September 29, 1996

Maine Yankee Boosts Charlotte Harbor Town

Charlotte Harbor Town began as a loading dock and frontier store for Confederate cattleman running the Union blockade at Boca Grande Pass. However, it was turned into a thriving village by a Yankee transplant named Nathan Henry DeCoster.

He was a young man in his early 20s "reading for the law" in Maine when he volunteered for military service. He was assigned as second lieutenant to the U. S. Army, Second Regiment, Colored Troops.

In a letter to his mother in late December 1862, DeCoster described his initial war experience:

"I am now in Staunton Hospital ( Virginia) as you can see by the heading of my letter.

"When I came home I was quite sick, but I am now getting better. I was slightly wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg on my right shoulder. That was an awful battle and nearly disastrous to me.

"It is an awful sight to witness -- a battle field after the fighting is over and the excitement has died away. It is then one realizes how awful war is.

"I have stood upon the battle field where the dead and the dying were all around me. I have seen my comrades falling on either side, but God has seen fit to spare me."

While in the hospital, DeCoster's unit was ordered to Key West, headquarters for Union forces in south Florida. He requested permission to accompany the troops and complete his recovery there.

At Key West, DeCoster fell in love with his nurse, Emily Phillips, from Buffalo, N.Y., who after graduation from high school had joined her parents, George and Mary Phillips.

The Phillips had moved there for George's health. He accepted work as a brick mason at Dry Tortugas. He soon became bookkeeper for a cigar factory at Key West. Over the years he also held positions as post master and clerk at the customs office there and became active in Republican reconstruction politics.

DeCoster returned to active duty at Fort Myers where he participated in a standoff skirmish with the local Cattle Guard on February 21, 1865. The war ended two month's later. DeCoster and a detachment of his troops then were sent to the Peace River area to take oaths of allegiance from former rebels.

His tour of Charlotte Harbor impressed DeCoster. He was mustered out in early 1866 back at his home, but he hustled immediately to Florida and his sweetheart. He stopped at Tampa to buy a steam-powered sawmill and hire four black men to help him run it. At least one of them, John Lomans, had served under him at Fort Myers.

Sawmill At Lagoon

The sawmill, only one south of Tampa, was set up on a "bluff" of hickory trees adjacent to a lagoon at the corner of Tamiami Trail and Melbourne Road -- now Charlotte Harbor Town. It appears that DeCoster occupied the Melbourne Road property without actually owning it. Years later, we find DeCoster paying taxes on a home at the site.

Much Florida land after the war was tied up in ownership disputes between the state and Federal governments. Claims for homesteads were not accepted so settlers "entered" the land with out permission. To protect themselves, they wrote letters to the homestead agent at Gainesville describing the land for which they intended to file when the disputes were settled.

The lagoon likely was the landing site of Hernando DeSoto in 1539. The hickory bluff may have been the site of Ocita, the Indian village taken over by Soto. To DeCoster, the site was ideal because it accommodated rafts of logs floated in for sawing. A remnant of the access road exists today as Mill Street. The hickory trees were lumbered off about 1900 for an axe-handle factory there.

DeCoster also started a store at Fort Winder on the east bank of Peace River opposite Fort Ogden, but the venture was short lived. During this period, DeCoster visited and wrote Emily at Key West. They were married in 1869, setting up their household near the sawmill. The Census of 1870 lists DeCoster as a farmer, age 31, with a personal estate worth $3,000 at Hickory Bluff. This was a large amount of money for that day.

The tax roll for 1869 reveals that he paid a tax on his household valued at $90, and 380 cattle and three horses valued at $1,520. The sawmill was not listed for tax purposes but was shown by the census to be valued at $1,310. Emily was 24 years old. There were no children at this time.

In the 1880 census, the DeCosters were shown to have five children: Carrie E., daughter, 10, farm laborer; George E., 8; Ida M., 6; Josephine, 4; and Nathan H., Jr., 1. DeCoster was elected county judge in 1875 -- a timely achievement because the following year the postwar Republican strangle hold of Florida was broken during the Hayes-Tilden presidential campaign.

The following year, DeCoster sold the sawmill for $4,000 to Thomas Williams. The latter moved the machinery upriver to a site between Fort Ogden and Nocatee known for many years thereafter as Williams Landing.

A Yankee "carpetbagger" who had served with DeCoster at Fort Myers, John Bartholf, lost his job as clerk of court for Manatee County as a result of the Republican demise. Nevertheless, he was appointed postmaster at Charlotte Harbor Town in 1876 which served throughout the Charlotte Harbor area by a weekly run of the mail schooner.

