Slow Travels-Florida

By Lyn Wilkerson

This edition of Slow Travels follows U.S. Highways 1, 27, 90, and 301 through the State, examining a cross-section of Florida and providing a wealth of historical information along the way. Also included is U.S. Highway 41 along the Tamiami Trail. Maps provide a reference guide, and GPS Coordinates are listed at the end of each route. Look for others in the series at www.americanautotrails.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyn Wilkerson
• Release date: May 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452344805

Lyn Wilkerson

Caddo Publications USA was created in 2000 to encourage the exploration of America’s history by the typical automotive traveler. The intent of Caddo Publications USA is to provide support to both national and local historical organizations as historical guides are developed in various digital and traditional print formats. Using the American Guide series of the 1930’s and 40’s as our inspiration, we began to develop historical travel guides for the U.S. in the 1990’s.

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Introduction

This guide, along with the various others produced by Lyn Wilkerson and Caddo Publications USA, are based on the American Guide Series. Until the mid-1950’s, the U.S. Highway System provided the means for various modes of transport to explore this diverse land. To encourage such explorations, the Works Projects Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Federal Writers Project created the American Guide Series. This series of books were commissioned by the Federal Government to capture the culture and history of the United States and provide the direction necessary for travelers to explore it. Each state created a commission of writers who canvassed their respective territories for content to submit. The preliminary works were then sent to Washington D.C. for final assembly in to a standard format. The result was a travel guide for each state. The series spread to include guides for important cities as well. After the State Guides were complete, the concept of a national guide was developed. However, it would not be until 1949, with the backing of Hastings House Publishing, that a true national guide would be created. Through several rounds of condensing, the final product maintained much of the most essential points of interest and the most colorful material.

To quote from the California edition of the American Guide Series, romance has been kept in its place. . . The intent of this guide is to provide information about the historic sites, towns, and landmarks along the chosen routes, and to provide background information and stories for what lies in-between. It is not our desire to dramatize the history or expand on it in any way. We believe that the character and culture of this state, and our country as a whole, can speak for itself. The guide has been created, not for just travelers new to the city, but for current residents who may not realize what lies just around the corner in their own neighborhood. The goal of Caddo Publications USA is to encourage the exploration of the rich history that many of us drive by on a regular basis without any sense it existed, and to entertain and educate so that history will not be lost in the future.

U.S. Highway 1

U.S. Highway 1, the longest and most heavily traveled route in the State, enters north Florida over the St. Mary’s River, runs along the coast, and goes to sea to reach Key West, Florida’s southernmost coral island, only 90 miles from Cuba. For most of its length it runs close to a chain of salt lagoons, separated from the ocean by low-lying islands and narrow reefs. These lagoons, connected by canals, form a section of the Intracoastal Waterway. With each mile, as the route proceeds southward, the vegetation becomes more tropical. Almost every Florida town along U.S. 1 is or was a winter resort. Boom towns of the 1920’s stand between settlements that flourished in the 1700’s.

Florida State Line (39 miles south of Waycross on US 1)

U.S. Highway crosses the Florida-Georgia Line on a bridge over the St. Mary’s River. The St. Mary’s is a deep narrow stream at this point, winding its way from its source in the Okefenokee Swamp to Cumberland Sound at Fernandina, Florida. South of the bridge is a monument to Robert E. Lee. The inscription on the bronze plaque states that this highway, here called the Dixie, is dedicated to his memory. At this point, Florida soldiers departed to join other Confederate forces during the American Civil War.

Hilliard (7 miles south of the Georgia Line on US 1)

This town began as a trading post in the early 1800’s, when cotton and tobacco were the principal crops of the surrounding farms.

Callahan (12 miles south of Hilliard on US 1)

Here, on narrow Alligator Creek, 300 American cavalry under Colonel Elijah Clarke attacked 450 British Redcoats on June 30th, 1778. The American forces were forced to withdraw with a loss of 13 men, while the British lost 9.

Jacksonville (22 miles south of Callahan on US 1)

In 1816, Lewis Zachariah Hogans built a log cabin on his Spanish grant overlooking the St. Johns River. The field he tilled is now the heart of Jacksonville. John Brady began maintaining a rowboat ferry across the river, at the foot of present-day Liberty Street, in 1818. Years before, cattle were swum across the stream at this point. This ford had been named Wacca Pilatka (cows crossing over) by the Indians. It became known as the Ferry of St. Nicholas by the Spanish, who built Fort St. Nicholas about 1740 on the south shore to guard the crossing. Later, the English would name the settlement here Cowford, a name which persisted until 1822.

