BAYPORT (FOX 13) - Well-known to Hernando County residents, the Bayport Pier is a popular spot to catch fish. But the pier is broken and it has been since Hurricane Hermine blew through Florida in 2016.
"As a native of Hernando County, I fished on this pier when I was 7 years old," said County Commissioner Wayne Dukes. "It's a great place for Hernando County."
While waiting for additional news reports, something I found when I woke up in the middle of the night.
From Anclote we proceeded ten miles northward to Pithlachesticostie River, called "Costie" for short, a small stream with its mouth completely blocked by oyster reefs; and ten miles further north we came to Bayport, at the mouth of W'eckawachee River. The channels from the Gulf to the mouths of these rivers, and those above, are staked. Near the wharf at Bayport we ran on the broken mast of a sunken blockade runner,but got off without sustaining any damage. Bayport is an old place of some note, formerly quite important as a shipping point for cedar. It consists of a store, post-office and a few pleasant residences. It is a pretty place, with some of the largest orange and lemon trees I saw in Florida. Mr. Parsons is proprietor of the store, and will be found an agreeable and intelligent gentleman.
Bayport was a shallow-water gulf port town in the 1850s. The town was designated the Hernando County Seat and a port of delivery by Congress in 1854. Before the Civil War, the port shipped lumber cut from locally grown cedar trees, which was widely used to make pencils. By 1861, the town consisted of approximately 40 houses, a customs house, warehouses, and a wharf. The plantations and ranches surrounding Bayport supplied cattle, natural resources such as turpentine from native longleaf pine trees, and cypress and pine lumber. Salt made from sea water in evaporation ponds, along with cotton and corn, helped support the Confederate fighting forces. The Union blockade of Confederate ports forced blockade runners to use smaller and more innocuous ports such as Bayport. As the Civil War progressed, Bayport became a haven for blockade runners operating between Florida's gulf coast and Cuba, providing numerous critical war commodities for the Confederate war effort. Between 1862 and 1865, vessels belonging to the Union's East Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron intercepted eleven blockade runners near Bayport.
These remnants of a Confederate blockade runner are the steam boiler tubes. These small boats were used to try to break the Union blockade, which kept goods and supplies from entering or leaving the port. The remains from this Confederate boat lie just off the beach at Bayport. Photos and caption by Jeff Cannon (2007).
This was found on the website covering the History of Hernando County. The owner of that property does not like TH'ers. His property where the sandbag Fort was located near the entrance to Bayport harbor had been dug up by trespassing TH'ers. I interviewed the owner about 20 years ago in Brooksville seeking permission and caught his wrath. The area is now a county park with a fishing pier. According to Hernando County history, the two gun emplacement engaged a Union gunboat until it was knocked out. Union soldiers and sailors went in by whale boat and burned a sidewheeler blockade runner and 3 schooners. Though the field guns were knocked out, they were still under a fusillade of musket balls whizzing through the air from the rifle pits that lined the south shore. I always wondered if there were any strong box's on board with gold and silver in them. Hard money was the currency of Smugglers. The harbor area is now filled with sawgrass though some navigational channels exist as there might be old bottles on the bottom. There is Mud Spring, a freshwater spring located somewhere back there, aerial photos might pin point the location. Picnics and 4th of July festivals were done there in the early 1900's.
Good luck.
Bringing the