No signs of the Finest Kind

Last summer I received a request from a woman asking if I had pictures of the Fisherman's Memorial located in Cortez, Florida. I maintain web pages for a couple of the groups there so the email came to me from one of them. I had some photos of it but she was interested in knowing the names on the plaque because she heard her brother was listed. The memorial is for the fishermen of the Cortez area who lost their lives while fishing or serving in the military.

I have two Great Uncles listed on the plaque so the story of her brother got me curious. She said he and two others were lost when their fishing boat disappeared in 1987. I had never heard the story but checked and did find the names of William "Billy" Elliott, Paul Right, Kevin Kurtice listed.

She said that after 23 years they still didn't know what happened to the boat or the three fishermen. I decided to ask around but no one in Cortez knew anything more about the mystery. They went fishing and were never heard from again. The boat had advanced electronics, communication equipment and tracking devices but it just disappeared.

I Googled their names and the name of the boat found two newspaper articles. Maybe someone else can help with this cold case.

An article from the Anna Maria Islander listed all the names on the memorial when it was dedicated in 2001.

Overlooking the docks is the fishermen’s memorial, "Dedicated to Florida’s commercial fishermen past, present and future" on Oct 27, 2001. One plaque honors Cortez veterans lost during wartime: James C. Coarsey, Leroy R. Wilson, Warren A. Bell, James M. Campbell and William H. Posey.

Another honors Cortez commercial fishermen lost at sea: Don Akins, Joey Clavier, William "Billy" Elliott, Paul Right, Kevin Kurtice, Frank Lilquist, Michael "Bugsy" Moran, Dale "Murph" Murphy, Mark Rankin, Bobby Thompson, Lynn Tupin, Frank "Billy" Tyne Jr. and Warren "Bud" Wilson. Two of the men, Murphy and Tyne, are immortalized in the 2000 film "The Perfect Storm."

St. Petersburg Times - Apr 26, 1988

Searchers never found any debris from the Finest Kind.

On September 28, 1987 the Finest Kind left Cortez to go on a fishing trip to the Florida Middle Grounds, a larage area in the Gulf about 75 miles west of Tampa Bay. The 42 foot, well equipped fishing vessel was due back October 10. On October 12, the boat with three people aboard was reported overdue.

Because the boat had been gone so long and because there was some dispute about whether the boat actually did go to the Florida Middle Grounds, the Coast Guard’s search covered a large area of ocean from the beginning.

By October 16 planes as far away as Elizabeth City, NC a major Coast Guard air station had been brought in to search thousands of square miles of ocean, but they found nothing.

The Finest Kind was equipped with an orange life raft on its deck and an EPIRB, a battery powered devise designed to pop up and transmit a radio signal if the boat sinks, yet no one ever saw or heard from the vessel after September 30.

The boat should have been easy to spot. Its just not hard to see a boar that big, Bill Baker Operations officer for the Coast Guard in St. Petersburg said, shaking his head.

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.

Author:	KAREN DATKO
Date:	Oct 18, 1987

SARASOTA - The U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday ended a five-day search for a fishing boat and three-man crew last heard from 12 days before Hurricane Floyd battered the Florida Keys.

``I don't want them to stop looking,`` said Terry Elliott of Sarasota, whose 29-year-old husband, Billy, was last heard from on Sept. 30. ``The only thing right now that I'm holding onto is that he's run into trouble and maybe drifting ... something is wrong with his power.

Elliott and his crew, Kevin Kurtis and a man whose name is not known, left Anna Maria Island on Sept. 28 aboard the Finest Kind. They expected to spend 10 to 12 days fishing for grouper.

Excursion to Anna Maria

Over 20 years ago I "met" Doyle Leffers via email. He was from North Carolina and was researching families in the Carteret County area. I was interested in the connection since several of my ancestors came from the area. He was able to give me a lot of information that helped me find my way on several family lines.

When he heard my family was from Cortez, Florida he asked if I had ever heard of any Leffers living there. At the time I had not and none of my family in the area knew of them.

He said they had lived there early in the 1900s and then moved away. I kept this information in mind and about 4 years ago came across some burial records for some of his Leffers relatives in Fort Myers, Florida. They moved there from Cortez in the early part of the century.

When I tried to contact him the email address bounced. I contacted several other Carteret County researchers and eventually found another email address for him. I made contact and found he had retired and moved to Mexico.

Just a few months ago the librarian at the Manatee County Historical Records Library found an old newspaper article from 1891 about Cortez, Florida and it was sent to me.

It mentioned my Great Grandfather, William Thomas Fulford (the reason they sent it to me) but to my surprise it also mentioned Capt. John C. Leffers. This is the family Doyle was looking for 20 years ago. I tried to send it to him but unfortunately his email address is bouncing again. It is an interesting read so I thought I would share it here.

