Jose Gaspar - A Real Pirate?

Oroblanco:

I was afraid you wouldn't ask!

I found a fascinating article "THE LEGEND OF GASPARILLA: MYTH AND HISTORY ON FLORIDA’S WEST COAST" by André-Marcel d’Ans (Translated by Marie-Joèle Ingalls) in the Fall/Winter 1980 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of Tampa Bay History.

[102 pgs. - may take a few minutes to download]
http://digital.lib.usf.edu:8080/fed...OCUMENT?search_terms=The Legend of Gasparilla

This is an excellent summary of the story, how the legend was moved to Tampa from Charlotte Harbor in the early 1900's, the beginning of a Mardi Gras style annual celebration by the elites on the community, etc. The author contends the Bradlee reprint of the railway-hotel promotional brochure was (inadvertently) key the modern version of the yarn.

There is at least one more source I'm trying to locate - Demystifying the lives of Juan Gomez: from Pirate to Pilot by Carrie Caignet. And a novel by Peter Matthiessen may be a clue.

In the meantime, I found d'Ans' work persuasive.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo
 

Amazon Forum Fav đź‘Ť

DR.Ă–TEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!
Last edited:
John Gomez and his wife Sarah are in the 1900 cencus, he claims to be 124 and she claims to be 70 and they had been married for 57 years. So when John was 70 he married a 13 year old girl. He was from Portugal and she was from Florida. He couldn't read or write but could speak English, she could red, write and speak English. He claimed to be a fisherman.
 

Hello All

Old Bookaroo I could not agree with you more.

I can also substantiate the existence of John Gomez. He is listed below in 1885 Florida State census.

john Gomez 1885 florida state census 2.jpg

Crow
 

Last edited:
Scar:

Perhaps it was a shotgun wedding.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo
 

Crow, he would have called himself JUAN GOMEZ, not John.
 

Hello Salvor 6 my friend.

He may indeed of pronounced his name as Juan as John in Spanish is Juan.
The American writing down his name wrote his name in English.

Crow
 

Crow:

If it isn't Juan thing it's another.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo
 

ECS said:
Johnny (Juan) Gomez was the first to tell the Gaspar tale,which also included a story of a treasure wagon train across Florida,with some of the gold & silver buried at Crescent Lake,near Crescent City,Florida.Gomez told his tale to Pablo Sanchez,who had a map of the treasure sites and tried to sell in the 1930's.The only taker of the map offer was Rick Cole,a night clerk at a third rate Miami hotel.Cole enlisted the aid of Charles R Hale,an electrical engineer,who made a homemade early LRL,and with Sanchez,traveled to the west Florida Gulf location shown on the map.They did recover some gold and silver coins.For the story and a history of the USS Enterprise:
Florida's Pirate Jose Gaspar and his Treasure Story
Click to expand...

Thanks ECS for the correction...Of course i would love to find that book he had, its packed away somewhere
 

Hello All

Some great stuff posted here.

I learned at lot about a legend I really knew little about. So hats of for all your efforts and teamwork.

Crow
 

Crow:

Thank you for your comment! I have learned a great deal, and I really enjoy a good thread with lots of contributions from various people! That's TN at it's best (along with helping others on an individual basis, of course, which is equally enjoyable).

I am really tired of W.C. Jameson's act - posing as a "professional treasure hunter" (in my personal opinion) and "writing" book after book that just re-hashes old lies.

According to his most recent book, Jameson was elected to the "Professional Treasure Hunters' Hall of Fame." Am I the only one who has never heard of this institution?

I've been at this long enough to see a number of posers come and go. I've never learned to like them.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo
 

Thanks for the link Jose. Saw several familiar names there, some I've hunted with.
 

Hello All

All a little too pretentious.....The term treasure hunter is way too broad a term and way too losely used these days.

In fact there would be very few people who would fall in the category of professional treasure hunter.

Any professional in game would recoil in horror to be connected to the term treasure hunter as the most successful ones I know you could pass them in the street and you would never know who they are.

Crow
 

Crow:

When I pick up a book, the first thing I look at are the sources - bibliography, acknowledgements, etc. When the author brags in the introduction about research in the dusty archives and all that, but doesn't provide documentation to such sources (excuses include "too many to list" - didn't stop Prof. Dobie, did it? or they are little more than articles in treasure hunting magazines) I become suspicious.

Jameson's yarns can often be traced to modern works. For example, his book on California has a tale that has been lifted from Coral Pepper. It's obvious that is where it came from because she added details to the story that are not found anywhere else.

Just like Krippene made up stuff copied by Coffman that has been used over and over and over again since (Penfield, Henson, et. al.).

When I started on my Lost Mines of the Desert series I just didn't realize how many authors had used West's book. I recently purchased a set of Earth Science Digests from the 1950's because I wanted Victor Shaw's lost mine articles. He adds some local knowledge - he visited many of the sites and knew prospecting and mining - but it is clear Horace West was the major source he used.

Anyone studying lost mine and buried treasure stories in the American West needs to read John D. Mitchell for the same reason.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo

2.0: I was one of, if not the, first treasure magazine writers to include sources at the end of articles. I don't write that to brag. Just to show how important I think that is.
 

Last edited:
Crow, I guess it would boil down to ones definition of treasure. For me a treasure is just sitting back and listening to some old stories that maybe no one has ever heard before or may never hear again from one of the older generations of folks that may have been there and done that.
 

Evening Books, how do you quote a source when You yourself are the main source? Everything else available is from a frangible, indirect rumor, or similar intangibles.?

I believe the LDM has now degenerated to that state, most data is from often repeated questionable materiel- books quoting from other books expressing 3 rd,4th, or 6 th, hand opinions or ideas based upon others' ideas or opinions.

Actually this is what makes Trresure Hunitng fun, solving the gigantic cross word puzzle.

:occasion14::occasion14::occasion14: join us for some Jon Bols ole square face?.

Don Jose de La Mancha



The total original data prob could be covered in a few paragraphs.
 

Last edited:
Have to agree with Real de Tayopa here; in many cases, the source is not an encyclopedia or sworn court testimony type. While some sources may well be questionable, it is not necessary to throw them all out simply because some are faulty.

I see that fairly often about people not liking to see "re-hashed" stories which are basically re-telling an older story. I don't see the problem there; in fact I would much sooner have the re-hashed original information, than some of the phony crap that has been put into circulation. The LDM is a good example of this - the oldest sources are usually the best, the farther you get away from the original sources, the greater the chances of a lot of false and/or erronieous info getting mixed in. Sometimes the error is done innocently, and some is done deliberately to mislead any competition.

Sorry for drifting off-topic, I still suspect that Jose Gaspar is probably based on a real pirate, though this was not his real name; in the retelling of the story it is also possible that several different pirates became blended into one character. There was a lot of pirate activity in the time period in which Gaspar/Gasparilla was supposedly living out his career, plenty of real material for a fictional character.

Good luck and good hunting amigos I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco
 

Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Modern Day Treasure Hunting Legends

⬅️ Previous Thread

FREE! Excellent Research Guide

Next Thread ➡️

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Metal Detecting Stuff

Latest Discussions

Back
Top