First Settler's Homesite

Near the banks of the Manatee River stood the log home of Josiah Gates, the first Anglo-American settler in the Manatee area, which then extended southward to the Caloosahatchee River and eastward to the Kissimmee River. After the Second Seminole War, the Armed Occupation Act of August 4, 1842, opened Central Florida to American settlers, and Gates, a native of South Carolina, moved his family here from Fort Brook (Tampa) early in 1843. In 1851, he replaced his first dwelling with a twenty room, three story frame home on the same site, set a few yards farther back from the river. Known as the Gates House, it served newly arrived settlers and visitors as a hotel in the wilderness. Gates became a prosperous farmer and successful innkeeper, took an active role in local government after Manatee County was created in 1855, and died in 1871. Neither of the two structures he built still stands.

Bradenton, Florida · United States