The Lakeland evening telegram., 1917-12-06
Discover
Skeleton On
Cat Island


stretch of sand covered with sea
weeds bearing the signs of tides and
wind-swept waves. on a lone lyisland
fa- from human habitation, the Off
GERS who last Sunday went over al
uost every foot of Cat Island, off the
Florida coast not far from Cedar Key.
came upon the skeleton of a man
whom they judged by the size of his
bones to have been an extremely
large individual, lying with nothing
near to identify him but the bare
bones themselves, and will all of his
skull either from the ravages Of time
or lone blunt instrument, so broken
to pieces that it was hard to tell
whether the man had been black or
white. Only by the size of the bones
of the skeleton could it be told that
the sex of the one-time person was
masculine.
The find was reported to the Daily
ISur by Deputy Marshal Richardson,
, who besides being one of the best
officers Uncle Sam had on his force,
is friend to the newspaper man in
sofar as he can be without divulging
things harmful to the further dis
charge of his numerous duties.
1--WE came upon this skeleton" said
Marshal Richardson, while we were
right upon the heels of the deherter-
fugitives, and, while We couldn't give
as much time as we would have liked
to an investigation of the surround
ings. We did investigate as thorough
ly as we could under the iircum-
stances, but all we could discover
was that seemingly the skeleton wah
many years old, and was on an iso.
lated spot where no one would ever
run upon it unless engaged iE
search such as we were.
we looked over the bones for
some signs of violence, but all the
head was in such shape it was hard
to discover any signs Of this char.
lacter, naturally We were confined to
a more thorough examination of the
t'unk. And in but one place did we
find c,tah OF r. i.>
on the right side bore the signh of a
bullet having entered the right side
and ranging straight ahead, had
shattered the inner socket after hav-
passed through the outer bone. This,
/ believe, would have been enough to
have incapacitated man for trav.
cling. and If he had been so wounded
and left to his own resources, it
could have been that he lay there in
lall his loneliness and starved to
death. Provided, of course this was
the way it happened
Cat Island, like all the islands on
the coast of Florida which are so
located as to furnish any shelter. was
the stamping ground once of pirates
Is is said that Jean LaFitte at one
time used the spot as a rendezvous.
and the story is that Blackboard
! closely pressed by privateers which
. the American government licensed to
rid the seas Of these floating terrors
took refuge somewhere along the
Florida coast, either Cat Island or
another island somewhere in this
vicinity
Who knows but what one of these
} blood thirsty inhuman humans. tir
ing of one of their number. whose
demands may have become too greedy
Tor consideration, had him so inca
raeilated as this skeleton showed
some man to be, and left to die alone
OF starvation and thirst if not from
his wounds? Or mayhap the proud
captain of home sailing vessel. whose
spirit would not bend to the VIII of
the pirates, sought escape from his
eaptors after the ship whose deck. i.
he had tread had been scuttled tho
lcrew annihilated, and himself held a
prisoner that the sea,robbers nigh,
gain ransom from his owners-to
De shot down trying to escape to the
marshy fastness of the mainland?
All sorts of conjectures can he
brought up in imagination as to how
the body of the man came to be
mere, storm swept on lonely island
where the sea-gull and his land
brother picked clean the bones and
left them for numberless years secure
from the sight of man. till this expc.
dltion of Uncle Sans guardians of