Community Sunday Favorites: Naming Rights

Do you ever wonder where Manatee County’s towns, landmarks and waterways get their names? This week, I take a look at some local landmarks and offer a short history of their origins.

Bradenton
The name “Bradenton” was actually started as a typo. Major William Iredell is largely known as the father of the city since it was him who named it. Iredell wanted to honor Dr. Joseph Braden, a sugar farmer whose fortified plantation housed numerous residents during nine months of Seminole raids. The garrison eventually morphed into a town.

Iredell proposed naming the community after Dr. Braden, however an error in the application resulted in the name “Braidentown”. Over the years, that name morphed into the more modern version of “Bradenton.”

Palmetto
Some folks might think the city was named after a shrub or a bug, but that’s only partially true. Its founder, Samuel Sparks Lamb, gave the city its name after he moved here in 1868. He actually named it “Palmetto” because the plentiful palmetto bushes reminded him of his home state of South Carolina.

Snead Island
The island was named after Edward Snead, who named the island after himself. Snead filed for 128 acres on the eastern end of the island on June 19, 1843 under the Armed Occupation Act.

The 365 acres on the western end of Snead is called Emerson Point Preserve. It was named after a recluse named James Emerson. Although educated in New York State, Emerson chose a life of seclusion. After homesteading 6.75 acres in 1899, the tall thin man spent the rest of his days wearing overalls and tending to the chickens that roosted in the mangroves.

Ware’s Creek
This creek was named after Elbridge Ware, a Tallahasseean who brought his family down in 1845 after his uncle Colonel William Wyatt had settled in the area.

Manatee homes destroyed by the 1846 hurricane, which also wiped out the home of the Ware family.

Ware built his family a home on the west bank of the creek near its mouth.

However, they were prompted to move elsewhere when they lost their home in a 1846 hurricane which reportedly blew all the water out of the Manatee River. To make matters worse, Mrs. Louisa Ware gave birth to their son Henry during the hurricane! The family escaped the storm by hiding under a large wooden table.

Elbridge died of fever during a trip to Mexico. Louisa married Captain Fredrick Tresca and moved to the village of Manatee.

Shaw’s Point
Now the site of a 2-acre park located on 72nd Street in North West Bradenton, Shaw's Point was named after its first official landowner William H. Shaw. (It used to be home to a group of Native Americans, and later a Cuban fishermen ranchero). The Virginian took advantage of the government’s Armed Occupation Act and settled 165 acres along the Manatee River at the site. He and his family lived in a small tabby house until 1855 when the Andress family bought it.

The house later became the area’s first tavern. During the Civil War, the house was used as an outpost for those on guard against Federal attack. Its final inhabitant was a post office.

Bishop’s Point
A curious surveyor gave the landmark its name. Way back in the 1880s, when the Manatee River was being dredged and mapped, a group of assessors rowed toward a young angler wading the shallow waters around what is now known as Bishop’s Point. One of the men pointed at a wood-frame house located nearby.

“Who lives there?” he asked the boy.

“Bishop,” the boy replied. It was then and there that the surveyor gave the point of land its official name. 

The house belonged to Asa Bishop. Bishop and his family moved to an area just east of Shaw’s Point in 1859. Ironically, Asa’s grandfather was from Bishop’s Point, England. Bishop was a friendly man and offered his home to any guests, especially those sailors who happened into the harbor.

Christ Episcopal Church at Willemsenberg in 1889.

Oneco

Royal Palm Nurseries nursery was located in an unincorporated area approximately 6 miles from downtown Bradenton. It was the only business for miles. Because the business was so isolated, it is assumed the nursery helped name the village Oneco as the railroad at the time called the station “One Co. stop,” which eventually evolved into “Oneco.” 

Fogartyville

The area on the Manatee River that now rests at the end of 26th Street in Bradenton was started by a band of brothers called John, Tole and William Henry Fogarty. John was a captain who stumbled across the Manatee section during a storm. He returned two years later to homestead with this family. Together, they built a family home and started a boatworks, referring to their new home as “Fogartyville.” Ironicallly, they were not the first residents.

Johan Wilhelmsen (Americanized to Willemsen) and his wife Sarah Jane resided on the land first. Wilhelmsen had plans to start a colony himself; he called it Willemsenburg. The situation would cause a spirited competition between the two families for several decades.

The next time you pass one of these sites, I hope you will have a greater understanding of the people that occupied the landmarks long ago.