, designated by the American Forestry Association as the Historic DeSoto Grove. The hickories were timbered off by an ax-handle factory after the Civil War.

Recorded history of Charlotte Harbor Town begins with the Civil War. A wharf was built there cattle baron Joel Knight and his son Thomas to load ships running the Union blockade of the harbor. Cattle were shipped for the Confederate market and cotton for Cuba.

The best known blockade runners were Capt. James McKay and Capt. Robert Johnson. They were instrumental in making the "cow hunters" of southwest Florida immensely rich. Both men eventually were captured, their ships burned, and themselves made prisoners of war.

Ironically two Union officers -- Nathan H. DeCoster and John F. Bartholf, commanding "colored troops" at Fort Myers -- stayed after the war to settle and promote Charlotte Harbor Town.

DeCoster was the first person to take up a 160-acre homestead at Hickory Bluff in 1866, according to deed and tax records at Bradenton, now the Manatee County seat of which Charlotte County then was part. He platted some of his acreage as Harbor View about 1871 and set up the first sawmill south of Tampa.

The sawmill was located at Live Oak Point along the lagoon north of Melbourne Street where logs could be floated in from the harbor. In addition, DeCoster raised oranges and was appointed a county judge during the Reconstruction days. DeCoster sold the mill in 1875 to Thomas Williams who moved it a year later up the Peace River midway between Ft. Ogden and Nocatee.

Bartholf first settled at Pine Level, then the Manatee county seat 20 miles north on Ziba King's cow path, now King's Highway. Bartholf was appointed clerk of courts but resigned during the Hayes-Tilden presidential election in an attempt to avoid validating a Tilden Democrat majority for the county.

For his loyalty, Bartholf was appointed Manatee County school superintendent and first post master at Hickory Bluff. He operated the post office at his home near the Knight wharf and store. The wharf now is maintained by the county as a public fishing pier.

Bartholf officially named the post office Charlotte Harbor Town in order to unite the competing Knight and DeCoster settlements and to emphasize that mail would be delivered by schooner to the entire harbor area.

Another early settler was Tolbert Morgan who operated a sugar mill just west of Bay Shore Drive. Records do not indicate the year Morgan set up his sugar cane mill, but Tom Knight purchased it and a "large sugar kettle" for $780 in 1878 when Morgan's health failed.

Other first settlers were Matthew F. Giddens, F. M. Durrance, E. J. Hayes and D. W. Carlton. All were involved in raising cattle and oranges and in selling land. In their later years, Durrance and DeCoster built homes at Live Oak Point where DeSoto probably came ashore. The Durrance home is in use today as Pippin's Restaurant. Residents of Hickory Bluff -- those of about a dozen large families -- built a thatched-roof cabin near DeCoster's sawmill in 1873 for a combination school and the Trinity Methodist Church.

When Bartholf became superintendent of schools he sold section lands reserved for furthering education. With the money he built 20 two-room "sawed-lumber" schools -- the first public schools in the county. The county contributed $1 per month per pupil for a teacher's salary. Parents of pupils "subscribed" to an additional amount -- usually another dollar per pupil.

It was at this time that Giddens contributed land for the school and a separate Trinity Church sanctuary next door. He also gave land for the Charlotte Harbor Cemetery where the early pioneers are buried and descendants still are.

We have a first-hand description of life in the earliest days of Charlotte Harbor through a 1939 interview in the Punta Gorda Herald of Mrs. A. M. Cochran. She was described by the reporter as an octogenarian who lived in Charlotte Harbor in "the early 80s."

"This was wild country then," she said. "Nothing but woods where Punta Gorda now stands. Woods and swamps everywhere -- full of bear, deer, turkey, panther, wildcats, alligators and other dangerous creatures.

"We lived first at Harbor View. The DeCosters, Knights, Giddens and a few other families lived on that side of the bay. There was only one house in Punta Gorda. It was called the Spanish house, being understood to have been built by some Spaniards who came occasionally on a boat and occupied it for varying intervals of time.

"Big schooners used to come here taking cargoes of cattle to New Orleans, Mobile, Key West and Cuba. There was a long dock at Charlotte Harbor where Tom Knight ran a little general store and had the post office. The schooners brought to Knight's store the provisions he sold to the settlers. We lived three miles from the store, and the road to it was no more than a trail. Sometimes we went in a boat to the store."

It is interesting to note that "Spanish" fishermen were still actively engaged in fishing the harbor -- staying in a rough cabin at what is now Punta Gorda. James Lanier bought the 30-acre site from the Florida Internal Improvement Fund in 1882, then sold it to Col. Isaac Trabue of Kentucky three years later. Trabue platted a town named for himself -- changed to Punta Gorda in 1887 -- and lived in the cabin with his wife Virginia for several years.

Trabue gave half his land to the Florida Southern Railroad in 1886 to get a line built from Bartow and a resort hotel erected at his town the same year. The railroad had originally planned to terminate at Charlotte Harbor Town, but Trabue "stole" it. Punta Gorda became a city, and Charlotte Harbor Town slowly declined.

The decline will become death if the old Knight-Willis store is destroyed.

Cutline

Illustration furnished

American history at Charlotte Harbor by Spanish explorers, Cuban fishermen and Civil War cattlemen.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers