The Wit & Wisdom of C.G. McKinney – Sage of Chokoloskee

About this event

Museum Manager Thomas Lockyear presents a fun and feel-good lecture celebrating pioneer settler Charles Greenleigh McKinney, known as the Sage of Chokoloskee.

In this fun and feel-good presentation, Museum Manager Thomas Lockyear will celebrate the life and work of one the earliest pioneer settlers in the region of Southwest Florida known as the Chokoloskee Bay Country: Charles Greenleigh McKinney. A Civil War Veteran who spent time making moonshine (which he called “Low Bush Lightning”) before making the 10,000 Islands his home, McKinney opened a trading post and established the area’s first post office he would later hand over to Ted Smallwood. The postal address bore the ironic name “Comfort” – a reference to the profound lack of it caused by the abundant “Swamp Angels”: mosquitos. McKinney, a registered midwife who delivered dozens of babies and acted as the area’s de facto dentist, also wrote a regular column for the American Eagle newspaper published in nearby Estero. Reporting local happenings with what would be today known as a Will Rogers-style wit, his wry observations about pioneer life and freely shared folk wisdom earned him the honorific moniker of “Sage of Chokoloskee”.