St. Augustine, thirty-six miles southeast of Jacksonville, on the
seacoast, is the oldest city in the United States, founded by Menendez
in 1565, and existing to this day with the characteristics of a
Spanish town of the sixteenth century, which have been also reproduced
in the architecture of most of the newer buildings. A small inlet from
the ocean, about fifteen miles south of the mouth of St. John's
River, stretches its arms north and south, the latter arm, called
Matanzas River, seeking the sea again about eighteen miles below. It
thus forms Anastasia Island, sheltering the harbor like a breakwater,
and behind it the city is built, being protected by a sea-wall nearly
a mile long, built of coquina or shell-stone. Another arm of the sea,
called San Sebastian River, is a short distance inland, so that the
town site is really upon a peninsula. About five thousand people
reside permanently in St. Augustine, a few of Spanish descent, and
more of them the offspring of a colony of Minorcans who came in 1769,
but in winter the Northern visitors to the palatial hotels swell the
population to over ten thousand. The town is built on a level sandy
plain, and the older streets are narrow, being only a few feet wide
and without sidewalks. The projecting balconies of some of the ancient
houses almost touch those opposite. The old streets are paved with
coquina and the old houses are built of it, this curious
shell-limestone, quarried on Anastasia Island, hardening upon exposure
to the air. A few streets running north and south, crossed by others
at right angles, and a broader front street bordered by the sea-wall
which makes a fine promenade, compose the town. This sea-wall of
coquina is capped with granite, and was built after the American
occupation of the city. At its northern end is Fort Marion and at the
southern end St. Francis Barracks, the United States military post,
so named because it occupies the site of the old Convent of St.
Francis, having some of its coquina walls incorporated in the present
structure. The harbor in front, which in past centuries sheltered so
many Spanish fleets and those of Spanish enemies as well, is now
chiefly devoted to yachting.
When Menendez and his Spaniards first landed they built a wooden fort
commanding the harbor entrance, surrounded by pine trees, which they
named San Juan de Pinos. This was afterwards replaced by Fort San
Marco, constructed of coquina, which was nearly a hundred years
building, and was finished in 1756. Upon the transfer of Florida to
the United States this became Fort Marion. It is a well-preserved
specimen of the military architecture of the eighteenth century, built
on Vauban's system, covering about four acres, with bastions at the
corners, each protected by a watch-tower, and is surrounded by a moat,
the walls being twenty-one feet high. The fort is in reasonably good
preservation, and is said to have been constructed mainly by the labor
of Indians. It took so long to build and cost so much under the
wasteful Spanish system that one sovereign wrote that it had almost
cost its weight in gold; yet it was regarded then as supremely
important to be finished, being the key to the Spanish possession of
Florida. Over the sally-port at the drawbridge are carved the Spanish
arms and an inscription recording the completion of the fort in 1756,
when Ferdinand VI. was King of Spain and Don Hereda Governor of
Florida. It mounted one hundred of the small guns of those days, and
the interior is a square parade ground, surrounded by large casemates.
Upon each side of the casemate opposite the sally-port is a niche for
holy water, and at the farther end the Chapel. Dungeons and
subterranean passages abound, of which ghostly tales are told. This
fort is the most interesting relic of the ancient city, a picturesque
place, with charms even in its dilapidation.
There are other quaint structures in this curious old town. A gray
gateway about ten feet wide, flanked by tall square towers, marks the
northern entrance to the city, the ditch from the fort passing in
front of it. In one of the streets is the palace of the Spanish
Governors, since changed into a post-office. The official centre of
the city is a public square, the Plaza de la Constitucion, having a
monument commemorating the Spanish Liberal Constitution of 1812, and
also a Confederate Soldiers' Monument. This square fronts on the
sea-wall, and alongside it and stretching westward is the Alameda,
known as King Street, leading to the group of grand hotels recently
constructed in Spanish and Moorish style, which have made modern St.
Augustine so famous. These are the Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar and the
Cordova, with the Casino, adjoined by spacious and beautiful gardens.
These buildings reproduce all types of the Hispano-Moorish
architecture, with many suggestions from the Alhambra. The Ponce de
Leon, the largest, is three hundred and eighty by five hundred and
twenty feet, enclosing an open court, and its towers rise above the
red-tiled roofs to a height of one hundred and sixty-five feet, the
adornments in colors being very effective. To the southward of the
town, adjoining the barracks, is the military cemetery, where a
monument and three white pyramids tell the horrid story of the Dade
massacre during the Seminole War. Major Dade, a gallant officer, and
one hundred and seven men, were ambushed and massacred by eight
hundred Indians in December, 1835, and their remains afterwards
brought here and interred under the pyramids. Opposite the barracks is
what is claimed to be the oldest house in the United States, occupied
by Franciscan monks from 1565 to 1580, and afterwards a dwelling. It
has been restored, and contains a collection of historical relics.
St. Augustine has had a chequered history. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth's
naval hero, Sir Francis Drake, sailing all over the world to fight
Spaniards, attacked and plundered the town and burnt the greater part
of it. Then for nearly a century the Indians, pirates, French, English
and neighboring Georgians and Carolinians made matters lively for the
harried inhabitants. In 1763 the British came into possession, but
they ceded it back to Spain twenty years later, the town then
containing about three hundred householders and nine hundred negroes.
It became American in 1821, and was an important military post during
the subsequent Seminole War, which continued several years. It was
early captured by the Union forces during the Civil War, and was a
valuable stronghold for them. This curious old town has many
traditions that tell of war and massacre and the horrible cruelties of
the Spanish Inquisition, the remains of cages in which prisoners were
starved to death being shown in the fort. Its best modern story,
however, is told of the escape of Coa-coo-chee, the Seminole chief,
whose adventurous spirit and savage nature gained him the name of the
"Wild Cat." The ending of the Seminole War was the signing of a treaty
by the older chiefs agreeing to remove west of the Mississippi.
Coa-coo-chee, with other younger chiefs, opposed this and renewed the
conflict. He was ultimately captured and taken to Fort Marion.
Feigning sickness, he was removed into a casemate giving him air,
there being an aperture two feet high by nine inches wide in the wall
about thirteen feet above the floor, and under it a platform five feet
high. Here, while still feigning illness, he became attenuated by
voluntary abstinence from food, and finally one night squeezed himself
through the aperture and dropped to the bottom of the moat, which was
dry. Eluding all the guards, he escaped and rejoined his people. The
flight caused a great sensation, and there was hot pursuit. After some
time he was recaptured, and being taken before General Worth, was used
to compel the remnant of the tribe to remove to the West. Worth told
him if his people were not at Tampa in twenty days he would be killed,
and he was ordered to notify them by Indian runners. He hesitated, but
afterwards yielded, and the runners were given twenty twigs, one to be
broken each day, so they might know when the last one was broken his
life would pay the penalty. In seventeen days the task was
accomplished. The tribe came to Tampa, and the captive was released,
accompanying his warriors to the far West. This ended most of the
Indian troubles in Florida, but some descendants of the Seminoles
still exist in the remote fastnesses of the everglades.