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Two Bees Cycling Tour of St. Augustine (Spanish History Emphasis)

“By Easter Sunday, March 27, {1513} Ponce de Leon was sailing north westwardly fromthe Bahamas for Cautio. On Saturday, April 2, he sighted land near present-day St. Augustine. The land he viewed that day was covered with many beautiful wildflowers. At this time of year back in Spain, he remembered, the festival of flowers was being held. He called the land ‘La Florida’ for the festival of flowers”

from

Adventurers in Florida History

, by W.B. Skinner.

Day 1Start your cycling tour of Spanish St. Augustine and Anastasia Island from theparking lot in the rear of the Visitor Center located at the corner of Castillo Driveand Avenue Menendez.

Actually it would be to your advantage to spend some time atthe Visitor Center prior to beginning your cycle in order to better understand the earlySpanish history of St. Augustine. A particularly good beginning is the Colonial SpanishHistory Package available at the Visitor Center. Immediately south of the Visitor’sCenter is the

Huguenot Cemetery (Protestant Cemetery)

This half-acre plot known as the Huguenot Cemetery or the Public Burial Groundsfunctioned as a cemetery from 1821 to 1884. It is owned by the Memorial PresbyterianChurch of St. Augustine.On July 10, 1821, Florida was transferred from Spanish rule to become a territory of theUnited States. Within two months a yellow fever epidemic broke out and a site wasneeded for burial of victims of the disease. St. Augustine had been predominantlyCatholic for more than 400 years and non-Catholics could not be buried in the onlyexisting burial ground, the Catholic Tolomato cemetery on Cordova Street. (These wordsare from the plaque on the circle outside and south of the Visitors Center)Oldest DrugstoreLove Tree

Tolomato Cemetery (Catholic Cemetery)

During the First Spanish Period, prior to 1763, this site was occupied by the ChristianIndian village of Tolomato, with its chapel and burying ground served by Franciscanmissionaries. The village was abandoned when Great Britain acquired Florida in 1777.Father Pedro Camps, pastor of the Minorcan colonists who had come to St. Augustineafter the failure of Andrew Turnbull’s settlement at New Smyrna, obtained permissionfrom Governor Patrick Tonyn to establish this cemetery for his parishioners. Father Cams was buried here in 1790; ten years later his remains were re-interred in the “newchurch”, the present Cathedral. The first bishop of St. Augustine, Augustin Verot (d.1876) is buried in the mortuary chapel at the rear of the cemetery. The last burial took place in 1892.1

Presidio San Augustin (from the plaque on Cordova Street)

An elaborate system of fortifications and defense walls made colonial Saint Augustineone of the most formidable Spanish military centers in the Western Hemisphere.Defense walls protected the town’s three landward sides. Over time the walls’height, width, and construction materials changed. But some portion of the defenseline stood guard for 130 years (1704-1836).

Rosario Defense Line (from the plaque on Cordova Street)

This earthen embankment re-creates a section of the defense wall that protected SpanishSt. Augustine against attack in the 1700s. After crossing the natural moat on the outsideof the wall formed by Maria Sanchez Creek (now filled), enemy soldiers faced a man-made barrier planted with sharp, dense yucca (Spanish Bayonet) and prickly pear cactus.Removing soil from the creek bed to construct the earthwork deepened the moat, makingthe wall more challenging to scale. (

Touch the Spanish bayonet cautiously

)Santo Domingo Redoubt and Cubo Defense LineOldest Schoolhouse in US. Built by Spanish

Spanish Dragoon Barracks (from the plaque on Cordova Street)

A first Spanish period, two-story coquina, shingle roofed structure, 33

Information

’ x19’ (change to meters), erected on the east side of this lot became the barracks for theSpanish dragoons in 1792. Each story had two rooms. One upper room contained a rack for 20 muskets and 4 pistols, another rack for saddles and bridles, a table and two benches. A detached kitchen, coquina curbed well, stable and privy were locatedadjacent to the barracks. In the yard, a cultivated vegetable garden, orange, lemon andfig trees flourished. By 1822 the barracks had deteriorated and was razed.