Taking advantage of the ford, the Kings Road crossed the river at this point. The Kings Road was built in 1765, leading from St. Augustine north to Savannah. In 1812, Fort St. Nicholas was burned by the Patriots of Florida during their operations against St. Augustine. Upon purchase of Florida by the United States in 1821, order was restored in the province by General Andrew Jackson, its first Territorial Governor. A section of Cowford on the north bank of the St. Johns River was platted in 1822 by Isaiah D. Hart, his brother Daniel, and Zachariah Hogans. This tract was given the name of Jacksonville in honor of Florida’s governor, although the nearest Jackson ever came to the town was the Suwannee River, 90 miles to the west. Streets were laid out and named. The population grew slowly, claiming a population of only 300 by 1830. Jacksonville was incorporated in 1832, but its charter was repealed in 1840. A new one was drawn up 11 months later. Several proposed railroads were incorporated, and although none

were built, the town developed rapidly as a market of cotton and naval stores. With the introduction of the steam sawmill, lumber also became an important industry.

The Seminole War followed a series of Indian depredations that terrorized the Jacksonville area. Business was paralyzed, and to crown the succession of disasters, a freeze came in 1835. With the temperature dropping to 7 degrees above zero, the orange groves of the St. Johns River section were killed. At the end of the war in 1842, 20-year prosperity ensued. Steamship lines inaugurated weekly services to Savannah and Charleston, and as far up the St. Johns as Enterprise, northeast of present-day Orlando. The harbor, crowded with schooners loading longleaf yellow pine for domestic and foreign markets, was described as resembling a forest of towering masts. Bay Street, with its bars, gambling houses, and dance halls, became almost as notorious as San Francisco’s Barbary Coast.

Transportation was almost entirely by water until 1851. That year, the State legislature authorized the construction of a plank toll road between Jacksonville and Lake City, then known as Alligator. Prior to the building of a railroad to that point, the sole means of transportation between Jacksonville and the State capital at Tallahassee was by state, a four-day journey.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Jacksonville sympathies were largely with the South despite having many wealthy northern citizens. When the Florida joined the Confederacy, the local light infantry was first to offer its services. Blockade runners made the Jacksonville a base. On four separate occasions, Jacksonville was occupied for brief intervals by Union forces. Upon withdrawal of the northern troops in 1863, refugees returning to the city found their homes burned, trenches instead of streets, and outlying farms desolate. All ferry and dock facilities were destroyed. There was no commerce, no currency, and no river transportation. At one time, according to the report of a Union officer, the town had less than two dozen inhabitants. During the Reconstruction period, however, Jacksonville grew into a popular winter resort city. The first theater and several large hotels were built. The St. James, referred to as the Fifth Avenue Hotel of Florida, opened in 1869. Fourteen years later, the first electric lights in the State were installed on the hotel’s premises. Jacksonville’s population grew to 6,912 by 1870.

It was not until 1883 that a railroad began operation southward from the city. This was a narrow gauge line with a terminal on the south shore of the St. Johns River, running a daily combination passenger and freight train to St. Augustine. Until the completion of the railroad bridge in 1890, passengers from Jacksonville and northern points were ferried across the river.

Prior to the Spanish-American War, Jacksonville became a refuge for many Cuban exiles. Filibustering vessels, among them the tugboat Three Friends, repeatedly smuggled arms and men into Cuba, eluding U.S. Revenue cutters and Spanish cruisers. Upon declaration of war, 40,000 American troops encamped near the city, and the river was mined as a precaution against raids by enemy gunboats.

The city’s greatest catastrophe, the fire of 1901, swept an area of 148 blocks, destroying 2,368 buildings and leaving 9,000 homeless. Upon the devastated area, a new Jacksonville was built. In 1930, a city plan adopted by the council was judged by the City Planning Experts’ Board of the United States as one of four outstanding in the U.S.

