Northeast Florida is steeped in history with two of the most significant locations in the development of early Florida on either side of Jacksonville, St. Augustine on the south and Fernandina Beach to the north.
Searching for the Fountain of Youth, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon landed in Florida in 1513 and claimed the land for Spain. The absence of gold and silver lead to a lack of attention for the area until the treasure armadas from Mexico and South America needed protection as they sailed up the Florida coast prior to heading east across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1565 Pedro Menendez and 700 colonists landed and founded St. Augustine, the oldest continually occupied site in North America. Life was difficult for the settlers as the area was not really conducive to farming, the surrounding swamps home to disease, and their precarious position constantly threatened by pirates and other countries. England’s Sir Francis Drake burned the village in 1586 and nearly 100 years later in 1668 pirate John Davis sacked the town. Four years later Spain began building the Castillo de San Marcos, a fort guarding the entrance to St. Augustine. The fort was built of coquina, a local rock composed of shells, and, because it was relatively soft, the rock could absorb the shock of being hit by a cannonball without crumbling. Many of the buildings in the town were also built of this material and thus have survived until present time. In 1702 British troops attacked the town and besieged the fort for 50 days, eventually failing to enter the fort but destroying the town. This is why there are no buildings in St. Augustine predating the early 1700’s. Possession of Florida changed hands a number of times over the years, Spain, Great Britain, Spain again, then finally in 1821 the United States. The old town area sits on a narrow peninsula between the San Sebastian River on the west and the Matanzas River on the east across from a pass where the Matanzas enters the Atlantic Ocean. The old city gates have been reconstructed at the northern end of the old town district.
The old town area was clearly built before the advent of automobiles and the streets are very narrow, at a few points I can almost touch the walls on both sides while standing in the middle. St. George, the major north/south street through the old town, is closed to vehicle traffic and is lined with restaurants, boutiques, and historic homes. This is clearly tourist country!
I’m here early in the day and the tourist crowds have not yet started to build.
The actual date of a building’s construction is frequently not known, though they can be dated to a period of time in the history of St. Augustine. A major restoration effort of the historic village took place in the 1960’s with buildings reconstructed using archeological digs and historic documents for guidance. For example, the Rodriguez-Avero-Sanchez House is an typical of a building that evolved over time. The home started in the early 1700’s as a Spanish Colonial single room wooden house, expanded sometime prior to 1761 with coquina stone and then a second wood floor was added prior to 1834.
Across the street is the 1764 DeMesa-Sanchez House.
Continuing down the street the 1798 Oliveros House is on the left and the 1740 De Ortega House on the right.
We are getting closer to the heart of the old Spanish city, the plaza. But, before we get there, there’s more to look at along St. George Street.
The Pena-Peck House shows three major phases of the town’s growth. The first floor L-shaped plan is from the First Spanish Period, the eastern first floor wing is from the British Period, and the wooden upper story was added during the Territorial Period.
Finally St. George Street meets the verdant Spanish plaza.
The obelisk in the center of the plaza is the Constitution Monument, erected during the Second Spanish Period in 1812 when the Spanish parliament wrote the first Spanish Constitution and issued a royal decree that all Spanish towns throughout the empire were required to build a monument and rename their main plaza to La Plaza de la Constitucion. The Constitutional Monument in St. Augustine was completed in 1813. A year later the constitutional government in Spain was overthrown and the monarchy restored. A second Royal Decree was issued that all constitutional monuments should be destroyed. St. Augustine’s officials refused and the monument continues to stand today.
On the north side of the plaza is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, completed in 1797. The congregation was actually established in 1565 and is the oldest Christian congregation in the United States.
Next to the cathedral is the Treasury Building, St. Augustine’s only “skyscraper”. Completed in 1927 as the area’s central bank, the building now is an event center.
The west side of the plaza fronts Government House, built in 1710 and serving as the governor’s official residence during the First Spanish Period (1565-1763), the British Period (1763-1784), and the Second Spanish Period (1784-1812).
The south side of the plaza is home to the old Spanish quarter but during the British period the Church of England took over the Spanish bishop’s house on the southwest corner across from the plaza and used the building for church services. In 1825, later expanded in 1902, the Trinity Parish Church Episcopal replaced the Spanish bishop’s house on the corner.
The rest of the south side of the plaza is lined with shops and restaurants, pierced in the middle by Aviles Street, which reaches deep into the old Spanish quarter.
