By Michael Coleman

	Submitted photo Marco pioneer Capt. William Collier, left, surveys the view from his porch.

When William Thomas (W.T.) Collier, Marco Island's founder, happened upon a sun-drenched, albeit mosquito-infested north shore in 1870 near present day Hideaway Beach, descendants say he was so taken by its sheer beauty that he declared it home. 

As he anchored his beloved and battered Robert E. Lee, W.T., his wife Barbara (Hedick) and their young children could not have imagined the enormous challenges, triumphs and tragedies that would await them in Old Marco village over the coming decades.

W.T. Collier:  Founder of Marco Island

W.T. was born in Tennessee in 1815. While his father had high hopes, eyeing a university education and a civil engineering career for his son, such aspirations were cut short by the economic realities of the day.

Within three months of landing on the island, a fire destroyed Collier's first home. He proceeded to build a palmetto shack. It too was destroyed, this time as a hurricane roared through the region. Determined to make it at the north end of the island, he settled on a homesite in the very shell mound location that, hundreds of years before, was the cultural mecca of the Calusa Indians. He began farming in the muck-filled, wild land surrounding his new home.

As the years passed, W.T. was finally able to purchase enough lumber to build a home. It eventually became a boarding house and would later be run by one of his sons, Capt. Bill Collier, as the Marco Lodge. The home sat virtually where present-day Palm Street and Edington Place intersect at Old Marco village, although in 1964 it was moved from its location and transported to Goodland.

W.T. and his wife would later add three more children to the fold before her tragic passing in 1900 at the age of 63. She burned to death when she threw kerosene on what she believed to be dead wood coals. The fire jumped rapidly to her clothing and engulfed her. Two years later, on Oct. 30, 1902, W.T. died of natural causes on his beloved island. He was 87.

While W.T. and Barbara ultimately raised 12 children ­ many of whom sought their fortunes elsewhere - none would thrive in the environment better than their second child, one of six boys, who was in his late teens when he landed on the island with his father by his side.

W.D. "Capt. Bill"

Collier: A community builder

Present day entrepreneurs would envy the foresight and business acumen attributed to Capt. Bill Collier. He would successfully dabble in various interests, from boat building and farming to shipping and store ownership.

He opened an inn, which still stands in Old Marco today, and invented a prolific clam dredging machine. His resume also included two terms as a county commissioner and, after the tragic drowning of three of his boys, he authored a number of anti-religious pamphlets to cope with his pain.

To archeologists and scholars of the late 1890s, he was known the world over, having pulled from the Marco muck some of the most valuable Calusa Indian artifacts ever found. It prompted a subsequent dig by famed archaeologist Frank Hamilton Cushing in 1896. Cushing uncovered prized artifacts on land he dubbed "Court of the Pile Dwellers,'' including a cat god referred to today as the Key Marco Cat.

Born in Quincy, Fla., on Sept. 20, 1852, Capt. Bill began his adult life at the north end of the island with a thirst for adventure and accomplishment. He opened a store on the Marco waterfront, and long before the modern day developers, Capt. Bill was the one who sized up the island's enormous tourism potential. It prompted him to construct the Marco Hotel, where the present-day Olde Marco Inn is located on Palm Street.

He married Margaret McIlvaine of Cedar Keys in 1880, a decade after landing on Marco. Together they raised eight children. She passed away in 1896. A year later he exchanged vows with Mary Shaw.

Capt. Bill also earnestly worked in the coastal sailing trade, operating a boat service which carried Collier produce, other fresh food and freight between Marco, Key West and Tampa. He would expand his business interests to include a shipyard, which sold vessels to clients in Key West, Miami and Naples.

He grew sizable vegetables - squash, tomatoes and cabbages ­ and even tried his hand growing pineapples and oranges. He also planted 5,000 coconut palms on the island. He became the second postmaster in the county in 1888. Marco at the time was part of Lee County, although, erroneously, postal officials named it "Malco" in the belief that there was another Marco in Florida. Capt. Bill's reward for bringing the postal service to the region? He had to pay for the service out of his own pocket for a year.

Press accounts of the era reveal that the island's first school was opened temporarily - thanks to Capt. Bill - in 1888. That same year, with Capt. Bill's assistance, the three-room Marco Village School opened permanently with a Miss Murdock teaching 15 pupils in attendance.

His legacy, however, is the lasting transformation of his sprawling homesite into today's Olde Marco Inn. It was "officially'' opened in 1896 and, upon completion, it was truly a magnificent structure, featuring 20 sleeping rooms, a parlor, dining room and two-story outhouse. Even the chairs took on a look of luxury - they were upholstered. Because of subsequent additions and renovations, including cottages on the property, Capt. Bill eventually was forced to hike the room rate from $1 to a whopping $2 per day. One of his first guests was Cushing, according to descendants.

Capt. Bill also had a hand in creating Marco's first tourist park. It was located on the waterfront, behind his store, and during the depression it was occupied by "tin canners'' (seasonal tourists). As the general store hangers-on would say: "They came in the winter with a $2 dollar bill and a blue shirt and wouldn't change either until they went back home in the spring.''

Capt. Bill's life was not without torment, however, having lost three of his young sons during a business trip to Key West. With Capt. Bill at the helm of his ship, Speedwell, and a storm brewing on March 3, 1898, the vessel capsized just miles from their destination, drowning his three boys and six other passengers who were locked into a cabin. It was one of the worst tragedies to befall anyone in the area. His sons, George, Thomas and Wilmer - aged eight, six and four -are buried at the Marco Island Cemetery. The remaining six victims were members of the Bradley Nichols family of Bridgeport, Conn. Capt. Bill, two deckhands and a priest survived the ordeal, but it would take an incredible toll, haunting him the rest of his life.

