Sunday Favorites: The Allure of Anna Maria

Ever wonder what life was like for the first homesteaders on Anna Maria? Before bridges connected the island to the mainland, residents planted gardens, fished local and relied on steamers for supplies. But life was not easy. Islander life was very separate from the outside world, with many families living apart for work and school.

New Jersey natives Samuel and Annie Gilman Cobb moved to Tampa in 1891. Annie contracted Typhoid Fever and was sent to Anna Maria Island to stay with the Hall family and recuperate. Mrs. Hall was the daughter of G.W. Bean, the first homesteader on the island, according to Anna Maria Cobb Riles in a 1969 interview with the Manatee County Historical Society (MCHS).

Back then, the island was about a mile longer than it is today and prone to drastic erosion. The Halls had moved their house twice to prevent it from being washed away. The Hall family finally settled adjacent to present-day Rod and Reel Pier on the north end of the island because it was protected by Passage Key. At that time an island lush with vegetation – very different from the sandbar it is today.

Even back then the island was protected as it was a nesting sanctuary for birds. During nesting season, a game warden was stationed there to prevent looters from taking eggs. During this time he transported his horse to the island, stayed in a small cabin and kept a garden for food, according to MCHS.

While Annie recuperated, she fell in love with Anna Maria Island, believing it to be a much healthier and cleaner area than Tampa, which was prone to outbreaks of malaria, yellow fever and even small pox. In 1895, she and Samuel moved to the island, receiving a government-issued homestead of 160 acres, under the Armed Occupation Act.

Their acreage bordered a bayou they planned to use as a harbor for small sailing boats. The bayou led to a natural channel which ran to deeper water. Unfortunately there was already a resident living on the bayou when they arrived. Andrew Gowanlock had built a small cabin where he lived part of the year. When the Cobbs filed for their homestead, he exercised squatter’s rights and was granted three acres on the bay front.

That meant the Cobbs had nowhere to build a dock. Docks were very important back then. Not only was Samuel planning to commute from Anna Maria to Tampa for work, but they also needed a dock to receive supplies.

The Halls greatly relied shipments of supplies. They built a pier large enough to accommodate steam ships. Steamers ran from Sarasota to Tampa, transporting goods and passengers. The steamers made stops in Palmetto, Bradenton and the the Village of Manatee on the Manatee River. They would go out of their way to stop at the Halls’ pier on Anna Maria if a flag was raised to indicate freight or passengers needed to be picked up.

The Cobbs eventually purchased an additional 10 acres from John Jones, another homesteader whose land adjoined theirs the south side. At the time, there were only about four families living on the island. Riles describes them in her interview:

”At the time my parents built on the island, there were just four families there - the Halls already mentioned, the Cobbs (us) and a widow named Turner, with her two grown sons. There were some single men, a one-armed veteran of the Spanish-American war, named Wright, William (buddy) Berg, whose home was near the present Anna M aria city pier and who was allotted a triangular piece &f land with only a few feet of gulf front, Nelson Cunningham a retired railroad conductor, Herbert T. 'Watson, a fine musician' who taught violin in St. Petersburg later, Jose Maria Casanas, a native of the Canary Islands, Mr. Rouse, a pharmacist who preferred the free and outdoor life of the island, and John R. Jones whose wife and children lived in Tampa through the school year and came to- the island in the summer.“

Tune in next week to see what happens to the Cobb family and their interactions with the handful of other neighbors that lived on Anna Maria Island in the late 1800s.