Oh, oh, looks like we might want to avoid this street. I think these cats know we’re up to no good and they’re protecting their homes.
Last week, while we were in St Augustine, we heard of a fort near Jacksonville nick-named ‘Bloody Fort Caroline’. It was settled by French Huguenots in 1564 in northern Florida. When the Spanish heard that there was a French settlement in territory that they thought was theirs, they slogged their way through swampy territory in a torrential rainstorm, attacked the fort and slaughtered about 150 of those in the fort sparing 50 women and children. But, the story doesn’t end there. One year later, in 1565, the French returned and slaughtered everyone in the fort and burned it to the ground. Revenge.
OK, let’s visit this fort where so many died. Here is a small museum with much about the local Native American tribe,the Timucuans and where many of the drawings of Le Moyne are displayed. There are period weapons, a large owl totem, in fact one of the largest in America, a large canoe (which is original) and other weapons and artifacts.
Gary and I liked the 3 nautical instruments used by sailors in the 1500’s to find their way across the oceans. Today we need GPS’s, paper maps and Google maps to get around the US. Those guys were good.
We were also intrigued by the Le Moyne drawings, showing the natives, their villages and their way of life. Pretty cool. Here’s a picture of the Timucuan chief and the French commander drawn by LeMoyne.
Originally, the French and Spanish thought the natives were giants and, next to the Europeans, they were. They were tall, strong, muscular and quite healthy next to the Europeans. This started a rumor that there was a Fountain of Youth in the area that they were drinking from. But, compare their ways of life: the Europeans were sedentary, the Timucuans were active, the Europeans ate lots of not so healthy food, the Timucuans at lots of vegetables, shellfish, grains and meat - no sugar. No wonder they were taller and bigger.
But, as healthy as they were compared to the Europeans, they were not resistant to the diseases the Europeans brought and all died. Their population disintegrated from a possible population of tens of thousands in the late 1500’s to only 550 in 1698. There are none today.
We walked down to the 1/3rd size replica of the original fort. It was very foggy this morning and the fog rolled in as we were there in the fort.
We could hear a large freighter passing by in the river. We kept hearing its fog horn and followed it from the mouth of the river to opposite us to downriver. Never saw it.
Finally, we took a hike through a nearby area called the Theodore Roosevelt Area. These 600 acres were originally owned by the Browne family but were donated to the Nature Conservancy in 1969 for all to enjoy. The Browne family moved here from New York and lived here with their two sons. When the parents moved to Jacksonville, the two boys remained and lived off the land, farming, fishing, shelling and running a saw mill. Willie Brown admired Theodore Roosevelt and his environmental and conservation measures so much that he donated his land when he died.
‘There’s a lot that’s disappearing , but people are waking up to the fact there’s not much left.’
‘Pretty soon there will come a day when there will be nothing left but a concrete jungle from New York City to Jacksonville.’
Willie Browne, 1969
What a neat hike and we enjoyed it all. We saw the graves of the Brown family and the cabin where Willie lived.
We walked through several types of habitats: marshland, scrub vegetation, forest hammocks and swamp.Thank you, Willie.
As we were walking back, we saw this large turtle who wouldn’t let anything stand in his way. Over brush, branches, grass, rocks and other obstacles, he plowed on. I don’t think he liked my taking his picture. Look at the scowl on his face.
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