HISTORY OF PASCO COUNTY

Bailey’s Bluff/Baillie’s Bluff

Note: Pasco County now uses the spelling Baillie’s Bluff Road. As far as I know, the official spelling for the bluff is still Bailey’s, although Baillie’s would be preferred based on the spelling used by the Baillie family who settled here.

From History of Tarpon Springs by R. F. Pent

From Tarpon Springs Florida: The Early Years by Gertrude K. Stoughton

During the nineties the land belonged to Samuel Baker of Elfers, who leased it first to Cheyney and then to Wyatt Meyer for a sponge market. Meyer built a long wharf jutting into the Gulf, with a water tank at the end, and set up crawls which he rented to boat owners. He also built a dwelling house for his family, and a little house for the watchman, and he had a general store with a post office named Security.

Sometimes fifty sails dotted the water, as the men in their dinghies poked and probed with their longpoles. They wore yellow oilskins and blue denim. Some of the crews were experienced Bahamian or Key West Negroes and some were Florida “crackers,” new to the trade but quick to learn.

The sales were held outdoors, where the cleaned sponges were piled up under the trees. There was one packing house at the Bluff, but most of the sponges were hauled in rack-sided wagons to the packing houses in Tarpon Springs. The major buyers were Cheyney and Ernest Meres, but the list must include A. P. Beckett, John B. Cowsert, W. W. K. Decker, Leon S. Fernald, G. A. (Bert) Louden, Duncan Morrison, Arthur Pinder, and several more.

Also at the Bluff was a large tabernacle where services were held on Sundays. Many townspeople attended, bringing picnic lunches to eat under the trees. Some of them still remember the rich and powerful voices of the blacks singing, “When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.”

Rounding the curve to the left were the small Lone Cabbage and Union crawls, and then Decker's packing house at Anclote.

Across the river from Anclote was a small community called Sponge Harbor, and this was the mooring place for many of the boats that worked out of Bailey’s Bluff. There was a long wharf, marine ways, and a two-story dwelling house and general store. There were also a few streets and blocks of houses for the black sponge men. No trace of this place remains today. [The area is currently known as Point Alexis.]

All the sponge beds in the Gulf of Mexico had long been claimed by the Key West spongers, including those north of Anclote Key, and when the first men from Bailey’s Bluff put out to sea, the “Conchs” attacked them like a swarm of hornets. There were many small rough battles, and many beatings and boat burnings; but the local men learned to stick together and fight back, and proved as tough as their assailants.

From the beginning Cheyney had pursued a peaceful policy—there were sponges enough for all. He approached Aram Arapian, the Key West sponge magnate, with offers to share the facilities at Bailey’s Bluff. The rivalry continued, however, until the Spanish American War, when the Spanish fleet was known to be cruising somewhere in the Gulf; and at that time the whole Key West sponge operation was moved to the comparative safety of the Bluff.

They might have remained after the war, but Arapian wished to hold an unchallenged position in the south, and his men had a fierce island loyalty. The Key Westers went home, and renewed their attacks on their recent hosts.

In spite of constant harassment, however, the Bailey’s Bluff sponge business was successful. Over $1,000,000 worth of sponge is said to have been shipped by Cheyney alone by 1901.

From Tales of West Pasco by Ralph Bellwood

From West Pasco’s Heritage

[Hurricanes affected the Gulf coast of Florida in Sept. 1894 and Oct. 1896; presumably the entry refers to one of these dates. -jm]