August 6, 1891

Manatee River Journal

Excursion to Anna Maria

After our appointment at Braidentown on Sabbath, we went out after night service to visit our friend and Brother, Deacon S. J. Tyler. All who know Uncle Steve and that constitutes all the residents of our county appreciate the generous hospitality of himself and family, and I need not tell of how pleasantly I spent the hours of my visit with them.

By previous agreement with Bro. Tyler had promised to accompany be on a trip to Palma Sola bay, Hunter’s Point, Anna Maria or Palm Key, etc., so on Monday morning, we started out in his buggy, and behind his fine horse, to see these places I had long desired to visit.

Carrying a spade along with us we stopped a while at Palma Sola creek to examine the phosphate in the bed of this creek. Each shovel full of dirt revealed a number of bones and pebble phosphate, which shows the future possibilities of a bonanza in phosphate in this part of the county. The land examined belongs to Bro. Tyler, and he is offering this land, including his Palma Sola grove, situated on Palma Sola creek, at a great bargain.

We passed the home of Dr. Hayden, where we alighted for a few moments for a fresh draught of water, and then proceeded on our journey to Hunter’s Point, which we reached at 10 am. This Point is a beautiful front in the junction of Palma Sola and Sarasota bays and is Fisherman’s Town.

There are several neat residences on Hunter’s Point and a population of 21 persons as we learned from one of the residents. They are all engaged in fishing and were very busy, under several boat sheds, preparing their boats for commencing the business for the present season.

The fishing navy will consist of 40 boats owned by as many as six or seven companies or firms. The steamers, the Mistletoe, the Magnet and the Iola, will be employed in the transportation of fish, during the present season and the fisherman have already made contract for delivering at 1 ½ cents, an advance over former prices. I mention these facts that the readers of the JOURNAL may form some idea of the commerce in fish in Manatee County. But to proceed with our excursion.

On application Mr. W. T. Fulford kindly furnished us a boat to cross the bay to Anna Maria, a distance of about one mile. Neither Bro. Tyler nor myself were sailors so we secured the services of Capt. Robert Leffers, a boy of eleven summers, to sail us over the bay. In a very short time we landed and proceeded across the island at a narrow point of less than a quarter of a mile and stood on the beach were “the blue waters roll and the angry billows roam.” And for the first time in my life I was permitted to enjoy a surf bath. The incoming waves sported with Bro. T and myself as though we were toys and in the frolicsome glee for 15 minutes we returned to boyhood again, dashing and splashing amidst the sportive billows.

The bath was exquisitely refreshing and after bathing we employed the remaining moments on the beach in gathering a few shells; but as there had been no recent storm, could find none of much value.

On our return to the Point we found Capt. J.C. Leffers had anticipated our wants and caught for us a fine mess of pompano, which his kind lady stewed and fried as fisherman’s wives know how to prepare them after the most approved cuisine and we enjoyed a rare and excellent dinner.

Reader, do you know anything of the generous fisherman, and his kindness and hospitality? If not, you ought to get away sometime from the selfish world and visit a fisherman’s home.

We want to thank again our generous hosts, Capt Leffers and his kind lady, for their disinterested kindness and profuse hospitality. After dinner we took a jaunt to ascend the famous Hunter’s Mound, a mound of solid shell thrown up in the far ages of the past, beyond the memory of the Aborigines and by an unknown race.

The mound covers several acres of ground. Upon it’s summit there is growing a huge wild fig, measuring at the base over 2 feet in diameter. There is another curious tree bearing fruit, a tropical tree, but we do not know the name and Bro. Tyler could not tell us.

We took in the mountain or mound and proceeded back to Capt. Letters. Bro. Tyler suggested we should bare our feet and do a nearer route, through some shallow water at the base of the mound. So we pulled off our shoes and began to wade. But would you believe it, we struck water 100 deg. Fahrenheit just below the boiling point and two old me became suddenly as nimble as kittens, hurrying to reach the other shore.

It hardly seems credible that the sun’s rays could have made this water so hot. We wish come younger men would make an examination of this water so hot. We wish some younger men would make an examination of this water and see if we have not Hot Springs in Florida. If I was ingenious enough I would give our readers a wood cut of Bro Tyler and myself hurrying with our bare feet and legs, shoes in hand through his cauldron.

This ended out excursion, so taking leave of the fishermen, one of whom, Capt. Fulford gave us some fish to bring back with us, we returned to Bro. Tyler’s having a most pleasant buggy ride and sweet companionship on our return.

O Henry

My great great great grandfather was Emery M. Henry. He married Elmina Davis in Jefferson County Florida on January 25, 1853 and died less than 4 years later. He and Elmina were the parents of Margery Rowena Henry Lundy.

According to the 1850 census he was born about 1830 in North Carolina so he was less than 27 years old when he died. Other than these basic facts I don't know a lot about him.The 1850 census, the only one that listed him had no information other than his age and place of birth.