The Sequi-Kirby House is one of only 36 Spanish Colonial houses remaining in St. Augustine, dating from the late 1700’s. Archeological excavation done during the reconstruction documents that the site has been occupied from the late 1500’s. In 1786 it became home to Bernardo Sequi, a prosperous merchant and baker. Judge Joseph Lee Smith, first judge of the Superior Court for East Florida, rented the home in 1823 and in time purchased it. His son, Edmund Kirby Smith, was the last Confederate general to surrender his command at the end of the Civil War.
The Ximenz-Fato House was built in 1798 for use as a general store, tavern, and family home.
The streets are very narrow!
At the southern edge of the Spanish quarter is the oldest house in St. Augustine. Beginning in 1650 a succession of wooden thatch houses were built on this site but the last was destroyed when the British burned St. Augustine in 1702. In 1727 a coquina stone house was built, originally a one-story rectangle with two rooms. Sometime after 1763 the wooden second floor was added.
I return to the plaza and head west along King Street to what is known as the Victorian quarter, most of which was built in the late 1800’s after the railroad arrived. Dominating the area is the magnificent Flagler College, originally built by railroad magnate Henry Flagler in 1885 as the Ponce de Leon Hotel. The hotel was the first major building in the United States to be built of poured concrete. The hotel was converted to Flagler College in 1968. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, tours of the interiors have been suspended.
The picture above is the front facade, the one below is the east side.
The Ponce de Leon was an immediate success so three years later Flagler built the Alcazar Hotel across the street. The building closed in 1932 and remained closed until 1947 when O.C. Lightner purchased the building and donated it to the city of St. Augustine for use as a museum. The large building not only houses the museum but also serves as the St. Augustine City Hall.
Flagler’s success was contagious so in 1888 across the corner from the Ponce de Leon and next to the Alcazar Franklin W. Smith built the Casa Monica Hotel. Smith faced financial problems and sold the hotel to Henry Flagler. The hotel closed in the 1930’s and later was purchased and remodeled for use as the St. John’s County Courthouse, eliminating many of the original finishes. In 1997 the building was sold to Richard Kessler, who returned the use of the building to a hotel.
The Ponce de Leon was built on land owned by the Anderson family, a prominent St. Augustine family of the early 1800’s. The foundations of Markland, the family home, were laid in 1839. The original home, now the east wing of the current building, was completed in 1843. The building is now part of Flagler College.
Other homes around the college have also been brought into use by the college.
Presiding over the neighborhood north of the college is the stunning Memorial Presbyterian Church, built by Henry Flagler in 1889 and dedicated to his daughter, who had died following complications from child birth.
I now retrace my steps and walk back down King Street to the plaza and river front to the east. The sea wall has two levels. The lower wall in the front is the original wall, one of the earliest federally funded projects in the Territory of Florida, built between 1833-1844 by some of the first graduates of the engineering school at the US Military Academy at West Point. It is made of coquina stone with a granite top. Later renovations in front of the historic wall raised the height of the wall. The view to the north is the bridge crossing to St. Augustine Beach, center of modern St. Augustine and home to beach resorts. To the south pleasure boats are anchored in the Matanzas River.
Across the street from the sea wall are private homes and boutique hotels that line Menendez Street between the sea wall and the historic district.
A narrow break in the buildings gives a peak into the Spanish quarter.
Following the sea wall the plaza opens up to the west.
Ahead is my final destination, the Castillo de San Marcos. The line that you see is people waiting for entrance. They are only allowing 100 people at a time in the fortress, so you have to wait in line for someone to leave before the next person gets inside.
The wait is about a half hour but the views are great. Looking south up the river (the old city is just out of view to the right) the bridge to the beach is open to allow a large yacht passage through.
Looking east I can see the Atlantic Ocean through the pass where the Matanzas River enters the ocean.
Castillo de San Marcos
Construction on the fort began in 1672 by the Spanish intent on protecting St. Augustine from foreign invasion and marauding pirates. A model of the fort shows the layout, essentially a square with points at the four corners. A small “arrow” shape on the left denotes the two-stage entrance. A small drawbridge crosses part of the moat to the arrow fortification, then a right turn takes one across a larger drawbridge into the main fort.
The moat was actually a “dry” moat, never designed to hold water as water would erode the coquina stone walls but rather as protection against tunnels into the fort. Once through the thick walls the square courtyard opens up.
Just as we have repeatedly seen in other forts from the period, large arched vaults form the walls, the arches giving the fortification the strength to hold the heavy cannon on the upper deck. There were no other significant buildings inside the fort, all functions (including sleeping) took place inside the massive vaults.
When the British held the fort from 1763-1783 they divided some of the vaults by adding a second floor in order to house more troops.
