Sunday Favorites: Ghouls, Ghosts and Florida Man

Parts of the story below are true, but the tale has been creatively interpreted and embellished for entertainment purposes.

The Wild Man of Englewood

J.D. Anderson, of Englewood, Fla., grabbed his rifle from beside his bed. It was the middle of the night, and his sleep was interrupted by the sounds of distressed animals in the barn. He quietly snuck out the back door, careful not to make a sound that might jeopardize his surprise attack on the predator harassing his livestock.

A swamp hotel. 1871 (circa). State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.

When he entered the barn, he crouched down waiting for his eyes to adjust. The cows anxiously paced in their stall, mooing in a low tone that indicated a threat was near. A horse bucked and neighed wildly, causing J.D. to almost lose his balance. He abruptly turned and saw something sinister in the corner. A small bear was gnawing at a large hunk of meat, blood was caked and dripping down its snout. A terrible stench, that of death and rot, emanated from the animal. J.D. thought it might be diseased.

He raised his rifle and aimed but hesitated before pulling the trigger. The beast looked up from his chunk of raw meat, and J.D. realized it wasn’t a bear at all, but a crazed madman wearing bear skin, the head of the animal hooded his dark face. J.D. saw his two black eyes reflect the light of the moon. Stunned, J.D. staggered backward, lost his grip on the gun, and yelled out. The man jumped over the fence and disappeared into the darkness.

It was the early 1900s and residents of Englewood reported sightings of the wild man in the bearskin. He was dirty, deranged, and smelled of decay. He spoke another language, possibly Portuguese, but usually, he just grunted and made sounds that mimicked a wild animal.

In the article “The Wildman of Englewood” by Josephine Cortes, published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Monday, Aug. 21, 1960, he was described as a “fearsome creature to behold with a vile smelling garment fashioned caveman style from a piece of animal hide and he was usually barefoot.”

In cold weather, he made himself shoes with animal hide, Cortes explained. She also described his glittering black eyes, tangled beard, and long, coarse hair that she says was “matted with dirt and vermin.”

The Wildman sometimes visited a small store owned by H.C. Nichols, the founder of Englewood. Most of the time, he hung out back waiting for any patrons to leave before entering through the back door. He purchased cheese and other random items. He never spoke, just pointed, and grunted at the things he fancied. He always paid for his groceries in gold, according to Kim Cool in her book “Ghost Stories of Venice.”

Immediately after leaving the store, he would disappear. “Few attempts to follow him were met with defeat.” Cortes wrote. “Always the trail was lost in the vast wilderness along with bay near where Morrison Street is now located.”

For the most part, concern over the wild man was speculative with no real cause for alarm. Folks wondered where he was from, where he lived, why he never spoke, and most curious of all, where he got his gold.

Rumors began to surface that he had murdered a rich man with a large horde of gold on Palm Ridge Beach. The man’s stash of gold was missing after his death, according to Cortes. Residents theorized that he’d swam across Lemon Bay to cover his tracks.

Then several ranchers reported missing livestock. They began to suspect Wildman was slaughtering the animals. J.D. Anderson, who had been the victim of one of these attacks, formed a group of vigilantes to find the Wildman’s hideout. After searching the forest beyond present-day St. Raphael’s Church, they became repulsed by the smell of rotting odor. They followed the scent to a small clearing where Wildman was crouched, gnawing on a huge piece of meat. Around him, carcasses of hogs and cattle lay strewn in the sun, according to Cortes.

The men surrounded and caught him, binding him with ropes and hauling him by wagon to the sheriff’s office In Braidentown (former name of Bradenton). The entire trip, nearly 50 miles, he never spoke, only remained silent with only an occasional grunt.

After he was placed in jail, every able-bodied man in Englewood went looking for Wildman’s lair. They found a small palmetto hut in the middle of the woods and proceeded to ransack it, hoping to find a stash of gold buried somewhere on the premises, but none was ever recovered.  

An excerpt from a Sarasota Times article from April 7, 1910, states that Wildman was captured wearing thin cotton garments and possessed 20 gold coins and other money amounting to $47.00. The article goes on to say that he spoke in another language that no one understood and that he “may have been a refugee from some railroad camp who was enjoying life away from the haunts of men and amid the solitude of the unbroken forest.”

Wildman was eventually taken to Tampa and then transferred to a mental institution in Chattanooga, Tenn., according to Cortes.

Was the story of the Wildman of Englewood a tale of an individual targeted because of his lifestyle that most didn't comprehend? Was it a man in search of solitude, yearning for a simpler existence reminiscent of his ancestors, or was he truly a deranged murderer terrorizing the local community?

We may never know the answer. However, if you find yourself walking down Yale Street toward the bay on a moonlit night, you may see a man crouching along the shoreline in a bearskin cloak. If the wind is right, you may even get a whiff of the smell of blood from a fresh kill. Happy haunting!