His last name was confused for a long time with the Hendry family who lived in the same part of North Florida and have a lot more descendants in that area now. My mother insisted his name was Hendry, probably because she had heard of that family name.

I've located copies of his marriage record and the papers that settled his estate in 1857 so know his name was actually Henry. After answering the question of his name I was able to locate some information on his family and ancestors but not much on him. I always like to determine where someone was buried but haven't found him.

His brother, Franklin C. Henry's grave is in the Waukeenah Methodist Church Cemetery in Jefferson County, Florida. Since Emery and Elmina lived close by I was hoping his grave would be there but there is no marker for him.

He lost it in the war

My great great grandfather, James Henderson Hogan served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. I found a photo of him a couple years ago in an old family bible. He was born in 1835 and died in 1918.

It was not a very good photo to begin with and after 100 years had been scratched and faded to make it barely recognizable. One personal feature about him does show up if you enlarge the photo enough. His Florida Civil War pension said he was missing a finger. In fact his right forefinger, the index was amputated during the war.

He was a Sergeant in the famed 2nd Florida Infantry Battalion so with a missing trigger finger he must have been pretty determined to continue with the army until the end of the war.

Grandpa was a Whaler

This is the name of a book about Samuel Chadwick & family of Carteret County North Carolina written in 1961 by Amy Muse. It is a small paperback that I found on EBay a couple years ago.

My niece is about to have a baby boy and asked me about unusual family names as ideas for the new great nephew. I gave her a list of all her direct ancestors going back 12 generations. It was over 45 pages long and only listed their names, dates of birth and death!

She was intrigued at the name Chadwick. Our last known ancestor from the Chadwick line was Ephraim Chadwick, who was the brother of Samuel Chadwick.

They both moved to what is now Carteret County North Carolina in the early 1700s from Falmouth, Massachusetts. In 1725 Samuel Chadwick was issued a license to take whales off the coast of North Carolina. Ephraim was also a whaler and owned a whaling boat.

The business of whaling in the 1700s was a lot different than the Greenpeace videos you see today. Men took off from shore on a small boat after they saw whales off the coast and would row or sail the boat close enough to the whale to hit it with a harpoon.

Since the boat was smaller than the whale and their implements powered only by their muscle the whale won most of the encounters.

The men of Massachusetts came to North Carolina probably on the prospect of a larger whale population and less competition for it. They eventually moved on to other occupations, although many were still on the water.

Several Chadwick families moved to Cortez, Florida around 1910 and fished there for a while. They eventually moved back to North Carolina or moved to other parts of Florida. I came across another Carteret County Chadwick descendant several years ago who had settled in St. Petersburg, Florida and successfully developed waterfront property over the last couple decades.

It made a racket

Nathan Hooker Fulford was the brother of my great grandfather. He moved to Cortez, Florida with his two brothers and two sisters 120 years ago. They were farmers and fishermen in North Carolina and since Cortez was located on
Sarasota Bay fishing was more practical than farming.

Nate was somewhat of an innovator in the fishing business, a trait his grandchildren have continued at A P Bell Fish Company.

Around 1910 he was the first person to use a motor on a fishing boat. Before his motor all the boats were powered by wind or the fishermen pushing it thru the water using a long pole.


The following transcript is from an interview my cousin Doris Green took from Herman Sidney Guthrie on April 18, 1974:

"It was just a little boat, I would say about 25 feet

long. It had a four horse Barker engine in it. It made the awfulest racket you ever heard. It would wake you up. After that, other fishermen got them. My Dad bought one. He sent it to Miami to have a muffler put on to try to cut the racket."

I couldn't find a picture of a Barker outboard. This old Evinrude was on display at the Calvert Maritime Museum on Solomons Island, Maryland when we visited last year.

Where we end up

Samuel Urlich Green, a distant cousin was born November 27, 1868 in Mt. Zion, Georgia. His father, grandfather and brother were physicians. I don't know much about him except that he died young, at age 23, over 2200 miles from home.

I was recently given a family history written by his mother in the late 1890s. She listed names, dates of birth and dates of death for 4 generations of the Green family. The only person with a cause of death was for her son Samuel. She said he died of consumption at Buckman Springs, San Diego, California.

I looked up the name Buckman Springs and found it was a stage coach stop that the city of San Diego used as a sanatorium for folks with tuberculosis. The city was too wet and foggy so they sent the sick out into the nearby dessert and the patients lived in tents next to the stage coach stop. A story in the April 1958 Quarterly of the San Diego Historical Society said there were 10 to 12 tents for patients and some of them had been sent out west after contracting the illness, with the belief they would be better off in the dry hot climate.

I don't know if Samuel Green moved to California for his health or wealth but he died on February 27, 1892. He was buried in Los Angeles, apparently in an unmarked grave in the Rosedale cemetery. Samuel never married or had children but his brother named one of his sons after him several years after he died and that name was carried on for 3 more generations in their family.