The fort was also built to accommodate the necessary “bodily functions”, having what arguably could be called the first flushing toilet in America. A toilet room was built into the wall with the cesspit below flushed twice daily by the tides. Incoming tides filled the pit, outgoing tides flushed the waste out into the bay.
There is only one stairway rising to the upper deck.
Once up on the desk views open up in all directions.
An unobstructed view looks down into the interior of the fort and to St. Augustine beyond.
Standing above the gate I can see more clearly now the two-stage entrance to the main fort. The small drawbridge is on the left, the main drawbridge is in the center. Old town lies in the distance.
The fort was strategically located. Ships had to enter head-on from the Atlantic Ocean and thus were unable to use their broadside rows of cannon against the fort without being bombarded by the fort itself. Look out points rise from each corner.
The lookouts were designed to only hold one person (and a small person at that!) I had to turn side-ways to enter. Once inside small view holes allowed the sentry to lookout with minimal risk.
I have completed my rough circle tour of St. Augustine and need to head back to the Lunch Box. Fortunately the Lunch Box was able to be parked just a couple of blocks north of the city center in a parking lot dedicated to rv’s and buses. As I pass the gates to the old city I also pass one of St. Augustine’s iconic attractions, Ripley’s Believe It or Not (it’s not all about tasteful history in St. Augustine!)
Ripley’s is located in the Warden Winter Home, built in 1887 for William Warden, a partner of Henry Flagler’s. It remained a family residence until 1941 when it was remodeled into a hotel until becoming Ripley’s Believe It or Not in 1950.
All in all, a fascinating eclectic adventure! Exploration of the beginnings of the development of the northeast Florida coast is not quite over, our next stop is the very northeast corner of Florida, Amelia Island, and the village of Fernandina Beach.
Fernandina Beach
The east coast of the United States from South Carolina to northeast Florida meets the Atlantic Ocean buffered by a chain of islands known as the Sea Islands. The southernmost island in the chain is Amelia Island. Amelia Island is four miles wide at its widest point and thirteen miles long. Eight flags have flown over the island (French, Spanish, British, Floridian, Green Cross, Mexican, Confederate and the United States.) The name of the island that “stuck”, Amelia Island, was given during the British period when the British named the island after the Princess Amelia, daughter of King George II. The largest village on the island, Fernandina, was founded during the second Spanish period in 1811 and named after King Ferdinand VII of Spain. The original location of Fernandina was surrounded by marsh and in 1855 when David Yulee decided that he wanted the eastern terminus of the Florida Railroad to be on Amelia Island the town fathers decided to move the town up to the railroad and Fernandina Beach was on its way! After circling around the Jacksonville metropolitan area our path to Amelia Island takes us through forest and across the marsh before crossing the bridge onto the island. Industry located just north of Fernandina Beach at the port steams in the distance.
The port is on the west side of the island, the beaches along the east. Old town Fernandina Beach runs along Centre Street perpendicular to the docks and railroad on the western shore.
The original railroad station, built in 1855, was destroyed in the disastrous hurricane of 1898. The current depot was completed in 1899 and today houses the visitor center.
Just past the railroad depot Centre Street is lined with historic buildings, housing restaurants, boutiques and shops.
Towards the end of the village center is the 1912 US Post Office and Customs House.
The 1860 Lesesne House is one of the oldest homes in Fernandina Beach, built by Dr. John F. Lesesne before the Civil War. Dr. Lesesne left Fernandina Beach during the Civil War and never returned, the house became home to Judge John Friend and his descendants continue to occupy the house.
The tallest building along Centre Street is the Nassau County Courthouse, completed in 1891.
Just north of Centre Street is the First Presbyterian Church complex, the church and associated buildings dating from 1857. The Union army occupied the church during the Civil War but, responding to the pleas of local citizens, did not melt down the church bell for its metal. The original bell still calls worshipers to service today.
The prosperous of the day built their homes on the blocks north and south of Center Street during the late 1800’s. Here’s a sample>
Hirth House – 1886 
Humphrey House – 1902
Baker House – 1859 
Prescott House – 1876
Noble House – 1902 
Chadwick House – 1883
One can’t leave Florida without one last trip to the beach so I leave the village center and head a couple of miles east of the coast and the glorious Amelia Island beach. Before reaching the sands we cross a marsh which stretches between Fernandina Beach and the coastline.
Then, our reward, the beach!
Leaving the beach and heading west traffic is backed up for miles so I get to sit on top of the bridge for a while and take pictures of the marsh and water between Amelia Island and mainland Florida.
Once across the bridge (finally!) our path weaves through a patchwork of marsh and forest before saying goodbye to Florida and heading into coastal Georgia.
Next up: The Golden Isles
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