Looking for information on the late treasure hunter, Timothy L. Watkins

[TheStoryTeller]

Hey everyone! I'm looking for information on a man named Timothy Watkins. a former treasure hunter who retired to Ocala, FL, in the late '70s. His wife was named Louise and he was survived by his son, James Robert Watkins. He co-owned a company called Marine Explorations, with Olin Frick, and also owned Haitian Marble Corporation, which was located at 4000 SW 6th Ave. in Ocala. He passed away in 1988.

I really want to know about his time with Marine Explorations and aside from a quick blurb about him in Burt Webber's biography, there isn't much information out there. I am also struggling to make contact witj possible relatives of his. If you have any information, please post here or email me at bvnhendy@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you!

 

[JT]

Hey everyone! I'm looking for information on a man named Timothy Watkins. a former treasure hunter who retired to Ocala, FL, in the late '70s. His wife was named Louise and he was survived by his son, James Robert Watkins. He co-owned a company called Marine Explorations, with Olin Frick, and also owned Haitian Marble Corporation, which was located at 4000 SW 6th Ave. in Ocala. He passed away in 1988.

I really want to know about his time with Marine Explorations and aside from a quick blurb about him in Burt Webber's biography, there isn't much information out there. I am also struggling to make contact witj possible relatives of his. If you have any information, please post here or email me at bvnhendy@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you!

Post this in the Shipwreck Forum, I think you’ll get more responses.

 

[Gare]

Could this be him ??

Timothy Louiser Watkins Sr.​

Birth 17 Jan 1894
Florida, USA
Death 16 Jun 1974 (aged 80)
Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA
Burial
Miami Memorial Park Cemetery
Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA Memorial ID 130941081 · View Source

 

[Gare]

Treasure Salvors, Inc., a Corporation and Armada Researchcorp., a Corporation, Plaintiffs-appellees, v. the Unidentified Wrecked and Abandoned Sailing Vessel, Etc., Defendant,olin Frick, John Gasque, William Riley and the Masters Ofthe Motor Vessels"juniper" & "seaker",defendants-appellants, 640 F.2d 560 (5th Cir. 1981)​

 

[Trlewis48]

I found no record online of Marine Explorations, Olin Frick, Haitian Marble Corporation, or a 1988 obituary for Timothy Watkins. Records of small Florida businesses and deaths from that period often were never digitized, so the absence doesn’t mean much.
The only documented treasure hunter by that name is a salvage diver featured in Sports Illustrated on August 3, 1959. In June of that year, while searching the Florida Keys for a British warship, he found an undisturbed ballast pile from the 1733 Spanish fleet. He and five helpers removed more than 100 tons of ballast, timber, and sand and recovered an eight-foot cannon, pewter, brass weights, gold rings and coins, and 60 pounds of silver bullion. That was early work on the fleet: Art McKee found the flagship El Rubí in 1948, but most of the other 1733 wrecks weren’t relocated until the 1960s.
The timeline fits. A diver active in 1959 could reasonably have retired to Ocala in the late 1970s. The article gives no company name, partners, or hometown, though, so I can’t confirm it’s the same person.
If you are still interested, and want to do more checking, the following sources may give you some new leads:
Ocala Star-Banner, 1988. Much of the paper is scanned in the Google News Archive, and his obituary should be there.

• Florida Division of Corporations (Sunbiz.org). Inactive corporations from the 1970s and 1980s often list officers, filing dates, and addresses. Search both company names.
• Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research. Its historic salvage lease files would name Watkins and Frick if Marine Explorations held a state lease.
• Florida Death Index and Social Security Death Index for exact birth and death dates.
• Marion County Property Appraiser for the ownership history of 4000 SW 6th Ave.
• Key West Citizen and Florida Keys Keynoter from the late 1950s and 1960s.