Joe and Madam Joe Atzeroth were the first permanent settlers of Terra Ceia Island. They arrived via Tampa on April 12, 1843, with their daughter Eliza, a physician friend, and their dog Bonaparte. After living first in a tent and then in a palmetto-thatched hut, they built a two-room log cabin. They grew tobacco and vegetables and sold them to the garrison at Ft. Brooke in Tampa. Terra Ceia Island was a dense jungle when the Atzeroths came to homestead 160 acres, and panthers and other wild animals were plentiful. Their log house was built of split cedar planks, with moss and clay filling the cracks, and its doors and glazed windows were imported from New Orleans. The family endured the harsh rigors of frontier life. Mr. Joe took part in the 3rd Seminole War and the Civil War. After his death in 1871, Madam Joe moved to Fogartyville. In 1880, she received a $10 award for growing the first pound of coffee in this country.