Bayport (Early Hernando County History)

 An article in the Tampa Herald on August 31, 1854, reported, “Major John Parsons had expended a large amount of his means to bring this place into notice, and will not fail in his undertaking. He has laid the town off into lots and will dispose of them to anyone that will improve them at once. He has left a beautiful square of three acres in the center of the town for a public walking and enclosed with all the different types of trees with which our forest abounds.... There are at present seven families living here, and, all told about sixty persons, and would be more if the people could get lumber for building purposes. A Hotel will soon be erected for the purpose of invalids; and the spirited contractor of the mail route will have a hack line to run from the Court House, whenever it is necessary, or desired, for the conveyance of passengers.”

On Jan. 7, 1853, a joint resolution of the Florida legislature relating to the establishment of a port of entry at Bayport was received by the U. S. House of Representatives.

In 1854 a post office was established at Bay Port (the town is spelled Bay Port in official lists of post offices from 1855 and 1859 but was usually spelled Bayport on maps during this period).

The name Bayport appeared in the New York Times on Oct. 7, 1854, in a report which stated that the schooner General Worth, from New York, bound for Bayport, Florida, put into the port of Norfolk with the loss of spars, sails, and rigging.

In December 1854, the state legislature made Bayport the county seat of Hernando County, effective June 1, 1855. It is believed that during the brief period that Bayport was the county seat, court was held in the home of Isaac Garrison.

An advertisement for the Bay-Port House, Isaac Garrason, proprietor, appeared in a newspaper on December 1, 1855.

During the Civil War, larger ports along the Gulf coast were blockaded and small rivers such as the Weeki Wachee became important trade routes. Union forces intercepted several blockade runners near Bayport and several skirmishes took place between union troops and confederate forces.

On July 26, 1901, the Tampa Morning Tribune reported, “There is contemplated quite a large hotel for Bayport for the accommodation of visitors.”

In 1912 a newspaper referred to “Miss Goethe, the popular proprietress of the Bayport Hotel.”

In 1912 the Tampa Morning Tribune reported, “Bayport was formerly owned by Major Parsons. The hotel and cottages were built in his day, dating back some three score years and ten, but the property has since been decimated. The heirs own a portion, Mrs. Goethe and her son Henry, a portion, and Jim Croft, L. B. Varn, W. B. Taylor and the Camps of Gainesville, the balance.”

The 1918-1919 Florida State Gazetteer and Business Directory shows F. V. Goethe as postmaster of Bayport, which it reports has a population of 25.

On Feb. 26, 1925, the Tampa Morning Tribune reported, “Sale of the entire townsite of Bayport and 17,500 acres of the Turner tract adjoining the Bayport site, for a little less than a half million dollars, to William Richmond, of Sharpstown, N. J., and associates, by W. T. McGowan, of the McGowan Investment Company of Tampa, was announced last night by Mr. McGowan. ... The Bayport site was owned originally by Maj. John Parsons. Since his death it has been owned by his nephews, W. D. and Fred Parsons, from whom it was purchased by S. Whitehurst and bought by Mr. McGowan.

On Sept. 22, 1935, Mrs. Fannie Goethe, owner of the Bayport Hotel, died at her home. She was 78. She was survived by two children, Henry Goethe of Bayport, and Mrs. Kathleen Cofer of Spring Lake.

On Nov. 19, 1943, the Bayport Hotel burned, according to a 1959 St. Petersburg Times article. Another source gives the date Oct. 17, 1943. Another source gives 1941.