Greek spongers, notably Captain George Bell, were interested in moving their operations to the fertile waters surrounding the Florida Keys. Key West Mayor Fogarty and the Key West Board of Trade passed a resolution to suppress the plan.
Though drafted and passed months prior, it was printed in the Tampa Bay Times on May 27, 1914: “Whereas after having heard the arguments of the men engaged in the actual labor of gathering sponges and after having heard the arguments of sponge merchants of wide and indispensable experience, and realizing that the trampling of sponge beds will, as in all plant beds when pressure is placed upon them, destroy the life; and, whereas, to govern the gathering of spongers in certain depths of water will be next to impossible, It is resolved, that the Board of Trade, with many interested citizens in session assembled, resort to all means to discourage Greek sponging in our vicinity.”
For a segment of the island’s population, the resolution was interpreted as a call to arms. Tensions between the two groups boiled over on May 22, 1914. Captain Bell of the Greek schooner Amelia wanted to get out of rough weather and set a course for the favorable harbor at Key West. According to quotes attributed to Bell in the Tampa Tribune on May 25, 1914: “I was on the way to Tortugas Islands after sponge. Friday, we put in at Key West for water and provisions. We anchored about a half mile out and went into Key West in a small boat.”
Six crew members accompanied Bell to shore. When they reached the dock, Bell ordered four men to stay with the launch while he walked into town with the other two. “I went down to the dock at the foot of Duval Street at about 5 o’clock,” Bell said. “There was about 1,000 persons there hooting and yelling. They had chased the crew out of the boat. I told the crew to wait while I went to the sheriff’s office for protection. A short time later I arrived at the dock again with the sheriff.”
According to some accounts, the Greek crew was forced to run for their lives while Bell was off getting the sheriff. They ran into a nearby store, where they were greeted with a much-needed stroke of luck. Inside the shop, two women brandishing pistols held the mob at bay.
“A short time later,” Bell continued, “I arrived at the dock again with the sheriff. I was just in time to see the crowd tearing to pieces the American flag which was on my boat and to see a great hole cut in the bottom. The engine and everything had been ruined. I shouted for them to quit and then I was grabbed by a dozen men and thrown into the water. I started to swim away from the dock but the sheriff commanded me to return.”
One account of the story has the sheriff pulling out his pistol, pointing it up at the sky, and firing a shot to quell the mob. Bang! The sheriff was successful in separating Bell and his men from the mob, and for the Greeks’ protection, they were taken to the county jail and locked in cells. Not everyone, however, was safe that night.
At about 11:30 p.m., 25 armed men climbed into the launch Key West and motored out to the Greek schooner Amelia. Once they reached the schooner, they breached her decks and took control of the ship. At gunpoint, the Amelia’s crew was forced from the ship without the benefit of collecting their belongings or even, in some cases, clothes to wear.
With her decks cleared of Greeks, the Amelia was robbed of any valuables the mob stumbled upon. Before they left, they placed sticks of dynamite to ensure that when the ship blew apart it sank. When the dynamite exploded, one Greek crew member was still on board. His name was John Manis. He did not survive.
Other attacks on Greek sponge ships were reported at Grand Cayman, near Knights Key (at the foot of what is today the Seven Mile Bridge), and in the Marquesas Keys. The story of the Marquesas Keys event was printed in the Tampa Times (May 26, 1914).
According to Captain Henry Mitchell of the schooner, Edna Louise, the Greek spongers were at anchor near Mark Key Harbor, 25 miles southwest of Key West. A launch approached them from the direction of Key West. “Key West” was painted on its stern.
The Edna Louise’s pilot was a Bahamian named Dorsett, who spent most of his life in Key West and knew the local waters. According to his account: “Pretty soon they came toward us and I stood by to throw them a line, for I saw they wanted to board. As they came alongside, a lot of men stepped out of the deck house with pistols and machetes and told us to throw up our hands. We did. One of them had a double-barreled shotgun and one had a machete and the rest of them had pistols.”
When the sponge pirates boarded the Greek schooner, one man fired a shot into the deck at Captain Mitchell’s feet. “When they got on board some of them were for killing all of us,” said Dorsett. “Some wanted to kill the captain because he had brought us and me because I was the pilot and they had a long argument. The captain of the launch, a Cuban and a Spaniard, and one other stood out for letting us go. ‘We didn’t come to do any killing, said the captain.’”
The captain and crew, numbering 15, were forced into one of the schooner’s diving boats and as they chugged away, the Edna Louise was set on fire. When the flames reached the gasoline, the schooner exploded. The Greeks set a course for Tampa, where they arrived at about 5 a.m. and began to tell their story.
