January 12, 1997

Chadwick Beach Homes Built On Ancient Burial Mounds

Last of two parts (click here for first part)

When the Chadwick brothers sold their fish business to the West Coast Fish Company in 1926, after 25 prosperous years, Steve and Clay returned to Lemon Bay from Punta Gorda to begin the development of Chadwick Beach -- now Englewood Beach in Charlotte County.

The project quickly received wide public notice, as related by the Punta Gorda Herald in an article of April 9, 1926:

GHOSTS OF PAST STALK THROUGH CHADWICK BEACH WHEN SCRAPER BARES MARKS OF GHASTLY CRIME

"Rightly did some sage say that mysteries of the past hold forth greater fascination than anticipated discoveries of the future.

"This is at the core of the violent wave of excitement -- rising hourly to a higher pitch -- which is surging on the streets of Punta Gorda and throughout southwest Florida.

"A human skull, a shin bone, a rib, then a whole cemetery of bones started it. Grim, stark, Ugh!

"A week ago, Chadwick Beach was just one of the many real estate developments going on in Charlotte County. Today it is the focal point of attention which is widening in range with each passing moment.

"The hitherto quiet, beautiful, secluded little peninsula of Palm Ridge, in the western part of the county, between the limpid water of Lemon Bay and the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico, is the topic on every tongue. It has sidetracked every other question which before the startling discovery seemed vital and momentous.

"Gasparilla! Gold! Treasure! Pirates! Massacres! A tragedy perhaps whose story will never be told. Only the bones of the dead men are left to us to fashion some plausible tale.

"Last week the Chadwick brothers, Steve and Clay, started grading operations along the north side, but a short distance from the Sarasota County line on Jane St. Tom Earnest was engaged to do the work of leveling off high spots.

"Presently Mr. Earnest gave a start. The blade of the scraper had dug in a little deeper. To his utter amazement, a tarnished skull of a human being was among the debris he was about to dump in a lower spot.

"When he went back to work he uncovered what appeared to be a whole graveyard of skeletons. A close examination showed that the burial area was some 50 feet long and 8 to 10 feet wide. The bodies had been simply thrown into a trench 4 or 5 feet deep in a haphazard fashion and dirt shoveled back.

"What is even more significant, no evidence of clothing can be found anywhere -- not a trace of a button, a metal buckle, clasp, weather-resistant material, shoes of pins. The victims, if such they were, had been stripped to the skin!"

* * *

The newspaper reported that since the discovery, the dock at Buchan's Landing two miles south of Lemon Bay -- where the 26-foot motor launch to Chadwick Beach took on passenger -- was "crowded with visitors anxious to explore the burial ground and carry away skulls."

Historians and archaeologists today shudder at this account. The "high spots" were Indian burial mounds which once abounded on the shores of Lemon Bay -- attesting to a large, ancient settlement of aborigines.

Indeed, in May of that year Capt. A.B. Tucker was in Washington, D.C., as a delegate to the National Boy Scout convention. He visited the Smithsonian Institute and showed curators two skulls unearthed at Chadwick Beach. Experts identified the remains as Indians buried before arrival in Florida of the Seminoles in the early 1700s.

Fortunately a similar burial of Indians was discovered on Manasota Key in the summer of l989 during grading for a building. Construction halted temporarily so the site could be scientifically examined by Wilburn "Sonny" Cockrell, a Florida State University archaeologist. He determined the remains dated from 120 to 320 A.D.

Despite the notoriety, Chadwick Beach lots did not sell very well. Access to the island was difficult. The brothers therefore built the first bridge from the mainland across Lemon Bay in 1927. Tom "TC" Crosland, a partner of the West Coast Fish Company at Punta Gorda, was given the construction contract.

Historian Byron Rhode worked for Crosland at the time and describes in his book "Punta Gorda Remembered" a unique method of sheathing wood piling with concrete to protect them from marine worms.

"After the concrete hardened, we dropped the piles in a deep hole to season," says Rhode. "When we needed them, we had to swim down and fasten a line to hoist them back up. We used a long pipe and a high pressure pump to jet a hole for the piling."

It cost 50 cents to cross the bridge and another 25 cents to fish from it. The bridge had a swing span turned by a large crank walked around by the tender.

The Chadwicks also built a "pavilion" on the beach which offered groceries, gasoline, dressing rooms and showers. A fee of 25 cents was charged for use of the dressing rooms and a wire basket in which to check street clothes. A large, open-sides second floor was a popular spot for Saturday night dances.

The Great Florida Land Boom collapsed in 1928, and the Chadwick brothers started a fish business in Sarasota which they operated successfully until 1936.

Charlotte County took over the Lemon Bay Bridge in 1933 and removed the toll. A portion of Chadwick Beach was purchased and renamed Punta Gorda Beach. This enabled the county seat to advertise at the Chicago World Fair that it had a beach on the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that the city and beach were 27 miles apart was not mentioned.

The Chadwick bridge by 1947 was in poor condition, but the county did not have money to repair it. Leo Wotitzky, Punta Gorda attorney and state representative, persuaded the State Road Department to replace the old bridge with a new one in return for dedication of the remaining part of Chadwick Beach to public use. The new bridge was named for Wotitsky until it, too, was replaced with the present structure a few years ago.

After Steve and Clay Chadwick sold their Sarasota Fish Company, they remained there until November 1951 when Steve and Laura returned to their first home on Palm Ridge. By this time the peninsula had been transformed into Manasota Key by construction of the Intracoastal Waterway linking Lemon Bay and Venice Bay.

The family home was too large for the aged couple so they built a smaller house nearby. There Steve died June 16, 1961, at age 85. Laura died August 30, 1968, at age 90. Both are buried at Sarasota.

(Click here for first part of story)

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Photo Courtesy of Charlotte Harbor Area Historical Society

The Chadwick Beach Pavilion on Palm Ridge, now Manasota Key, was a popular recreation spot for Charlotte County folks after the first bridge was opened in 1927.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers