“It is a fact that John lived on Panther Key until
his death in 1910,” she said. “There are maps of
buried treasure located in Florida, and one of
those treasures was recovered by Mr. Parker with
John’s assistance on the property of Mr. Pillsbury
of Bradenton. It is also a fact that Gasparilla
beheaded a princess and buried her in a
hammock on the north end of a shell mound
owned by Parker. They dug her up in 1902 and
found her head laying next to the body. We also
know there was a large ship’s mast found near
Three Sisters Key that was laid up in the fork of
some trees, and was put there to mark the ‘X’ of
the treasure spot. Gomez told Parker there was
treasure 100 feet from the water’s edge, and was
often covered by tide water. Other locations are
marked as a place near Gasparilla Pass at the
south end, on an island known as Bourne Island;
on the north end of the island; a place at the
extreme end of Key Largo; somewhere in the
Caloosahatchee near Punta Rassa, and on the
north end of Lemon Bay on the east side.”
She said John’s son Frank and grandson Charlie
C. Gomez were born and died in Old Myakka,
and John's great grandson TM Gomez was born
there.
Chanoce said her family is working to uncover
more about their infamous relative, in an effort to
clear his good name as well as to shed light on
the potential reality of a pirate who may or may
not have been named Gaspar.
G
M
JOHN GOMEZ continued from page 44
TRIUMPH OF ICE OVER SALT continued from page 54
G
M
In December of 1945, AACCo sold all its
remaining lots on Gasparilla Island to Sunset
Realty, a New York real-estate firm. In effect, the
sale included all of the land on Gasparilla Island
situated in Charlotte County, together with a
large fraction of the undeveloped land in Lee
County. As a part of the transaction, AACCo sold
the little fishing village of Gasparilla to a
real-estate company which had every intention,
when the time was ripe, of bulldozing it out of
existence and replacing it with an upscale
development. In anticipation of Gasparilla's
eventual demise, most of its residents soon
moved away. In 1947, Gus Cole moved his IGA
store to Placida, and Walter Gault, who for many
years had operated a fishery in Gasparilla village,
constructed a state-of-the art fish-packing and
ice-manufacturing plant, Gasparilla Fishery, next to
Cole's establishment. Until 1999, when it was
permanently closed, the plant was operated by
Gault's daughter, Eunice Albritton.
What lessons can we draw from this brief
examination of the history of commercial fishing
in Charlotte Harbor? First, one has to be filled
with admiration and respect for the people who
carried out the difficult and demanding work of
hunting, harvesting, and preserving fish. They did
an important job well and with justifiable pride.
Second, one cannot fail to be impressed by the
way the discovery of ice making wiped out an
entire industry of drying and salting fish, replacing
it with a new system centered upon the prompt
icing of fish and their early shipment in fresh state
to distant urban centers. Finally, we must be
constantly reminded that the natural resources
available to us – fish included – are finite. We
must make every effort to deal constructively
with the burdens placed on the environment by
an exploding human population, by industrial and
urban pollution, and by over-utilization of our
dwindling resources. In this case, the handwriting
is not on the wall: It can be read in the waters of
Charlotte Harbor.
76 GASPARILLA ISLAND September/October 2019