Saint Augustine, Florida

“ The peculiar location of St. Augustine, upon a narrow peninsula, provides a natural drainage that renders the place particularly desirable as a health resort. Through the winter rains are{181} infrequent, that being the dry season in Florida; whatever rain falls, however, is immediately absorbed by the sandy soil, and, in many parts of the city, the slope of the surface carries the rain-fall immediately into the tide-water environing the city, before it has time to be absorbed by the earth. ”

“ Under the dominion of the United States, St. Augustine soon became a health and pleasure resort. Without manufactures, with, as yet, no products of agriculture for export, its fine port is destitute of commerce, and its easy-going population have ever since depended upon the attractions offered by their city to invalids and persons of fortune, for the means with which to procure the necessaries and luxuries which its inhabitants enjoy in a fair measure. Strangers often wonder how the town is supported, but upon investigation it is found that the frugality of the people is remarkable. ”

“ Williams and Mr. Hildreth, north of the city, have attractive places which are much visited by tourists. When the tide is low there is a short but quite hard drive along the edge of the St. Sebastian River. There is an interesting drive to a suburb west of the city called Ravenswood, where is a spring called from the famous Ponce de Leon. A great natural curiosity is a large spring in the ocean about three miles off the coast near Matanzas Inlet, eighteen miles south of St. Augustine. ”

“ How long the walls of the cathedral had been standing, before the change of flags, is unknown. In 1703 the king decreed an appropriation of $20,000 for the repair of the churches of St. Augustine injured by Colonel Daniel. In 1720 the crown sent $20,000 more, and in 1723 issued a decree to procure at once workmen and repair the convent, the church, and the walls of the city. In 1790 the king decreed the application of the rent from ten lots in Havana to finish the church. The inhabitants were urged to contribute in work or money ”

“ It is needless to say that this treaty was never executed.
Forbes’s “Sketches,” published the year of the cession, gives an interesting account of the condition of St. Augustine at the end of the Spanish possession. It is related in these words: “The town, built in Spanish manner, forms an oblong square, or parallelogram; the streets are regularly laid out, but the buildings have not been put up to conform strictly to that rule. The streets are generally so narrow as to admit with difficulty carriages to pass each other. ”

“ Augustine, immediately after it came under the jurisdiction of the United States, began to receive a most desirable addition to its population in a class of Americans of culture and means, who had long desired to avail themselves of the benefits and delights of its climate, but had hesitated about becoming citizens of the place under Spanish rule. I have heard old citizens say that there was no town of its size in the country where there were so many persons of refined tastes and independent means as in St. ”

“ Augustine and environs contained four thousand inhabitants, of whom eight hundred and forty-four were free blacks. The large number of free persons of color is accounted for by the fact that St. Augustine under the Spanish had been an asylum for all the runaway slaves from the neighboring colonies. ”

“ Augustine, and thus drive the Spaniards from Florida. At his request the Carolina colonies sent him a body of four hundred troops under Colonel Vanderdussen. He also equipped a body of Creek Indians, and in May had rendezvoused at the mouth of the St. Johns River a force of two thousand men. With a portion of this force he attacked a small fort called Diego, situated on what is now known as Diego Plains (called by the inhabitants Dago) , twenty-five miles north of St. Augustine, then the estate of Don Diego de Spinosa. ”

“ Fourteen years afterward, the first landing was made on the sandy shores of Florida, and possession claimed in the name of the King of Spain.
The mystic fountain of youth, first pictured in the days of mythology, whose waters would stay the devastating march of time, endow perpetual youth, even restore vigor to the decrepitude of age, was said to exist in the New World. ”

“ Augustine would be one of the best in the world were it not for the bar, which admits vessels drawing not more than six feet with safety. It is surrounded by breakers which are not as dangerous as they appear. There is a roadstead on the north side of the bar with good anchorage for vessels drawing too much water to enter the harbor. [A part of Anastatia Island] is known as Fish’s Island, and from the hospitality of Mr. Jesse Fish, one of the oldest inhabitants{148} of the province, is remarkable for the date and olive trees, the flavor of the oranges, and the cultivation of his garden. ”

“ Augustine, especially during the summer season. Throughout the greater part of the year rare sport could be obtained by good shots who had the skill to lodge a rifle ball in the head of the porpoise as he rises to “blow.”
The Indian town located on the present site of St. Augustine was Seloy, and the same name seems to have been given to both of the rivers which unite to form the harbor. From the narration it would seem probable that the point where Laudonnère landed was upon Anastatia Island, the Indians having come over from the mainland on seeing the French ships in the offing. ”

“ The spread of the Catholic faith he determined to secure by inducing the different tribes of Indians to receive and support one or more missionaries or teachers. At the earnest solicitation of Menendez large numbers of priests, friars, and brothers of the various religious orders of the Catholic Church had been sent to Florida by the King of Spain. Mission-houses were built all over the country from the Florida capes on the south to the Chesapeake on the north and the Mississippi on the west, to which these teachers, being mostly Franciscans, were sent. ”

“ As these buildings occupied about a fourth part of the present plaza, the monument, though now situated toward the western side of the square, then stood in the center of the inclosure. Soon after its completion, the Spanish government issued orders that all monuments erected to the constitution throughout its realms should be razed. The citizens of St. Augustine were much grieved to think of losing their monument, which was considered a great ornament to the public park, and appealed to the governor and principal men to allow the decree to be disregarded. ”

“ Colonel Palmer of that colony raised a body of three hundred militia, and entered Florida, burning and destroying every Spanish and Indian settlement to the very gates of St. Augustine. The Spanish inhabitants of the country and town fled into the fort for safety; but, with execrable meanness, excluded the poor Indians, who were nearly all killed or made prisoners. The{87} Spaniards saved only what could be protected by the guns of the fort, which was then quite a formidable work. ”

“ The crucifix taken from it is yet preserved in the cathedral at St. Augustine. The ground on which this chapel stood is still owned by the Catholic Church, and a new chapel was built in 1874 by Bishop Verot on the ruins of the old church; but the severe gale of 1878 unroofed this, and at present only two of the coquina walls are standing. The location is immediately adjoining on the east the grounds of General Dent’s cottage and young orange grove on the right, as you go out of the city gates by the shell road. The name of the Indian village here located was called Topiqui. ”

“ So hazardous to the colonial interests had the British possession of St. Augustine become, that Governor Houston, of Georgia, urged upon General Howe to attack the place in the spring of 1778. This expedition was never undertaken, though Colonel Fuser, of the Sixtieth Regiment, issued a proclamation on June 27th, 1778, commanding all those who had not entered the militia to join him, as “the rebels might be expected every instant.”
The inhabitants of the province, while willing to fight for the king, still demanded the establishment of a representative government. ”

“ The town is three quarters of a mile in length, but{105} not a quarter wide; had four churches ornamentally built with stone in the Spanish taste, of which one within and one without the town exist. One is pulled down; that is the German church, but the steeple is preserved as an ornament to the town; and the other, viz., the convent-church and convent in town, is taken in the body of the barracks. All the houses are built of masonry ”

“ While there is little wealth among its citizens, there is little actual want. The many girls and young ladies always dress with neatness and taste, and many earn the means to support themselves by braiding palmetto for hats and baskets, making feather flowers, shell, and fish-scale ornaments, and bouquets of the native grasses. The town has long been noted for the number and health of its young children.
In 1834 the city contained 1,739 inhabitants, of whom 498 were males, 519 females, 151 free colored persons, and 571 slaves. ”

“ Augustine than in any place I ever was at. And yet I do not think that on all the continent there is a more healthy spot. Burials have been less frequent here than anywhere else, where an equal number of inhabitants are found; and it was remarked, during my stay there, that, when a detachment of the royal regiment of artillery once arrived there in a sickly state, none of the inhabitants caught the contagion, and the troops themselves soon recruited. ”

“ Augustine, there was a great scarcity of provisions in the colony, so that the settlers were forced to forage upon the neighboring Indians, and to depend upon such supplies of fish and game as they might secure. The danger which attended any expeditions for hunting rendered this but a meager source of{54} supply. Satouriva, the chief of the Indians, who inhabited the territory to the north, between St. Augustine and the St. Johns River, had been a friend of Laudonnère, and from the time of the destruction of the French he continued unceasingly to wage war on the Spaniards. ”

“ When he had first come upon this little bay and inlet, chosen for his base, he gave it the name St. Augustine in honor of the Saint’s day (August 28th) , on which his ships first sighted the Florida coast.
The Spanish Treasure Fleets
At the time of St. Augustine’s founding Spain was the most powerful nation in Europe. Sailing under her banner, Christopher Columbus in 1492 had initiated the discovery of strange new lands across the sea. Other intrepid explorers followed—Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and Portuguese—searching for the coveted sea-route to the Indies. ”

“ In pursuance of the advice of this council embassies were sent to all the tribes of Indians for several hundred miles around St. Augustine.
Spanish garrisons and many Spanish monks to teach the Indians had already been received into the towns east of the Appalachicola River. In 1583 the Chickasaws, Tocoposcas, Apacas, Tamaicas, Apiscas and Alabamas, received the missionaries. At this period the Catholic faith was recognized as far west as the Mississippi, and as far north as the mountains of Georgia.
The Franciscans and Dominicans had been the first to represent the monks in the New World. ”

“ The income of the people of the town derived from the sale of their oranges was not far from seventy-five thousand dollars annually, and the crop that was yearly sent from St. Augustine in sailing vessels exceeded three million oranges. One orange tree upon the plaza is reported to have borne twelve thousand oranges. In 1829, Mr. A. Alverez picked from one tree in his garden six thousand five hundred oranges, and it is recorded that “an old citizen picked from one tree eight thousand of the golden apples. The Minorcan population of St. ”

“ Some by industry have acquired large estates: they at this time form a respectable part of the population of the city.” [27]
It will be seen by the date of their removal to St. Augustine that the unfavorable comments of Romans and the Englishman whose letter he quotes upon the population of the town at the cession to Great Britain, could not have referred to the immigrants who came over under contract with Turnbull. It will also be seen that Williams speaks in very complimentary terms of these people and their descendants. ”

“ Romans thus criticises the policy of the governor in expending so large sums on military works: “The bar of this harbor is a perpetual obstruction to St. Augustine becoming a place of any great trade, and alone is security enough against enemies; so that I see but little occasion for so much fortification as the Spaniards had here, especially as a little look-out called Mossa, at a small distance north of the town, proved sufficient to repel General Oglethorpe with the most formidable armament ever intended against St. ”

“ Dry, unsightly poles, with ragged bark, stick up around her dwellings, and where the mocking bird once delighted to build her nest, and tune her lovely song, owls now hoot at night, and sterile winds whistle through the leafless branches. ”

“ Augustine know how to swim than of any other place in the country.
Within the last few years there have been a number of handsome houses built in the city by wealthy gentlemen who occupy them during the winter season. Mr. H. P. Kingsland of New York has a fine residence north of the gates upon the shell road. This is probably the most expensive of the houses built by nonresidents, though the fine house built by the late Hy. Ball upon his estate on Tolomato Street is said to have cost a large sum of money. The grounds and orange grove on this place were very attractive during the life of Mr. ”