William Whitaker (pioneer)
| William Whitaker | |
|---|---|
| Born |
William Henry Whitaker Savanna, Georgia |
| Died | Sarasota, Florida |
| Cause of death | Riding Accident |
| Monuments | Whitaker Gateway Park and Whitaker Bayou. |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Jane Wyatt |
William Henry Whitaker (1821 - 1888) was an American Seminole War veteran and pioneer who, under the provisions of the Armed Occupation Act, established the first permanent settlement in what is now Sarasota, Florida. There he traded mullet with Cubans to bring the first groves of economically important oranges to the state. He later married Mary Jane Wyatt and with her raised Nancy Whitaker, the first child recorded in what now is the county of Sarasota and a family of eleven children. His father-in-law, William Wyatt, was a constitutional delegate who helped to originate, and signed, Florida's . At the end of the Civil War he helped Judah P. Benjamin escape to London.
Whitaker was an eighth-generation descendant of Jabez Whitaker, brother of Alexander Whitaker, the Jamestown colonist and theologian who baptized and performed the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe.
He was born in 1821 in Savannah, Georgia to Frances Snell, the second wife of Richard Whitaker. At the age of twelve, he left home with ten dollars and a gold watch to St. Marks, Florida, then the primary seaport of Florida's west coast. He worked there in the fishing trade and in time crossed paths with his half-brother Hamlin Valentine Snell, who later became President of the Florida Senate, Speaker of the House and later, Tampa's eighth mayor. Living in Tallahassee, Snell committed William to a formal education, arranging lodging and board. It was in Tallahassee that he met his would-be wife Mary Jane Wyatt. In 1840, at age nineteen, Whitaker enlisted in Florida's Mounted Militia for three months to fight in the Second Seminole War, for which he was compensated $70. The occupation entry on his enlistment papers read "school boy". Whitaker served with his Regiment at Fort Macomb and other wartime camps where illness plagued him. As the war was concluding, Whitaker traveled Florida's Gulf Coast and to Havana, Cuba, working in the fishing trade.
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