Points of Interest:

Confederate Monument (Hemming Park, Laura Street and Duval Street)

This memorial was given to the city by Charles G. Hemming in 1898. Hemming was a member of the Jacksonville Light Infantry and Third Regiment that encamped in the city during the American Civil War.

Site of Cowford (Liberty Street and Bay Street)

This marker denotes the site of the original settlement of Jacksonville in 1790.

Bethel Baptist Institutional Church (Bethel Baptist Street and Hogan Street)

The initial branch of the first church of the Baptist denomination was organized in Jacksonville in 1838. Its first meetings were held in the Government ‘Block House,’ near the site of the courthouse on Forsyth Street and Market Street. In 1840, a chapel was built at the northeast corner of Duval Street and Newnan Street, but this was sold to the Methodists in 1846. The fund purchased a plot of two acres in LaVilla, a residential section, where a small brick church was built. Pickets and outposts were stationed here during the American Civil War whenever Jacksonville was occupied by Union troops.

During the Reconstruction period, an attempt was made to exclude Blacks from the organization. In court, it was decided that since the majority of the parishioners were Black, the church and its name belonged to them. As an aftermath, however, the Blacks sold the property to the Whites, and bought a lot at Main Street and Union Street, where they built a frame building. In 1894, the church was incorporated by the State as the Bethel Baptist Institutional Church with authority to carry on social betterment and industrial training. The present building was erected in 1903.

Confederate Park (Main Street and Orange Street)

This site was the eastern end of the Confederate trenches that extended to the present Prime Osborn Convention Center (formerly the Union Terminal). As many as 14,000 troops were encamped here during the American Civil War.

Bowles School (San Jose Boulevard at St. Augustine Road)

This academic institution occupies what was once the San Jose Hotel.

Mandarin (13 miles south on FL 13)

Mandarin, located on the east bank of the St. Johns River, is a village founded during the English occupation of Florida (1763-1783). In the vicinity stood Thimagua, an Indian town visited in 1564 by Laudonniere, a French explorer of the St. Johns. During the Spanish regime in Florida, the village was known as San Antonio. It was named Mandarin for a variety of orange of that name introduced here from China.

Mandarin was not incorporated until 1841. During the latter part of the American Civil War, a Union gunboat shelled the village in an offensive against Confederates who sought to block transportation of Union soldiers down the river. One cannon ball remains lodged in a tree. After the war, the village flourished. In 1885, it had a population of 1,200, a boardwalk along the riverfront, large estates, and three steamer landings. As was true of Enterprise, Picolata, and other St. Johns River towns, a decline began with the cessation of heavy winter traffic at the advent of the railroads.

For many years, Mandarin was the winter home of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896), author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who moved here in 1867. During the following winters she completed Palmetto Leaves, Our Plantation, and other works. Mrs. Stowe and her husband, Professor Charles B. Stowe, taught in the Episcopal chapel, dedicated on November 4th, 1883.

Talleyrand Docks (West bank of the St. Johns River, between 8th and 21st Streets)

These docks and terminals were established in 1915. They were developed with their own railroad system with over 20 miles of track that have a direct connection with all trunk lines entering the city, a waterworks system, and a cotton compress which was capable of pressing 115 bales an hour.

Church of God and Saints of Christ (Stuart Street and 19th Street)

The Church of God was organized by a self-styled prophet, William S. Crowdy, in 1908. Members called themselves saints and claimed their doctrine of sanctification gives them the power to speak with the unknown tongue, to heal, and to prophesy. They believed in devils and attribute every misfortune, disease, and bodily ill to the working of Satan.

From Jacksonville, U.S. Highway 1 follows the old route of the old English King’s Highway to St. Augustine. The highway parallels the tracks of the Florida East Coast Railway.

Bayard (16 miles south of Jacksonville on US 1)

Bayard was named by Henry M. Flagler, builder of the Florida East Coast Railway, for his friend, Thomas F. Bayard, Ambassador to Great Britain (1893-1897), the first American that rank at the Court of St. James’s.

St. Augustine (22 miles south of Bayard on US 1)

On April 3rd, 1513, Ponce de Leon landed somewhere in the St. Augustine area and remained for five days. On September 8th, 1565, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish admiral, took possession of the territory along the river and founded the settlement, naming it St. Augustine because he first sighted Florida on August 28th, St. Augustine’s Day. The French fleet under Jean Ribault, preparing to attack the town, was blown to sea by a hurricane.

This peninsular site was selected by the Spaniards in 1565 as a strategic point of defense because three rivers encircle all but the north side where Fort San Marcos, later Fort Marion, was built. The Matanzas and North Rivers, links in the Intracoastal Waterway, border on the east and south, and the San Sebastian River on the west. All are salt-water lagoons lying behind Anastasia Island, which separates the city from the Atlantic Ocean. On the north, the City Gates, once the moated entrance to the town, open into narrow St. George Street, one of the principal thoroughfares. Guarding the channel on the east stands the gray stone fortress, a reminder of the settlement’s early role as defender of Spain’s claim to North America.

St. Augustine became the Spanish military headquarters of North America, and its governors manned forts and policed the coast from Virginia to Florida for 40 years, repulsing efforts of other nations to establish colonies in the territory. One of the most formidable attacks on St. Augustine was made in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake, the British admiral, who sacked and burned the town. The Spanish colonists fled to forest refuges during the raid, but later returned and rebuilt their homes.

St. Augustine was safer after it became the headquarters of missionary activities among southeastern Indians, and through its 40 or more mission towns controlled the natives and defended the frontier against the French and English. Following the founding of Charleston by the English, the Spaniards in 1672 began construction of a stone fort. From South Carolina, in 1702 and again in 1728, the English descended to burn, plunder, and seize thousands of Indians for slaves. Although the fort withstood artillery attacks, the hospital, monasteries, and the valuable Franciscan library were destroyed.

James Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia, launched a series of attacks, the most formidable in 1740, and although he failed to capture the fort, he took all the outlying defenses. His victory on St. Simon’s Island in 1742 ended the power of Spanish St. Augustine. Twenty years later, when the British took over Florida, they found a town of empty houses, most of its residents having fled to Cuba. Under British rule (1763-1783), St. Augustine enjoyed prosperity. The Indians were no longer a menace, great plantations were established in the vicinity, and the King’s Highway was constructed to Georgia. During the American Revolution, many slave-owning Tories found residence in the city, where anti-rebel sentiment was intense. John Hancock and Samuel Adams were burned in effigy in the public square and later prominent dissenters, including Heyward, Rutledge, and Middleton—all signers of the Declaration of Independence—were imprisoned in the fort. The city became an important depot for British operations against the Southern Colonies, and gunboats patrolling the coast and the St. Johns River brought numerous American prizes. A land attack against Savannah was launched in 1777, and a naval venture in 1783 resulted in the capture of the Bahamas for England.

A rabid Tory paper, the East Florida Gazette, established here in 1783, ceased publication the year the American Revolution ended. When St. Augustine received word that Spain was again to control Florida, the British quickly evacuated. Abandoned houses gradually filled with Americans taking up Spanish land grants. A few years later, American residents urged the annexation of Florida by the United States, and in 1812 a number of them joined a similar group from Fernandina for a time to support a Republic of Florida.

Another Spanish evacuation took place in 1821, when Spain transferred Florida to the United States. After the new American Government became operative, the second session of the legislature was held in St. Augustine, but later Tallahassee was chosen as the capital. Among the visitors to the city during the next decade were Prince Achille Murat, nephew of Napoleon, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote that St. Augustine was a town of some ‘eleven or twelve hundred people.’

Throughout the Seminole War from 1835 to 1842, the city figured prominently in national news. Soldiers wrote letters to all parts of the country, giving their impressions of the old town; of forlorn refugees from the surrounding territory camping within the walls, and of pitiful Indian prisoners and hostages confined in the dungeons of the fort. Popular sentiment favored Osceola, Seminole leader, after his seizure in 1837 while en route to confer with American leaders 7 miles from St. Augustine. His death in the prison at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, served to increase the bitterness, but this and similar controversies lapsed at the close of hostilities.

Union troops held the fort and town of St. Augustine from 1862 to the end of the American Civil War. For a period following the war the town was practically isolated from the rest of the State. River boats operated up the St. Johns River as far as Picolata, and passengers reached the city, a distance of 48 miles, after a 6-hour stage and ferry trip. Provisions were mostly brought in from Jacksonville by sea, and prices were exorbitant. In 1871, a mule-drawn railroad was built from Tocoi, on the St. Johns, to St. Augustine, and it was 1874 before the first locomotive entered the city. With improved transportation an increasing number of tourists visited the city. Letters and articles written by noted journalists and novelists began to appear in northern papers. Among those attracted in the 1880’s was Henry M. Flagler of New York, retired oil man who, impressed by the beauty of the little Spanish community, began its development as a winter resort. Flagler erected two large hotels and extended a railroad southward. St. Augustine was made, and remains, the headquarters of the Florida East Coast Railway and Hotel System.

One of the largest of the foreign groups living here includes descendants of the Minorcans, transplanted by Dr. Andrew Turnbull from the Mediterranean island in 1767. African-Americans also have an important place in St. Augustine’s history. As slaves of the Spaniards brought over in the late 1500’s they were the property of the king and required to be of Catholic faith. In the first hospital in the United States, built here in 1597, an African-American woman waited on patients, including other African-Americans and Native Indians. During the Seminole War, many slaves allied with the Indians, causing much concern among St. Augustine slave owners. Shortly before the American Civil War, escaped slaves were aided in reaching Canada by a white family occupying a plantation near the city. This property later became the site of the coeducational Florida Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, founded in 1892.

Points of Interest:

Fort San Marco (Castillo San Marcos National Monument)

This is the oldest fort standing in the United States. It was proclaimed a National Monument in 1924. The plan of this gray coquina fortress followed designs by Vauban, a French military engineer. Construction began in 1672, but the fort, known as Castle San Marcos, was not completed until 1756. St. Augustine was defended by wooden forts until Indian hostages, African-American slaves, soldiers, and inhabitants of the city erected San Marcos at a cost in millions of dollars.

Seven years after the completion of the fort fell into British hands and during the 20 years of English occupancy, it was known as Fort St. Marks. Again in possession of the Spanish, the old name was restored. In 1825, after Florida became a United States territory, the stronghold was renamed Fort Marion in honor of General Francis Marion, an American Revolutionary patriot of South Carolina. During the Seminole Wars, the fort was used as a prison, and here Osceola, Coacoochee, Talmus Hadjo, and other Indians were confined. In the southwest corner room opening off the courtyard, Coacoochee and Hadjo were imprisoned, and made their escape through the high, narrow window.

Zero Milestone (Castillo Drive, north of Orange Street)

This coquina sphere was placed here in 1929. It marks the eastern terminus of an old Spanish trail that linked the missions between St. Augustine and Pensacola.

City Gates (St. George Street and Orange Street)

The gates are attached to section of an old coquina wall and a moat. As part of the city defense system, it comprises one unit of the Fort San Marcos National Monument. Construction of the original coquina gates, replacing earlier wooden ones, began in 1745, but the present more ornamental structures were erected in 1804, and for many years guarded the drawbridge over a moat.

Old Wooden Schoolhouse (14 St. George Street)

This structure was built as a residence in 1778. It was used as a schoolhouse before the American Civil War. The old Spanish kitchen is still intact.

Home of John Paredes (Arnau House) (54 St. George Street)

This home was built between 1805 and 1813 and is owned by the St. Augustine Historical Society.

Old Spanish Inn (43 St. George Street)

This inn dates from the first Spanish occupation, which ended in 1763.

Old Spanish Treasury 1600 (Anna G. Burt House) (St. George Street and Treasury Streets)

This house contains intact the furnishings of the Burt family that occupied the premises from 1830 until the death of Miss Burt in 1931, when the property was deeded to the city.

Post Office (St. George Street and Cathedral Street)

The Post Office was reconstructed in 1936 and 1927 along the lines of a 1764 drawing. It embodies part of the structure of the Governor’s Mansion, which was rebuilt on this site in 1690.

Trinity Episcopal Church (St. George Street and King Street)

The cornerstone of this structure was laid on June 23rd, 1825.

Prince Murat House (St. George Street and Bridge Street)

The Murat House was built around 1815, and is believed to have been occupied by Prince Achille Murat during his residence in the city.

Llambias House (31 St. Francis Street)

Built prior to 1763, the house was once owned by T. Llambias, a member of the original Minorcan colony.

Oldest House (14 St. Francis Street)

This structure was reputedly built in the late 1500’s. Early accounts indicated the Franciscan Friars may have found refuge here during the six