and an eccentric teller of tall tales, mostly about himself. His self-reported age and birthplace varied, even on official documents. In the 1870 United States Census, he is listed as having been born in 1828. However, during the 1880 US census, Gómez claimed to have been born in France in 1785. In 1885, he told state census takers that he had been born in Corsica, and reported to the 1900 US Census that he was born in Portugal in 1776. Meanwhile, various contemporary letters and news articles report that Gómez claimed at different times to have been born in 1778, 1781 or 1795 in Honduras, Portugal, or Mauritius. Most of his supposed birth years would have made him one of the oldest people in the world in 1900, when he died in a boating accident. Gómez's uncertain birth was said to be just the beginning of an exceedingly long and adventure-filled life. He claimed to have seen Napoleon as a youth in France (or, alternatively, was drafted into Napoleon's army), sailed the world as a cabin boy on a merchant ship, served as a scout for the U.S. Army during the Seminole Wars, served as a coastal pilot for the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, was involved in filibustering (and perhaps pirating) in Central America and the Caribbean, and escaped a Cuban prison just before his scheduled execution, among other remarkable exploits spread out over the entirety of the 19th century. While none of these stories can be verified, researchers have found record indicating that Gómez lived in several locations around southwest Florida from about 1870 until his death, including the Florida Everglades, Key West, Tampa, Pass-a-Grille, and the Ten Thousand Islands. Between his propensity for telling entertaining stories and his real skills as a boat pilot and outdoorsman, Gómez became a popular fishing and hunting guide along Florida's west coast, leading to his being mentioned in several issues of Forest and Stream, an early conservationist magazine. His tall tales were usually shared in very informal settings during fishing trips and hunting expeditions and are only documented in a few personal accounts in newspapers and magazines and in his obituary. However, though many versions of the Gasparilla legend claim that Gómez was the last surviving member of the pirate's crew, no contemporary account of Gómez's life or tall tales mention José Gaspar. The connection was first made soon after