Port Salerno: A Historical Overview of a Florida Community

Port Salerno is a small unincorporated community located in Martin County, Florida. It is located along the east coast of the state, situated along the mouth of the St. Lucie River, just south of the larger city of Stuart. Throughout its long history, the community has been home to a wide variety of people from all walks of life, from the Native Americans who lived there for centuries before the arrival of Europeans to the coastal fishermen, shrimpers, and oystermen of the 18th and 19th centuries. Visit this link for more information.

Port Salerno is derived from its original Spanish name, Salerno, which was a reference to the Majorcan settlers who first arrived in the area in the early 1700s. It is believed that these settlers, primarily from Majorca and Minorca, were seeking refuge from the Inquisition and other religious persecution they had endured in Europe. As they built up the community and established farms and trading operations, they soon created a bustling and prosperous port known as Port Salerno. In the following decades, Port Salerno would become an important gateway for the Florida Seminoles, who were seeking to establish new homes and settlements after they had been pushed out of their ancestral lands by the U.S. government. The village, originally established as a trading post by the Spaniards, soon became a major settlement as the Seminoles and other Native Americans migrated there. During this time, the economy of Port Salerno was primarily based around fishing and trapping. See here for information about Tequesta, Florida: The Gem of Jupiter Island.