The History of Manatee Flows from this spring:
Manatee Historic Mineral Springs –
History, Archaeology and Community
By
Sherry Robinson Svekis,
Manatee County Historical Society
Luncheon Meeting at
“Renaissance on 9th” Street
Bradenton, Florida
March 19, 2014
Introduction: Sherry Svekis grew up in Massachusetts. She has been an archaeologist since
2005, when she graduated from New College in Sarasota.
She is the President of Time Sifters Archaeology Society and Vice-President of Reflections of
Manatee, the preservation group that owns the Manatee Mineral Spring in the old Village of
Manatee.
Sherry Svekis: I am delighted to come and talk to your Society members about it. I want to give
a shout out to the Florida Humanities Council for helping spur this project along. I am going to
be talking about Manatee Mineral Springs and the various histories of Manatee County and the
histories of people around the spring.
The Manatee Mineral Spring, for those of you who don’t know it, and since this is the Historical
Society I am hoping that a lot of you do know if this, is located at 14th Street East and 2nd
Avenue. It is just a block off Manatee Avenue.
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At the back of this picture, just to the left of the historical marker, is a little blue spot by the
yellow sign at the end of the road. That is the Manatee River [see arrow]. The spring and the
river are integral to the growing of the town of Manatee.
The spring, you can’t see it, is under that concrete cap [left of blue arrow]. It has been capped for
a couple of decades now. But the water is still flowing there, the spring is still running. It goes
from there into the storm drain and from there out to the river. Water is so crucial to the
development of any place where people live. It is the source of all of our lives. We need water
for ourselves, for our animals, for our crops. It satisfied thirst and it is a cool relief on a hot and
humid day. So over the very many centuries, anyone who traveled or worked or settled along the
river took water from this spring.
Before cars or trains or even settler’s wagons, the river was our modern highway. Natural
markers like rocks and trees were noticed as road signs. Traveling down the river, a certain pine
tree pointed the way to this spring. So over time, many groups have settled here.
Now, how do we know this history? We know it from documents, from diaries, from letters,
from military reports and from naval logs, newspaper clippings, maps and photographs. Those
are all parts of the story.
There were Native Americans who also used this spring, living on the ridge just to the south of it.
There were also Maroons, which were free blacks, who found freedom here and used the spring
in the 1810s. For those stories, we don’t have the documents and turn to the tools of archaeology.
We look for fragments of artifacts, of pottery and pipes and stone points that tell the story those
times.
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The spring and the river are important for
development. The Manatee River Extends
nearly 50 miles. This view is from DeSoto
National Memorial right at the mouth of the
river facing the entrance to Tampa Bay.
And from there it goes inland and was
important to settlement
.
In the 1840s and 1850s, the Village of
Manatee became a thriving community
because of the river. This was long before
Sarasota became a community. Manatee was
a settled village. There are a number of
books that tell us about this history. The
Lures of Manatee (1933), also known as “a
true story of Florida’s glamorous past.” That
tells many of the stories of the early settlers.
We have The Singing River, written by Joe
Warner in 1986 which traces the histories of
many of the river settlements. It starts at the
mouth of the river, going all the way up to
its source, and tells of the families and
businesses that grew up along the river.
The Edge of Wilderness (1983) is a scholarly book by Janet Snyder Matthews. She probably
tracked down every single document: military, governmental documents that referred to Manatee
or Tampa Bay or the Bradenton area. [Laughter of Audience] It is an incredible resource for the
history of the area. There is Kinfolks (1934), which is a gem of Southern genealogy. It lists
approximately 27,000 related individuals. This is where some of the people in this room know
their histories, because of this book. In reality, how many generations of the histories of our
families do most of us know closely? Not many! We know our grandparents well. If we are
lucky, we knew our great grandparents and we may know a little about them. But back beyond
that? Not much. Maybe we have a photograph or two, but we really don’t know much about their
lives. So having a resource like this, where someone has written down the generations that you
will never know. This is an incredible family history.
