Sunday Favorites: The Creature of Emerson Point

I grew up on Snead Island, which is the most western point of Palmetto. Back then, present-day Emerson Point Preserve did not exist as it does today. The location was a popular haunt where people fished during the day and parked during the night, however it was privately owned.

Anyone who has visited the park knows that one of the most popular features is the impressive Native American shell mounds-- a temple mound and another small midden. The temple mound at Emerson is the largest and most important mound in the Tampa Bay Area because it was one of the only platform mounds used to perform ceremonial rituals, according to a 1991 interview Herald Pervis gave to the Manatee County Historical Society.

Often these rituals included animals. The natives were known to praise many of the animals that kept them alive -- turtles, deer, manatee but they also respected those they viewed as predators, like Florida panther.

Of course, I knew nothing of the significance of the mound when I was a kid. The mounds were like a heavily wooded playground, full of trails and adventure. I used to play for hours with the kids in the neighborhood crawling up the steep mounds, swinging from rope swings and climbing the large oaks surrounded the area. We never realized we were playing on sacred ground.

At times the sun would start to set and we would recognize in the dimness of twilight we needed to get home right away. You see, we were afraid of a night creature following us home. It was a legend I'd heard from a long time fellow Palmetto native, Larry Adams. The tale was passed down for generations and scary enough to stand up the hairs on the back of your neck and send a shiver down your spine.

The legend takes place long ago, when settlers first arrived on Snead Island in the mid to late 1800s. Like kids using the mounds as a playground, they didn't understand their significance either. They decimated them, often using them for road fill and other construction purposes.

Emerson Point was desolate, with only a single, lonely dirt road leading past the Indian mounds and miles of mangroves and woods along the way. There was no natural gas or electricity to provide light. Instead, kerosene lanterns were used during the night.

The first settlers to the island actually built their home on top of the temple mound. Today, you can still see the cistern the used to supply the small wooden house with rainwater.

One night while the husband was on a trip to Tampa for supplies, the wife walked down the long dirt road to catch herself some dinner. Fishing was going so well, she lost track of time and before she knew it, it was dark. She hadn't prepared to be out so late and left her lantern at the house.

It was a new moon and darkness descended quickly. Carrying a bucket full of fish, the woman hurried as quickly as she could, but the road was long and the bucket was heavy.

As her pace quickened, she started to hear what sounded like footsteps behind her. She stopped, listened in the still darkness and heard nothing. She continued down the path and again heard the footsteps behind her. If she sped up, the footsteps did too. If she slowed down, the frequency of the steps decelerated.

She began getting more and more frightened, stopping one last time to listen in the darkness before suddenly dropping her bucket and sprinting home. She reasoned that whatever animal was following her would likely eat the fish while she escaped.

It didn't work.

As she ran she could hear the footsteps behind her gaining on her as she exhausted all her strength to get home. At one point, she tripped and fell to the ground but recovered before whatever was chasing her could catch up.

As she rounded the corner to her house the creature was trailing her was so close, she could hear it breathing.

She herself was running out of breath as she climbed to her porch. By now it was pitch black and as she fumbled with the door handle she head her stalker's feet on the wooden planks of behind her. She finally got the door open and slammed it shut in one fluid motion but not before getting whiff of hot breath before it closed. It smelled decrepit and she thought she might have seen the yellow glimmer of two eyes.

She bolted the door and heard a loud shriek followed by a bang that rocked the door to its hinges. She ran for her shotgun as the banging continued but it stopped just as it had begun and she didn't hear another sound for the rest of the night.

When she inspected the door the next morning she was shocked to see deep claw marks embedded in the thick wood.

Was it a panther? A panther encounter wouldn't have been unlikely during that time, but why wouldn't it have taken the bucket of fish? Her gut told her it was something else, something macabre.

Could it have been a jaded Native American spirit? We will probably never know. But one thing is for sure, you'll never catch me at Emerson Point after dark, just in case it's still out there!