Villa Zorayda (Zorayda Castle)

The Villa Zorayda was constructed in 1883 as the winter home of Franklin Smith, aBoston millionaire who was so impressed by the magnificence of the Alhambra Palacewhich he saw during a visit to Granada, Spain, that he decided to build his house as aexact replica of one wing of the palace at one-tenth of the original size. The 12

century palace had been built by the Moors who had ruled Spain for six centuries before beingexpelled in 1492. Smith, a gifted amateur architect, designed the house himself, using theinnovative technique of constructing the building with poured concrete reinforced withcrushed coquina stone. Many other materials used in finishing the residence wereimported from Spain. In 1913, the building was bought by Abraham S. Mussallem. In1922, it became a nightclub and gambling casino which closed in 1925 when Floridaoutlawed gambling. In 1936, it was opened as a tourist attraction called the ZoraydaCastle, exhibiting items fitting the architectural theme of the building. The property waslisted in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. (Copied from the FloridaHeritage Landmark plaque on site)

Spanish Military Hospital (Hospital Militar)

Known in the eighteenth century as the Hospital of our Lady of Guadalupe, this SpanishMilitary Hospital is a reconstruction of a military hospital that once stood on this site inthe Second Spanish Colonial Period (1784-1821). During this period, there were two buildings comprising the Spanish Military Hospital, the main hospital was across thestreet from the present site. The present reconstruction most probably contained the mainapothecary, registrar of the hospital and a convalescent area. Showcased in the livinghistory section are areas of Military hospital life you would have experienced had you been a patient in 1791.In the Apothecary, there are tools of the physician’s trade. The physician, however, wasnot licensed to prescribe drugs; this was done by the apothecary. In the apothecary,medicines were prepared, mostly from local herbs. The list of herbs and their uses arewritten in the book on the table. Many ailments could be cured from householdremedies.Completed records were kept – Name, rank, company, next of kin, parents name, place of birth, color of eyes, number of children, and of course, illness or injury – in theadministrative office.The apothecary had to write to the King requesting medications, but often they did notarrive. Consequently, locally grown herbs were used, as seen in the herbal garden andhanging from the ceiling in the herbarium, adapting them to some of the medicinalcompounds. Many medicinal herbs were found in Florida, some with power to healwounds.Even in the 1700s someone had to empty the bedpans from the ward…. Care of the patients of the Royal Hospital of our Lady of Guadalupe and duties of the staff werecarried out in accordance with the prescribed “reglamentos” (regulations) of the King,which included specific instructions for everything from the preparation of diets to careof dying patients. A portion of the “reglamentos” are posted in the hospital.Visitors will feel they have “checked in” to the Royal Hospital of Our Lady of Guadalupewhen they experience the atmosphere of hospital life in the eighteenth century. Theseexhibits of military hospital life provide and insight into the care and treatment providedsoldiers. Be certain to tour the exhibit gallery where a collection of surgeon-barber instruments of the period and other hospital memorabilia are seen.

(Informationregarding the Spanish Military Hospital comes from a brochure provided by Ancient CityTours of St. Augustine)

Local residents have gathered at Plaza for four centuriesSt. Augustine Record,Sunday, November 21, 2004.Susan Parker

…Our plaza is the oldest public gathering place in the United States.By at least 1598, the governor of Spanish Florida had officially recognized the Plaza as part of our city’s official layout, a prescribed pattern for Spanish towns in the NewWorld. In its earliest days, the Plaza stretched right down to the waters of the MatanzasRiver. In those early days, there was not the tree canopy that we so treasure today. ThePlaza was an open parade ground. In fact, the regulations for the size of Spanish town plazas required that it be large enough for parades of horses. Our plaza barely meets thedimensions required by the royal laws.3