There are other sites along the river that we can visit to learn about and celebrate the history of
the area. The Gamble Plantation on the north side of the river, which I’m sure you are all familiar
with, celebrating the era of the Civil War. There is the Manatee Village Historical Park on the
south side of the river. It has many of the buildings of the Manatee community. There is the
Florida Maritime Museum at Cortez. In some ways, Manatee County has been good at
preserving our history.
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But they had to do it by moving buildings to other locations. There are not very many buildings
of this age that are still in their same location. The Manatee River and the Manatee Mineral
Springs were important long before this American settlement period. Only traces remain of the
many Native Americans who lived, hunted and fished at the spring and along the river.
The settlers did find two mounds at the
spring area, but no one recorded the names
of the peoples who lived there and the
mounds do not remain. This is a picture of a
mound at the mouth of the Manatee River at
DeSoto Park. The red arrow [far left lower
side of photo] points to a woman in a hat in
the left foreground. That gives you an idea
of the size of some of these mounds.
Along the Manatee River we used to have these mounds that lined both sides of the river. The
two major communities to the north of the Manatee River were the Tocobaga Indians and in the
south was the powerful Calusa tribe. The Spanish accounts mention a tribe called Pojoy or
Pohoy that might have been between those two powerful tribes along both sides of the river here.
An archaeologist named Montague Tallant did some of the research in this area in the 1950s.
Even though we don’t have documents, there is archaeological evidence of the daily life of these
early Native Americans. We find fragments of pottery. The settlers around the spring said that
they found glass beads, arrowheads and pottery fragments in the mounds there. Some of them
used the beads to decorate their dresses.
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If you have not been out to the Emerson Point Park and seen the Portavant Temple Mound on
Snead’s Island, which most people drive by and go all the way out to the end of the island and
the recreated mound. This is just inside the entrance and it is the largest temple mound in the
Tampa Bay area. It is an absolutely gorgeous spot overlooking the Manatee River. It is one of the
most important reminders that we have of the cultures that lived here before our Anglo-American
settlement.
The DeSoto National Memorial celebrates the Spanish settlement and Desoto’s landing here.
Most scholars today will tell you that he probably didn’t. But we do have evidence of Spanish
exploration in the Manatee River area. The Spanish originally came to Florida in 1513 and to
Tampa Bay in 1539, but they didn’t have any settlements in this area in those centuries. In the
Second Spanish Period, beginning in 1793, they considered changing that. The Captain General
of Cuba, de Las Casas, sent Vincente Folche to explore the area around Tampa Bay. Governor
de Las Cases wanted to know if a good place could be found for a Spanish settlement. Vincente
Folche believed that he found that place. He mapped all of Tampa Bay. Neither of these are his
maps, by the way. We have his journals, which are very complete. They mention a chart that was
supposed to be in those journals. We have yet to find that map. We have done a lot of research
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but we have not yet found Folche’s chart. He named four rivers flowing into Tampa Bay.
Traveling down to the fourth one, which called the Rio de las Ostriamas [?], or the Oyster River,
as the Manatee River used to be called. He said he came to a delightful freshwater spring that
gushed from a 20 inch hole. Here, he said, would be the ideal spot for settlement. Now the
Spanish never did settle. The reasons for settling would be that they were having a hard time
internationally. Possession is nine-tenths of the law and they were having a hard time possessing
it because they only had a very few permanent settlements. They were all in the north. Many
other people were using their territory and the Spanish did not have good control over it. Sure
enough, they never did settle here. In 1821, Spain ceded the territory of Florida to the United
States.
Following the Second Spanish Period is a pretty interesting period. This is all before any
American settlement of this area. While Florida was still a Spanish possession, it was a haven for
freedom. The American colonies to the north all had chattel slavery. Blacks, the descendants of
Africans who had been slaves on these plantations and who were able to emancipate themselves,
were able to run away and gain their freedom if they came into Spanish Florida. If they would
swear allegiance to the Spanish crown, become Catholic; they were given their freedom and
were allowed to live as free men here. The Spanish encouraged this for their own purposes as
well. In St. Augustine, they set up, just north of the city, a fort of black warriors that they called
Fort Mose. That is actually how they were referred to, as they were actually the first line of
defense for Spanish Florida. These people were sometimes called escaped slaves, sometimes
fugitives, or African Seminoles or Black Seminoles. They allied themselves with many of the
Seminole villages. Some historians infer that the Seminoles actually had black slaves and there
was a form of tribute. They were certainly allied with several villages but it was not the chattel
slavery of the plantations. But they may have owed allegiance to certain Seminole villages. The
name Maroon is a Spanish word for runaway. That is what I will typically be calling them as I go
forward in this talk. Spanish Florida was a haven for people fleeing slavery for over a century.
The settlement that was on the Manatee River, we call Angola. That name does not come from
the people themselves. It comes from the Spanish fisherman, who were here when the U.S. got
the territory. Anyone who had property when Florida was transferred to the U.S. could claim that
property and that they should be allowed to keep that property, even though Florida itself
changed possession. Two Spanish fishermen claimed property along the Manatee River and they
called it Angola. That is the name that we assume that it was previously called. Obviously it is a
name of African origin. The Maroons would have been in contact with the Cuban fishermen who
ran the fishing industry along our coasts for decades before that. We use the name Angola for
that reason. Angola is part of this fascinating era during the Second Spanish Period. The Spanish
Empire had no settlement along the Manatee River, but there were still many people using the
resources here. The Seminoles generally lived in towns in the interior of Florida, herding cattle
and trading with the coast. They also traded with the Spanish in Cuba. On the Gulf Coast,
fishermen from Cuba created the rancho industry. They would gather vast amounts of fish for
the Havana market. Generally, the waters around Cuba had been fairly fished out by this point in
time. But they would come up to Charlotte Harbor, Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay and establish
what were at first just seasonal camps, but later were developed into year round camps for
fishing and trading.
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British filibusters wanted to help escaped
slaves and Seminoles resist American
forces. The British established trading posts
and helped to supply these groups along the
Apalachicola River. This was the period
right after the War of 1812. Florida served as
the juxtaposition of these international treaties
and the vying for control of land between the
American forces, the British, the Spanish who
actually owned Florida and the Seminoles and
the Maroons on the other side of that. Along
with the Native Americans, all of whom were
being used by the various sides for their own
purposes. The British supported the Maroons
living up on the Apalachicola River.
After the War of 1812, there were a number of incursions by Georgians in what is called the Patriot
War, as some of you might have heard of it. Last May you heard Dr. Joe Knetsch talk on this subject.
Sometimes they came down to recapture slaves that had escaped and sometimes it was just because it was
prime virgin land for them. By 1816-1818, Andrew Jackson and some of his allies made a later incursion
and attacked the Seminole town at Prospect Bluff. At that point in time they made a lucky shot. They hit
an armory which exploded. People were forced to leave. They fled south to the Suwannee, where at a
later point in time there was a battle with U.S. forces. The Black and Seminole forces won. But they knew
they were no longer safe. What do you do? You are fighting for your freedom and you’re fighting to keep
your family free. They fled further south into Florida until they came to a place where they would be left
alone. Let the Americans have their land in northern Florida. So they came here. The Manatee River
would be a great defensive barrier. They came and settled along the Manatee River and used the Manatee
Mineral Spring. Probably not in a nucleated community. They would have been spread out over the area.
But this is where they lived. They lived in freedom for several years. They would have traded with the
Cuban fishermen and the Seminoles and they would have created a community here. But not for long.
In 1821Florida becomes a U.S. Territory.
Andrew Jackson says: “Let me go and get
them.” It had been recorded in several U.S.
accounts that the Negroes were on the shores
near Tampa Bay. Andrew Jackson applies to
come and recapture the slaves that were here and
he was denied. But within three months his
Native American allies came south through
Florida and came to the Manatee River where
they destroyed what they called the plantations.
They destroyed the settlement of Angola. Three hundred were captured and taken back into slavery. Some
escaped by travelling across Florida to Key Biscayne and by canoe or with the support of the British they
were taken to Andros Island and there is a descendant community there today. Amazingly we have some
documents that correlate the two places. Because the Blacks were considered property, there was a report
of the names of the ones that had been captured. They would be taken back and tried to be returned to
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their owners. Three names were listed as “Runaway” as they escaped the group. Their names appear on
Andros Island in a British customs record. So we have a direct connection between the Angola
community and the Andros Island community.
