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                                                            HISTORIC SARASOTA

 

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The first settler in what is now Sarasota County, Florida, was 21 year old William Whitaker, a veteran of Florida's Second Seminole War who took advantage of the United States Government's "Armed Occupation Act" to settle on the coast of Sarasota Bay in 1842.  The Act allowed a veteran of the war to build a home south of Tampa Bay, maintain it for five years, and then claim ownership of up to 160 acres.  Obtaining the help of his half-brother, Hamlin Snell, Whitaker built a cabin on Sarasota Bay at a place he called "Yellow Bluffs" near present-day 12th Street and U.S. 41.  Selling dried fish and guavas to passing Cuban fishermen, Whitaker was able to purchase his first head of cattle in 1847 and start his own ranch when the land officially became his.    

Courting 19 year old Mary Jane Wyatt in nearby Manatee Village, Whitaker eventually married the young woman who had achieved fame in the town by allowing ailing Seminole chief Billy Bowlegs to camp behind her house to recover from a bout of malaria.  Once the Whitakers set up housekeeping at Yellow Bluffs, Bowlegs was a constant visitor--to the dismay of William, who distrusted the natives after fighting them in the Second Seminole War.  His prediction of further trouble came to fruition in 1855 when the Third Seminole War broke out and the Seminoles ranged throughout Southwest Florida for the next two years--while settlers from as far south as Fort Myers huddled at Dr. Branch's sanitarium grounds in Manatee Village. 

Allowed little time to recover after most of the Seminoles had been removed to Oklahoma, the settlers in Southwest Florida were soon plunged into the Civil War.  With U.S. Naval forts at Jacksonville, Key West, and Panama City still in Union hands, Confederate Florida was surrounded by U.S. gunboats, which prevented settlers from traveling to or from the state by water. Many ranchers--including Whitaker--aided the Confederacy by conducting cattle drives up the center of the state to supply Confederate troops with much needed beef, while others--eventually Whitaker himself--engaged in blockade running to Cuba for supplies--a risky business which landed many a ship's captain in a Union prison.

Once the Civil War drew to a close, the Confederate cabinet fled Richmond to Georgia--where Jefferson Davis and all but one of his cabinet were captured and put in prison.  Suspecting that Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin had fled into Florida, the Union soldiers once again invaded the state hoping to capture him.  Southern loyalty in Florida, however, protected Judah Benjamin on his quest for transport out of the country. Benjamin came eventually to Manatee Village where several settlers--aided by the Whitakers in Sarasota--managed to hide Benjamin until they could get him safely to Bimini. 

 

 

 

Billy Bowlegs or Holata Micco ("Alligator Chief") was born about 1810 into a family of Seminole chieftains.  Bowlegs was one of the leaders of the Seminoles during the Second Seminole War and then led the Seminoles into the Third Seminole War from 1856-1858--when his band was responsible for burning and pillaging settlements from Fort Myers to Manatee Village.  Once the final conflict was over, Bowlegs was offered $10,000 to relocate to the Indian territory in Oklahoma.  Realizing his band of 123 remaining Seminoles was badly outnumbered, Bowlegs and most of his tribe eventually took advantage of the offer and agreed to relocate. Reportedly receiving cash for each member of his family and his slaves, Bowlegs became one of the wealthiest land owners in the new Indian territory until his death in 1864.

Judah Benjamin--best known as the Confederate States of America's Secretary of State--was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in the West Indies in 1811.  He was brought to Charleston, SC, at an early age and entered Yale Law School at age 14.  After graduating, he practiced law in New Orleans. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Louisiana in 1852 and then became the Confederacy's Attorney General and later Secretary of War, and finally Secretary of State.  During the Civil War, Benjamin was blamed for several of the Confederacy's misfortunes.  In addition, he was thought by the United States government to have plotted with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln--although no proof was ever offered.  Fearing for his life when the war ended, Benjamin left the company of the fleeing members of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's cabinet and made his way to Florida--where he was hidden by several ardent Confederates down the length of the state. With help from men from Manatee Village and William Whitaker, Benjamin finally made his way to Bimini and eventually to England and France--the only ranking Confederate cabinet member to avoid imprisonment.

The Pioneer Whitaker Cemetery, established in 1879, is the first cemetery in Sarasota and the burial spot of the documented first white settler in Sarasota County, William Henry Whitaker, and his wife, Mary Jane Wyatt Whitaker. The cemetery–a quiet and peaceful spot–is located only a few steps from the busy North Trail (U. S. 41) and Twelfth Street in historic Pioneer Park. It has been maintained since 1939 by the Sara DeSoto Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, whose chapter house adjoins the property. The cemetery continues to be the burial site for any lineal descendant or spouse of the Whitaker family as long as space remains.