Florida Southern Railway at this time was building a line down the west coast and was expected to terminate at Charlotte Harbor Town. Bartholf began to speculate in land along the north shore. He published a sales pamphlet in 1881 promoting the area.

Harbor View Platted

DeCoster caught "railroad fever" a couple of years later. He took an option on 80 acres of waterfront property east of Charlotte Harbor Town and platted it into a residential development named Harbor View. He did not obtain title to the property until August 26, 1884.

It is interesting to note that the seller was the Florida Land and Improvement Company. This was a consortium of British and Dutch investors who bought most of the Charlotte Harbor lands from the Kissimmee Land Company then attempting to drain the Everglades.

Local agent for Kissimmee was John Cross who platted Grove City and brokered sales to the founders of Punta Gorda and Englewood. Exactly one year after DeCoster platted Harbor View, Cross platted the Harbor View Orange Club next door consisting of four-acre parcels planted in citrus seedlings. The lure was that oranges, grapefruits and lemons provided extra income for retirees and winter visitors.

DeCoster apparently agreed with the theory. A year later he bought another 80 acres adjacent to his original Harbor View and planted most of it in citrus. For the remainder of his life he experimented with the propagation of tropical plants "as my hobby."

In March 1898, DeCoster wrote a letter to his brother and sister in Lewiston, Maine. After describing his experimental planting of tobacco that turned out well, DeCoster wrote how all but four of 27 tropical plants had been killed by the great freeze of 1886.

"Not injured very much were the orange, grapefruit, lemon and date palm," he wrote. "We have four grapefruit trees that raised over $400 worth of fruit last year. They are now selling for 10 to 15 cents each here and in New York. They are worth $10 per crate of about 50 to the crate. A few years ago we could hardly sell them for anything.

"I have not yet given up the idea of raising tropical fruit, for I have just taken up a homestead claim from the heirs of a deceased party on one of the islands down the bay about 40 or 50 miles. There are five or six hundred coconut trees on it, 200 bearing. They have never been injured by cold."

DeCoster is said to have planned a hotel on his place for winter visitors riding the Florida Southern which originally planned to terminate at Charlotte Harbor Town. However, Col. Isaac Trabue persuaded the railroad to come down the east bank of the Peace River to Punta Gorda. The first train arrived there in July 1886.

Nevertheless, DeCoster prospered with his subdivision and orange grove. In 1890, he obtained a postoffice for Harbor View with him postmaster. His children grew up and took respected places in Charlotte Harbor Town and Punta Gorda.

The "Punta Gorda Herald" reported on June 7, 1895:

"The wedding of Mr. R.B. McHargue and Miss Josie DeCoster by Rev. M. S. Stevens took place this week at the home of Judge and Mrs. Nathan H. DeCoster at Harbor View. She is the youngest of three single daughters. Mr. McHargue is in the grocery and confectionery business at Punta Gorda."

Proud Grandpa

In a letter to Maine relatives, proud Grandpa DeCoster wrote:

"Our family is small just at present. Our eldest daughter, Carrie, is over with her sister Josie who is living at Punta Gorda. Josie's husband runs a schooner to Key West, and she has one of the smartest little girls I ever saw!

"Carrie is quite sick with kidney trouble. Ida May and her husband (Edgar D. Sias) live at Pablo Beach, Fla. He is a newspaper man and a great scholar and bookworm. We have only the boys, George and N.H., Jr., at home with us. It seems very lonely some times."

Emily's widowed father died at Key West in 1910, and she inherited a substantial sum of money. DeCoster proposed to invest the bequest in a store. Emily was reluctant but finally consented on the condition he would sell for cash only. The store and a dock were located about a mile west of today's Interstate Highway 75 near the shore where it could cater to fishermen.

Things then started to go wrong. Fire destroyed DeCoster's home and two others near by. He and Emily moved in with Nathan Henry, Jr. Despite Nathan senior's promise, he extended credit and lost money. He sold the store for a few dollars to a man named Hughes.

DeCoster became ill in 1912 and was put to bed in the home of his son George where George's wife, Kathleen, a nurse, could take care of the old gentleman. Nathan DeCoster died soon after. Emily followed in 1922. Both are buried in the Charlotte Harbor Town cemetery.

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Photo courtesy Mrs. Kathy Wilson

Nathan DeCoster, center with beard, stands proudly amongst his two sons-in-law each end, and his grandchildren in 1910.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers