Where is the Oldest House in America? Santa Fe? Acoma, NM? or St Augustine? As you might have guessed, as far as the city of St Augustine is concerned, it is right here. St Augustine is considered to be the oldest ‘continuously occupied settlement of European origin’ in the US. Pay close attention to all of those adjectives.
‘continuously occupied’ - Pensacola was founded before St Augustine but was deserted for a while.
‘European origin’ - Acoma is of Native American origin
See how that works out, if you use enough adjectives, anything is true. I can be beautiful if you use enough adjectives: I am the most beautiful woman who is 68 years old who hiked in Arizona last fall and is married to a guy from the east end of Fort Dodge Iowa. It took a while to say all that but it describes - ME.
OK, back to the house which has the official name of the Gonzalez-Alvarez House. And, what is important about the house is what it tells us about the past and the different groups of people who lived in St Augustine. Even though the settlement was founded in the mid 1500’s, the oldest house dates from much later because the early buildings were built of wood and because St Augustine was attacked so often. Raided and burned by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, sacked by English pirates in 1668 and burned to ashes by the British again in 1701, early buildings did not remain long. However, archaeologists can show continuous occupancy of this house since 1625. We don’t know who built the home but we have much more information about another later owner.
This was Tomas Gonzales y Hernandez from the Canary Islands who married Maria Francisco de Guervara from St Augustine in 1723. Now, we know all of this because their baby died in 1727 and the Parish records have all that information. Their house was a single story house with two rooms. The walls were of coquina just like the fort and the floors were what is called ‘tabby’ or a mixture of lime, shells and sand. It was flat roofed and had two rooms. They lived here for 40 years. The house was rather gloomy and spartan, reflecting the poorer economic status of the Gonzalez family.
In 1763, when St Augustine was ceded to the British all of the Spanish citizens left and a Major Peavett, a wealthy, retired English officer purchased the house and enlarged it by adding a second floor. He died in 1785, 2 years after Spain regained control of St Augustine and his wife, Mary, took ownership and married John Hudson. Oops, he was a town drunk and caused nothing but trouble for her and the town. Finally, the town elders came to her and told her to do something, anything about him. She auctioned off the house to newly-arrived Geronimo Alvarez. John meanwhile had been imprisoned in the Castillo and eventually exiled from the city.
The Alvarez family and descendants lived here for almost 100 years.
There is even a piece or two of the old china the Alverez family used.
In 1882, the house passed into other hands and several families lived here. Finally in 1918 the St Augustine Historical Society acquired the house. They have renovated and restored it to show 400 years of life under several families. One of the things they took off was that ugly round turret on the back in this old picture.
This house was built while the Spanish had control of Florida, then it was ceded to the British after the French and Indian War, the re-occupancy by the Spanish, the transfer to the Americans, the Confederacy and then back to America. It’s seen a lot of history.
We had a marvelous tour by a New York native who now lives in St Augustine. How do I know she’s from New York - her accent gives her away the minute she opens her mouth. We learned all about the house from here. But we also learned little tidbits: this lantern has the pattern of the family who owned. Each lantern has a certain family’s pattern so you could tell who was holding it. Imagine this discussion: ‘Harry, shut the window and turn off the lights, I can see the Jones lantern heading our way.’ Pretty handy.
But the house also has an ornamental garden, and some other buildings. We also toured the museum in the gift shop and a map exhibit in another building. I love maps and seeing copies of some of the much earlier maps was fascinating.
Here’s one showing old St Augustine. This one is used often by the archaeologists in town for building placement
Here’s the first map from 1502 which ever showed Florida - in the upper left.
Cool old maps.
We also walked around town again - just a great place to walk - so much going on and so much history and so much good people watching.
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