From Charleston, SC, we continued our southward journey stopping at Ocala National Forest where we stayed at Salt Springs Campground. While Ocala National Forest has a number of campgrounds, most have no hookups. Salt Springs Campground, however, has full hookups and is a nice quiet campground with paved pads and numerous trees - mostly pines and live oaks. Still, there are quite a few sites with potentially good satellite reception. With the discount we got with our America the Beautiful Pass, this was a nice place to chill out for a few days at a lower price than some of the tourist areas we had been in recently.

After spending four days at Salt Springs, we headed northeast to St. Augustine on Florida's Atlantic coast where we had reservations at Indian Forest Campground for a week. Indian Forest has gravel roads, packed sand/grass pads, and scraggly grass between sites. Indian Forest is very convenient to St. Augustine; but that means they are located on a main road into town with the accompanying traffic noise, especially since they are very close to the road. Many of the sites are shaded, but the owners graciously gave us one of the sites in the center of the main loop where there was full sun.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously-occupied, European-established city in America. We had followed primarily British history up until now with our visits to the Historic Triangle of Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown, Charleston, and with last year's visit to Savannah. We had touched on the history of Spain in the New World with our visit to the Alamo in San Antonio and to the Southwest in general, but now it was time to learn about Spain on the eastern side of the continent.

Florida was discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon, whose name means Prince of Lions in English. Although there were prior Spanish settlements, they all were abandoned due to hurricanes, famine, and warring native tribes. The city of St. Augustine was established in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. This founding date is 22 years before British "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island in 1587 (when supply ships finally returned 3 years later, the original colonists had vanished), 42 years before the British colony in Jamestown, and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

The 208' tall stainless steel cross in the photo below marks the spot where Pedro Menendez is said to have landed on September 8, 1565.

As soon as the landing party was ashore, they celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving and afterward, Menendez laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied the site. The meal probably consisted of cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans, laced with garlic seasoning, and accompanied by hard sea biscuits and red wine. If the Seloy contributed to the meal, the menu could have included turkey, venison, gopher tortoise, seafood such as mullet and sea catfish, maize, beans, and squash.

Although the thanksgiving at St. Augustine was celebrated 55 years before the Puritan-Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, it did not become the origin of a national annual tradition. During the 18th century British forces won out over those of Spain and France for mastery over the continent. Thus, British observances such as the annual reenactment of the Pilgrims' harvest festival in 1621 became a national practice. After the U.S. became an independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the whole nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November 26.

In 1863 during the bitter struggle of America's Civil War President Abraham Lincoln established the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving, making it truly a national holiday. The President urged prayers in churches and in homes calling on the "whole American people" wherever they lived to unite "with one heart and one voice" in observing a special day of thanksgiving, and to "implore the interposition of the Almighty to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it...to full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union." We don't know how football got into it. :)

Last year when we visited Savannah, GA, we learned that Savannah had several forts to protect the new colony from the Spanish. In fact the British colonies of Georgia and Carolina were so worried by the Spanish that they attacked St. Augustine several times. Their efforts to expel the Spanish by force were unsuccessful. After the French and Indian War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Florida and St. Augustine to the British. Florida was ceded back to Spain at the end of the American Revolution in 1783 in recognition of Spain's assistance to the Colonies during the war. A little later, however, Spain was being invaded by Napoleon and was struggling to retain its colonies. Spain turned Florida back over to the United States in 1821.

One of the reasons the British Colonies were unsuccessful taking St. Augustine by force was the strength of Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built by the Spanish to protect the city. For over 100 years, St. Augustine was protected by a series of wooden forts. Construction of a masonry fort which was called Castillo de San Marcos was started in 1672. The Castillo is built from a locally available stone called coquina, which literally means "little shells." Coquina is made up of fragments of billions of sea shells bonded together by time and pressure. It is fairly soft so it is able to absorb the impact of cannon balls without cracking making it an ideal material for a 17th century fort.

The fort is built in a star shape. The bastions projecting out from the corners of the fort provide a variety of angles of fire from the gun deck atop the walls, including the ability to trap anyone foolish enough to try to scale the walls in cross fire.

The entrance to the fort, which is shown below, was protected by a tidal moat and drawbridge.

Inside the fort, the chapel can be seen in the center of the wall which faces the entrance.

In the photo below, the white line just below the horizon and to the right of the muzzle of the cannon is the surf breaking at the mouth of the harbor about 3 miles away. This is just within range of the cannons.

Paul remembers his childhood visit to St. Augustine. The photo below shows Paul at Castillo de San Marcos in 1956.

Here is Paul during our recent stop at Castillo de San Marcos near the same location as the 1956 photo. The fort has changed a little since 1956. Paul has changed a lot!

Castillo de San Marcos is only a small part of what there is to see in St. Augustine. We think a guided tour is in order and will do some research to see which one we like the best.

Comments

[Brian]

I think it is great to see a picture of you from 56 and an current one now.
you guys have an awesome page and I enjoyed seeing the pictures.