That brings us up to the 1840s, which is the next group of settlement on the river. That would be the
American community, the Anglo-American community. Florida at this time, in this area of Bradenton,
Manatee, was a true frontier. We were the first community south of Tampa Bay, of Fort Brooke. Just
imaging sailing up the Manatee River at this time: no buildings on either bank, no roads, no markers. You
are sailing to a new life. It’s hard to imagine! The Spanish fishermen, who keep coming up in these
stories, because they were the ones living here on these ranchos before settlement. They guided Josiah
Gates to the spot at the Manatee Mineral Spring in late 1841.
At the start of the New Year he came back with
his family and their enslaved African-American
workers to settle the village of Manatee. In the
spring of 1842, other settlers came to both sides
of the river. That is Josiah Gates on the left and
Ellen Clark on the right.
The Clarks acquired the spring property and built the town’s first trading post. At that time it was a river
community. The sounds you would have heard would have been the creaking of masts and the sails. The
ships in the harbor would be unloading things for the store: bolts of cloth, boxes of nails. But not just for
the frontier town. Probably they kept the latest ladies bonnets that were fashionable in New York.
Probably they also shipped in china from China, back when it was fashionable. Just because it was a
frontier community, people were still trying to have a family and have the goods they might have if they
were still living back in Baltimore. Henry Clark became the first U.S. postmaster. He ran the post office
right from his store at the Manatee Mineral Spring right next to what became Kennedys Blacksmith’s
Shop, also right there at the spring. They were the center of that small village. We have the first plat for
the village [photo too dark to copy]. The first people to arrive were the surveyors. They had to survey
where the lots could be. The pioneers would have cleared the land and built the houses. They had to cope
with the mosquitoes and the heat and the hurricanes. This was the first town south of the last outpost of
the U.S. Army.
Major plantations were built on both sides of the river. Large sailing ships carried timber and molasses
from the markets on the Gulf and on the east coast. Everyone who came here was coming under the
Armed Occupation Act of 1842. For the settlement of the area, as was the settlement of so much of the
United States, Congress decides how to apportion the land that the country owns and for what reason. In
Florida after the 2nd Seminole War, this was how to keep the Seminoles on their reservation in the center
of the state if there wasn’t a reason, if there wasn’t anyone, any force, to keep them there. The 2nd
Seminole War was one of the bloodiest and most expensive of the United States Wars. The Army realized
that scattered forts were not going to keep the Seminoles where they wanted to keep the Seminoles. So
they put up land for sale. Anyone who wanted to come could come and build a house, settle it, farm it and
be prepared to defend it could have sixty acres of land. That’s how most of the early settlers who came
here came under that Armed Occupation Act.
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This is a picture of Henry Clark in his first “mail sloop”. Ships were built along the river. Henry Clark
built his first schooner The Atlanta, which on its maiden voyage in 1848 carried sugar and molasses to
New York. Tragically, it sank in a hurricane on the way back. That tragedy pretty much ruined Henry
Clark’s life and he became ill and died shortly thereafter. Sugar cane was obviously a crop for the
community. Many settlers bought a wagon load of sugar “seed cane” with them when they came. They
might have had a mule to help operate the small cane press if they were just putting in enough for their
own family for molasses. Hopefully in a year or so they would have enough to buy items or trade them at
the store.
Of course the Gamble Plantation and the Braden Plantation would have invested thousands of dollars in
acres of land, livestock and tools, plus machinery and slaves. That would turn the acres of wilderness into
cultivated fields. Robert Gamble, who came from Tallahassee, came from an old Virginia family. Many
of those families had lost all their wealth in bank failures in the Panic of 1837. They were looking for new
land, virgin land. They were hoping to come here and regain their wealth.
