Sunday Favorites: The Oldest Pirate Too

MYAKKA – When we left off two weeks ago, Juan Gomez (or John as he was known locally) had just been buried on Panther Key, his longtime home in Southwest Florida. However, another John Gomez was living happily in Myakka. This John matched the same description of the former, had the same Spanish accent and boasted the same connections to piracy. Was he an impostor, or was this the Manatee County version of the Dread Pirate Roberts?

If you’ve ever seen the Princess Bride, you know that the protagonist, Wesley, assumes the identity of his captor the Dread Pirate Roberts. Roberts, who was known for never taking prisoners, spares Wesley’s life in order to prepare him to become the pirate’s replacement. Wesley then learns that his predecessor is not the real Roberts either, but another impersonator trained by the original Roberts who was by then happily retired and impressively rich.

If this was the scenario pertaining to the pirate John Gomez, it serves as an explanation as to why there were two John Gomezes living in Southwest Florida claiming to be trusted confidants of the infamous Jose Gaspar. It may also explain how both men lived to be well over a century old. If the original Gomez was born in 1781, he may have been older and thus passed on well before his two Southwest predecessors on Southwest Florida.

The East County John Gomez homesteaded north of Myakka City on twenty acres, ten of which were aggregated specifically for farming. There is no record of him buying this land in Manatee County which is why historians Pam Gibson, Joe Warner and Libby Warner theorize that he had squatters’ rights in their research paper ”The Legend of John Gomez, the Last Pirate: Fact or Fiction?.“

Gomez lived with his wife, two daughters and two sons, John and Charlie. Like the John Gomez of Panther Key, the John Gomez of East County stood well over six-feet tall, had long white hair, a white beard, a dark complexion and heavy Spanish accent.

According to Gibson and Warner, the family kept to themselves making few trips away from their property and very rarely venturing out for even the most general necessities like groceries. Instead, they subsisted on their garden plot, cow’s milk and meat from free-range hogs and cattle. Back then, rural homesteads often welcomed travelers out of necessity – but on the contrary, the Gomezes’ discouraged guests and visitors. The exception to their austere living was that fact that John and Charlie regularly attended services at a nearby church. Churchgoers described the boys as friendly and amenable.

In 1886 Wiley Washington and Martha Caroline Ballard-Washington settled near Gomez’s Myakka homestead, becoming the family’s first next-door neighbors. Despite the Gomez family’s solitude, the Washingtons learned many stories about their patriarch who claimed to be an ex-pirate and right-hand-man to Jose Gaspar.

Gomez said he ended up on his Myakka farm after getting into a fight with a man over treasure buried in Charlotte Harbor. During the scuffle, a man was killed and Gomez ”fled for his life as he knew he was going to be the next victim," according to Gibson and Warner.

When listeners would prod Gomez about the treasure, asking why he never returned to reclaim it, he’d always reply humbly, saying ”too many men had been killed over its possession and he was going to let it stay where it was buried,“ according to Gibson and Warner.

East County Gomez died sometime in 1910, ten years after Panther Key Gomez passed away. At the time of his death, Gomez told his neighbors he was 112 years old, but no official record of his birth existed, therefore his actual age was unknown. If he was indeed the original Juan Gomez of Spain, who was born in 1781 and ran away to become a cabin boy on a ship at age 12, he would have been 129.

East County Gomez was buried in Knight’s Cemetery near Myakka; his wife died a few years later and was buried by his side. After the couple’s death, their property was decimated by treasure-hunters hoping to find some of Gaspar’s treasure but nothing was every recovered. Knight’s Cemetery was also destroyed by the Hercules Powder Company who mined the area in search of minerals. None of the headstones survived the destruction.

In fact, the only evidence of East County Gomez’s existence was census data listing him as ”Frank Gomez“ from Spain. If Gomez’s real name was Frank, why did everyone in the vicinity call him John? Was he really a pirate or were the rumors surrounding his past just a result of his elusiveness and/or heritage? If he was telling the truth it is more likely that he was an impersonator for the original Gomez than the actual pirate himself, who was born in 1781. Gomez the impersonator could have taken over after the John Gomez of Panther Key left pirating and went on to become a legitimate harbor pilot in Tampa. We may never know the truth, in fact, there may be another Dread Pirate Gomez out there now, still carrying on the legend.