"My wife didn't want me to take the boys to Key West,'' recounted Capt. Bill to an author almost four decades after the incident. "But I thought the trip would get them used to the sea, so they could take my place when they were old enough ... at the last minute, a Presbyterian missionary preacher asked to go along. He'd been sailing around the islands, holding services here and there and sort of freeloading on anybody who'd take him in. I said he could go, and it was the worst mistake I ever made ..."

Capt. Bill would later reveal that he requested the boys and the Nichols family to retire to the safe confines of the cabin. With the storm howling, the rain and seas heavy, he then handed the preacher an ax and ordered him to cut the main sail. The preacher did not, however, do as he was told. Instead, he dropped to his knees and prayed moments before the boat capsized. The two deckhands, the preacher, and Capt. Bill survived the ordeal and were rescued by a steamer the next day.

 The Doxsee connection

While the tragedy inflicted a deep, internal wound, Capt. Bill nonetheless moved on. In 1908, he invented a motorized clam dredging machine to assist the island's fledgling industry. The E.S. Burnham Cannery to the south in Caxambas had already opened its doors in 1904. Seeing the enormous potential his dredge could bring the region in employment and profits, he urged clam industry giant J. Harvey Doxsee of New York to visit Marco. With a little arm-twisting, Doxsee was sold. In 1911, on land owned by Capt. Bill, Doxsee opened the island's second cannery operation.

Virtually overnight, the island had two significant industries that provided steady employment for men, women and children. Clam beds ­ like fish teeming in the emerald blue waters of the gulf and waterways ­ were believed to be bottomless pits. The success of the two operations prompted the Atlantic Coast Line Railway to begin service on June 27, 1927. Trains would eventually make two trips to the island daily to pick up the clams.

Capt. Bill would build a second dredge. But still, the demand for clam products was so great that the two cannery operations couldn't keep pace.

Doxsee's popularity also grew with the community. He became the first chairman of the Board of Public Instruction and a Collier County commissioner. In fact, the cannery that bore his name became one of the island's first polling stations. The one ferry that linked the island to the mainland from 1912 to 1938 was named after him. It was capable of transporting one vehicle at a time, until a new four-car ferry was built in 1925. When state legislators incorporated the island Collier City in 1927, Doxsee became its first and only mayor. While the intent was to name the entire island Collier City - after W.T. Collier - residents still referred to their communities as Marco and Caxambas, although to outsiders the two communities were known as Collier City North (Marco Village) and Collier City South (Caxambas).

Renaming the island was the brainchild of the San Marco Corporation, a New York-based syndicate, that planned to develop Marco village in the late 1920s after acquiring the land from Capt. Bill. The corporation divided the village into 525 lots with an asking price of $6,000 to $10,000. The selling of the island to the world's rich and elite began, and a huge regatta was staged in 1927 to prime sales. Company directors built the Lulu Belle, a 28-foot boat designed for deep sea fishing, although it was also used for sightseeing purposes. Brochures were published extolling the virtues of building a home "in one of the most beautiful parts of Florida,'' and they promoted the locale as a refined vacation paradise.

"Operation of the Marco Hotel and Cottage Colony has been with but one idea in view, namely, on a basis where guests will meet substantial people of refinement, and to provide comfort and simple, courteous service with good wholesome food ... we have established ourselves with as fine a clientele that any resort can boast, a clientele that appreciates the elite, yet who come here to throw off the yoke of business and social cares, here there is no pretense, no fan fare, just a small group of fine people enjoying the lure of the islands and unexplored waterways, teeming with fish and the beautiful shell-lined shallow beaches, under the glow of a tropical sun.''

Despite all of the fanfare, the project was doomed with the looming depression. The subsequent years weren't any better for residents either.

Clam beds were drying up. Capt. Bill's two clam dredges were prolific, gathering 300 to 500 bushels per day, but that would also prove to be one of the factors in the industry downfall. The Burnham factory closed its doors in 1929 ­ the same year their clam dredge sank - but Doxsee came to the rescue, agreeing to take over the Burnham operation in an effort to keep local residents employed during the depression. In 1932, however, a hurricane destroyed the Burnham site.

Other bad news would follow. The railway pulled out in 1942. There simply weren't enough clams to make it worthwhile. Although some trips were still made to pick up clams over the next two years, the final train chugged across the Marco River trestle bridge for the last time in 1944.

Doxsee's plant suffered a similar fate. He hung on until 1947 before he too closed his doors. Finding less than 200 bushels of clams a day, Doxsee pulled the plug on his operation and sold the facility for salvage. He was 85 when he passed away in 1963.

And what of Capt. Bill? After selling his Marco village holdings, he retired to Fort Myers, although he would continue to provide food and supplies to settlers in the area by sailing his ships between Key West and Tampa. He died in 1934, just hours after arguing about religion and exchanging fisticuffs with two young evangelists on a Fort Myers street, still heartbroken over the death of his sons decades earlier. He was 82.

In future installments, look for Tommie Barfield (the "Queen of Marco Island'') and her husband, James, and read about the modern day Marco Island pioneers who had more of an impact on the overall growth and development of the island than any resident - before or since. The Mackle brothers - Elliott, Robert and Frank Jr. - will also be featured. On Jan. 27, the day before the celebration, we will publish a look at the enormous challenges faced by the Mackle brothers as they prepared for the island's "official opening'' on Jan. 31, 1965.

Michael Coleman, Marco Island Sun Times Cruise Guide columnist, was the author of Marco Island Culture & History, published by the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce in celebration of modern Marco Island's 30th Anniversary in 1995.