Legend has it that Grover Cleveland loved Homosassa — the kind of love where a man will trade a debate in Washington for a morning paddle and a spot of tarpon-chasing. Locals say he came for the mangroves and stayed for the coffee and the tall fish tales.

He fished and he hunted with the determination of a president and the modest gear of a weekend naturalist: creaky waders, a pocket full of mismatched lures, and an ability to turn every catch into a speech. If a tarpon leaped, Grover would straighten his hat and call it character-building.

Then there's the story everyone tells when the beer's gone warm and the mosquitoes are winning: on April 15 1901, in a freak hunting accident, his dog Tubby — a rotund, enthusiastic hound more interested in snacks than stealth — was killed. The tale is told without gore, more like a comic tragedy that belongs on a postcard than in a file of facts.

Grover, as the yarn goes, handled it with the dry bemusement people now chalk up to presidential stoicism. He is said to have patted an empty collar and offered an offhand line that made the men on the dock laugh and the women shake their heads — the sort of wry remark that turns sorrow into story.

Homosassa still tells the tale with a grin and a glass raised to Tubby: a dog who joined a president for a short, chaotic chapter of fishing, hunting and unforgettable April foolery gone wrong. Whether you call it history or folklore, it’s one of those local jokes that keeps a place lively and a memory oddly warm.