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The Third Seminole War:
Seminoles were well known in the Manatee settlement. They would come and they would trade in Henry
Clark’s store. Chief Holata Mico Billy Bowlegs was sometimes a guest at Josiah Gates home. For over a
decade after the first settlement, the settlement was at peace. They were living at peace with the
Seminoles. But as was true in many, many places; the expansion of land, the expansion of settlement and
the military surveying in areas that they weren’t supposed to be in, areas that were supposed to be the
Seminole homeland, peace came to an end. There were too many people vying for the same pieces of land
and conflict broke out over that in 1856 which led to the outbreak of the 3rd Seminole War. Homesteads in
Sarasota were burned. Indians attacked the Braden Castle. Dr. Franklin Branch, who at that time owned
the Manatee Mineral Spring property along with his wife Vashti, allowed people throughout the
countryside to take shelter at their residence near the spring. The reinforced stockade that was built there
was known as Branch’s Fort or as Camp Manatee. It was home to a large group of settlers for sixteen
months. Three babies were born there. In addition to the hot and crowded conditions they had to deal with
outbreaks of whooping cough and measles. The U.S. Army set up a military post near there, Camp
Armstrong, later called Camp Snead. They contracted with Dr. Branch to provide medical services. The
troops kept busy with scouting, mapmaking and building a wharf. We have a record of this because they
wanted mules to haul their wagons so they could get their water from the spring. They were having to
carry it themselves. So they wrote to their military higher-ups saying: “Please send us some mules so we
can get water from the spring.” So the spring, again, was so important to all the people.
By 1857, the U.S. Army pushed the Seminoles deeper into the Everglades and into the Big Cypress
Swamp, and the danger to the settlement waned and the families went back to their own homes.
The next person to own the spring, Captain John Curry, was a shipbuilder, mariner, salvager and cattle
trader. He traded up and down the west coast of Florida as well as the Atlantic coast, the Florida Keys and
the Bahamas. He migrated to Key West where he met and married Mary Ward Kemp. They kept
connections and probably still have connections or their families still have connections to both Key West
and the Bahamas. When he went on a trading expedition in 1859, Captain Curry purchased the property
known as the Manatee Mineral Spring from Dr.
Franklin Branch. In 1860, twenty-nine members
of the Curry family migrated from Key West to
the settlement at Manatee. Some were married
adults with children, some were in-laws with
their families. Six Curry homes are listed on the
1860 census and sixteen on the census of 1870.
Those Curry family members not already
married soon married settlers.
There was one point in time where, if you asked about anyone that you didn’t know, you figured they
were a Curry, because they probably were, or were at least related.
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Captain John Curry built many ships, large and small. Two of his ships were blockade runners during the
Civil War.
In the Civil War, no battles were fought around the Manatee settlement. It was a time of stress and strain
nonetheless. Many men went away to war. Union blockades meant that the women and children only had
flour occasionally when it was smuggled in. There was no coffee other than that made of parched corn or
beans, which I think makes it not being coffee, actually. Not at all like that black stuff you are drinking, I
guess. When Union troops came up the river they tried to arrest any man of military age. They confiscated
livestock and destroyed any property that might supply the Confederacy. They sunk or they burned boats,
large and small. They kept settlers from making the precious salt because it was not only used to preserve
food in the settlement; it could be harvested and sent to the Confederate Army. Salt was not just used for
preserving food, but it could also be used for curing leather. Salt was considered a contraband of war. If
any of you go out to Robinson Preserve, that is a salt flat, one of the primary ones in this region for
harvesting salt.
Captain John Curry’s son, the younger John Curry, (John W. Curry) was a member of the Florida Home
Guard. He played a major role in supplying cattle and other provisions to the Confederate Army. Two
thousand cattle a week were driven from South Florida north to various army posts. They would herd the
cattle here, then drive them north to the Tallahassee area where they could meet up with a rail line. Then
the rail line would carry the cattle on to the Confederate Army.
Meanwhile, the old seamen of the town who knew all the inlets and bayous of the Florida West Coast,
kept busy trying to run the Florida blockade. One of Captain Curry’s schooners, the Ariel, he sold to the
Confederacy for use as a blockade runner. It made several successful runs to Cuba with cotton, returning
with lead, tin, medicine, wine, coffee and other items needed by the South. In 1862 she was captured by
the Union schooner Huntsville and she was then fitted out to work for the Union blockade. Another of
Captain Curry’s ships, the Dudley, has a special place in the family history. Two Curry boys, William
and Amos, made a run with the ship when they were spotted by Union forces. Rather than have her
captured, they set the ship ablaze. They took to the mangroves to hide, carrying the ship’s barometer,
which someone in this room, a local descendant [Joanna Williams] still owns and has hanging on her
wall. It is beautiful. It is really, really beautiful. If you come out to the Manatee Mineral Spring, we have
a picture of it on one of our signs.
