MANATEE RIVER – It’s hard to imagine today on bustling Anna Maria Island, but it didn’t use to be the Gulf of Mexico that brought people to Manatee County.
In the mid-1800s, it was the Manatee River, the interstate of its day.
And the first settlers that came to the county didn’t have to fight traffic – they had to fight Indians. It was the price they had to pay to be allowed to settle here – clear five acres of land, build a house, live in it for five years and enlist in the militia, which, for the most part, engaged the Seminole, or “runaway” tribe, which actually was a mixture of tribes.
First Place
Community History
2013
About 20 passengers aboard the Island Pearl braved cold and wind on Saturday to learn about the area’s history on a cruise with Cathy Slusser of the Manatee County Historical Resources Department, who told (mostly) true stories about the river and early life on its banks.
The “mostly” part included legends of how the Manatee got the nickname “singing river,” which has several possibilities, including humming fish, an imprisoned singing pirate wench, the sound of waves rushing over rocks and a romantic version pairing a boy and a singing girl from the two tribes that lived on the river’s banks, Timucuan and Caloosa.
The river once went dry during a hurricane that sucked the water out of it, enabling people to walk across it and pick up fish off the bottom, a true story, she said. Another hurricane filled it up and flooded its banks, which once were steep, and still are, in some places.
Who knows whether visitors would have flocked to the area if its original name, “Turnerville,” had stuck. “Bradenton” eventually was chosen, after several permutations – Braidentown, then, to correct the misspelling of the name of the settler who inspired the name, Bradentown, then, to keep the place from seeming too small town, Bradenton.
Slusser spoke of other local places you’ve probably never heard of, like Williamsburg, between Ware’s Creek and 26th Street in Bradenton, and the more famous Fogartyville, a shipbuilding community on the river whose founders planted the first coffee in the U.S.
She talked about the days when cattle was king in Manatee County; cattle actually had the right of way, and were allowed to wander anywhere that wasn’t fenced off, like the courthouse, where they climbed the steps until someone erected a fence there.
The two-hour cruise begins and ends in downtown Bradenton at Pier 22 and goes as far as the mouth of the river, where visitors can see Anna Maria (once pronounced Anna Mar-eye-ah), the Sunshine Skyway and Egmont Key.
The Island Pearl also offers circle tours around Anna Maria Island on Thursdays, and shuttle service between Bridge Street in Bradenton Beach and several other docks on and off the Island.
The next river history tours are scheduled on Friday, March 29, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The cost is $30; $5 is donated to the county’s historical resources department. To reserve a seat, call 941-780-8010 or visit amishuttleservice.com.
