St. Augustine and Amelia Island - Last stops in Florida

One of our final stops in Florida was to the oldest city in the United States. Founded in 1513, St. Augustine celebrated its 500th birthday on April 3^rd. Since this was the first European settlement on U.S. soil, we visited the oldest school house, the oldest jailhouse and of course the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon was in search of.

One of our stops was Fort Castillo de San Marcos. This is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US built by the Spanish from 1672-1695. It was built with a drawbridge over a dry moat that was used to graze their livestock and never had water in it.

Under United States control, the fort was used as a military prison to incarcerate members of various Native American tribes starting with the Seminole - including the famous war chief Osceola and members of various western tribes including Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apache.

Possession of the fort changed six times, all peaceful, amongst four different governments: the Spanish, Great Britain, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America (Spain and the United States having possession two times each).

 

 

 

 

The gallows

A tour through the oldest jail in the country taught us where the meaning of Jailbird came from.  Seems that if you broke the law, one of the penalties you could get was being put in a cage that resembled a large bird cage. Once in the cage, a rope was thrown over the limb of a tree and the cage hoisted into the air. Thus, the name Jailbird. The jail itself was impressive with two cells for women and two stories of cells for the men. When women served their sentences, they were required to cook for the inmates, the sheriff and his family and guards on duty. They began their day around 5am and ended around midnight. If you were sentenced to death by hanging, you had to build your own gallows.

We also visited the oldest wooden schoolhouse. Built over 200 years ago, while Florida was under the rule of Spain, it was constructed of red cedar and cypress and put together with wooden pegs and handmade nails.   The schoolmaster and his wife lived
upstairs, above the small classroom. Their kitchen was separated from the main building, because of the threat of fire and to spare the house of any excess heat during the long summers.


Deane in the outhouse

Kitchen

Before ending our day in St. Augustine we payed a visit to San Sebastian winery where we tasted wines made from varietals from hybrids such as Stover and Blanc Du Bois along with blended and sparkling wines from native Muscadine grapes. The Muscadine grapes were found growing wild in Florida when it was first inhabited. According to historians, this area is the birthplace of American wine, dating back to 1562. For my tastes..... the wines were not as good as Northwest Wines!  Afterall, with all the minerals in the water here, there has to be some residual. I even enjoyed the wines we found in Missouri more than these in Florida.

We ended the day at the Fountain of Youth and I am still not sure why Ponce deLeon made such a quest of this fountain, or if it was just folk lore. Don't rush to it. Florida water naturally has a lot of minerals in it, and this is no exception. I think I would rather bathe in it than drink it.

Another day we discovered Amelia Island and what a great discovery it was. The history of the island predates St. Augustine. But because no settlement was created, St. Augustine received the distinction of first city.   

First thing we did was take a two hour boat cruise that gave us the history of Amelia Island and the island just north of it, Cumberland Island in Ga. Amelia Island is the furthest point north in Florida, but sits west enough that if you draw a straight line north you would hit Cincinnati.   During the tour we saw a number of dolphins and funny how they don't pose for you.  They are up and then back into the water.....only when you put your camera down do they surface again.
 

From the view of our boat we saw and were told about Fort San
Carlos that sits at the entrance of the St. Marie River on the Atlantic Ocean.  It was built in 1816 by the Spanis and as with a number of Forts, this one never saw any fighting, but was used briefly by the Confererate Army until they realized there was no threat from the Union at this location.

Cumberland Island is now 90% owned by the National Park Service that works with a Conservancy to protect the island. The island was owned by the Spanish and the English in the 1600 and 1700's. In the 1880's Thomas M. Carnegie (U.S. Steel) and his wife Lucy bought land on Cumberland for a winter retreat. In 1884, they began building a  59-room Scottish castle mansion that Carnegie never lived to see completed. The island is  now home to many animals left by not only the Spanish and English but by the Carnegies.  Lucy Carnegie left all of her horses to fare for themselves.  Today you can see draft as well as riding horses grazing on the island.   Only way on and off the island is by ferry and if you are there just for the day, make sure you do  not miss the 4:45pm ferry back.  It leaves exactly at that time with or without you!



Shrimp boats

Amelia Island has a number of firsts and onlys to it's credit. This little island is where commercial shrimp fishing was born. At one time they were shipping 500,000,000 pounds a year all over the
world. Today, there are only a couple of boats that fish and only one processing plant on the island where there used to be six. The cost of diesel has driven them out of business as well as the creation of 'shrimp farms' around the world. Something we were told was when you buy your frozen shrimp, look at the list of ingredients. If there is more than just 'shrimp' listed, it is farmed. The farms put 'stuff' in the water to clean it, and they feed the shrimp steroids causing them to grow 4x faster than if they were wild.
 



Central Avenue

Fernandiana is a quaint little town that due to some poor decisions made by city fathers, the depression, and other factors, lost its draw of the wintering northerners to other cities like St. Augustine.  But because of that, it retained its victorian village feel and has not been overrun with big hotels and resorts.  Instead, caters to B&B's and smaller hotels and is now regaining some notarity with vacationers.

During Amelia Island's long history it has been under eight different flags – French, Spanish, British, Patriot, Green Cross (a Scottish family) , Mexican, Confederate, and United States and is the only city in the United States to have that distinction.



Another interesting tidbit of Amelia Island history was a gentleman named David Yulee who had a vision of creating the first railroad line across Florida. Yulee built his railroad from the docks at
Fernandina on Amelia Island to Cedar Key on the west coast of Florida. He wanted to create a port to compete with New York for disemenating goods shipped into and out of the United States. His plan was for ships from Europe and Africa to land in Fernandina, their goods put on his railroad and taken across Florida. From there, they would be reloaded onto ships and sent to Mexico where he had an agreement with the government there to build a rail line across Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Once there, they could again be put on ships and transported to Asia. All of this would be quicker than ships sailing around Florida and South America and open a more efficient route to Asia.

But the Civil war happened. And as a patriot, he pulled up his rails and divereted them north where he helped get goods to the confederate army. I considered how different the world would be if he had been able to complete his dream.

One more 'Only on Amelia Island' story is of the Palace Saloon. When probition was inacted, the

Palace Saloon was the last saloon to give into the law and happens to be the oldest continuously operating saloon in the same location in the U.S.

As we leave Florida we put together a list of things we will and will not miss:

What we WON'T miss about Florida:

1. Fire Ants
2. Bugs of all kinds
3. Not being able to sit outside in the evenings and enjoy the warm weather
4. Humidity

What we WILL miss about Florida

1. Sunsets
2. Beaches
3. Friends
4. Beautiful birds
5. Lola the alligator