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In the late summer of 1864, Union soldiers came ashore. This is a picture of Captain Joseph Francis
Bartholf. Captain of Company 1, 2nd Regiment of U.S. Colored Infantry. He had quartered himself at one
of the Curry houses while the regiment occupied the town. One of the young Curry sons, young Arvin
Curry, remembered an officer in blue. This is a story that is in Kinfolks. You talk about how you know
about your past and why such things are so important to have. His recollection is in that book. He
remembers an officer in blue with a huge mustache and shiny sword in his grandfather’s living room.
While the troops were there, they destroyed the Gamble Sugar Mill on the north side of the river. On the
south side, they blew up the sawmill and grist mill owned by Josiah Gates, John Curry and Ezekiel
Glazier.
Now the next Curry generation, that of Samuel G. and Amanda, who had lived in the large house in the
1860s, which is the picture on the left, inherited both the houses from Captain John. Many family homes
had been built on the acreage around the Manatee Mineral Spring. In 1884, this was the first time the land
itself had been subdivided into lots. The little settlement of Manatee had grown and very few of the
original land parcels were still intact. The picture is of Miss Amelia, who was the next to inherit the
homes. She taught in the Manatee school in the early 1900s, at one time serving as principal. In the
summer she worked as a postmistress. She used these two houses as rentals and lived in a newer home
across the street that she built in 1925. Both of these homes as well as the one she lived in are still extant
and Reflections of Manatee is working to restore all three of them.
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They are all still there for the Currys to come and hold their reunions!
In the 1900s the Manatee Mineral Spring was made into a park, at that time called the Indian Springs
Park. It used to be a favorite place for Sunday School groups to come and picnic.
There is a beautiful gazebo there and until
the spring was capped, people would come
there with their jugs to get their water from
the spring, coming from across town.
[Voice from Audience/ Joanna Williams] Sherry – one of the women in this picture is my Aunt
Elsie, John William Curry’s daughter. She was named by him to stay home and take care of him
in his old age. [Laughter from Audience] Well, she got even with him. She became a Methodist
missionary and went to Cuba. Of course, he was such a good churchman that he couldn’t refuse
to let his daughter do that. [Laughter from Audience] She’s on the left hand side of that post,
leaning forward.
[Voice from Audience] Why can’t you go and get water there now?
Sherry Svekis: They’ve capped the well. Yes, it was the City. There was lots of speculation.
One of our goals at Reflections of Manatee is to eventually restore it. Then to put in a pump so
you could come and get water from the spring. Or at least to restore the gazebo with water
running.
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[Voice from Audience] There were places all over there, up North, where you could go and get
water like that.
Tape ends here. Notes here were handwritten from discussion after the main speech.
Archaeology is done to bring attention to what is not in the documents. In 2006, Reflections of
Manatee hosted Archaeology Day and Whidden Technology did a ground tomography survey of
subsurface remains, going inch by inch for 80 inches over a small portion of the property.
In 2008 an excavation was done based on the findings from the ground tomography survey.
Valerie Bell found a soil stain, that is, a very dark layer next to a grey layer, which showed a post
hole. This matched a dark spot from the 2006 survey.
In a 2013 excavation undertaken by the Florida Public Archaeology Network and U.S.F., New
College and the University of Central Florida found evidence of pottery, ceramics and clay pipes
dating back to the 1810s, presumably part of the Angola community which used the spring area.
So many archaeology sites in Florida have been paved over. This site was saved by luck because
the center of Bradenton moved west and left the Old Manatee area behind. This was almost sold
by the city as surplus land. It was saved by Jeff and Trudy Williams with the founding of
Reflections of Manatee. This can broaden our understanding of the Black, White, Seminole,
Maroons, Army, Currys, Branches, Gates and Clark settlement eras around the spring and the
Manatee River.
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