The Spaniards in Florida

CHAPTER VI.

SITE OF FORT CAROLINE, AFTERWARDS CALLED SAN MATTEO

It might naturally be supposed that a spot surrounded with so many thrilling and interesting associations, as the scene of the events we have just related, would have been commemorated either by tradition or by ancient remains attesting its situation. But, in truth, no recognized point now bears the appellation of Fort Caroline, and the antiquary can point at this day to no fosse or parapet, no crumbling bastion, no ancient helm or buckler, no shattered and corroded garniture of war mingled with the bones of the dead, as evidencing its position.

A writer who has himself done more to rescue from oblivion the historical romance of the South than any other,8 has well said, "It will be an employment of curious interest, whenever the people of Florida shall happen upon the true site of the settlement and structure of Laudonnière, to trace out in detail these several localities, and fix them for the benefit of posterity. The work is scarcely beyond the hammer and chisel of some Old Mortality, who has learned to place his affections and fix his sympathies upon the achievements of the past."

With a consciousness of our unfitness to establish absolutely a memorial so interesting as the site of Fort Caroline must ever be, I shall endeavor to locate its position, upon the basis of reasons entirely satisfactory to myself, and measurably so, I trust, to others.

The account given by Laudonnière himself, the leader of the Huguenots, by whom Fort Caroline was constructed, is as follows: – After speaking of his arrival at the mouth of the river, which had been named the River May by Ribault, who had entered it on the first day of May, 1562, and had therefore given it that name, he says, "Departing from thence, I had not sailed three leagues up the river, still being followed by the Indians, crying still, 'amy,' 'amy,' that is to say, friend, but I discovered an hill of meane height, neare which I went on land, harde by the fieldes that were sowed with mil, at one corner whereof there was an house, built for their lodgings which keep and garde the mil. * * * * * * Now was I determined to searche out the qualities of the hill. Therefore I went right to the toppe thereof; where we found nothing else but cedars, palms, and bay trees of so sovereign odor that Balme smelleth not more sweetly. The trees were environed around about with vines bearing grapes, in such quantities that the number would suffice to make the place habitable. Besides the fertilitie of the soyle for vines, one may see mesquine wreathed about the trees in great quantities. Touching the pleasure of the place, the sea may be seen plain enough from it; and more than six great leagues off, towards the River Belle, a man may behold the meadows, divided asunder into isles and islet, enterlacing one another. Briefly, the place is so pleasent, that those which are melancholicke, would be inforced to change their humour. * *

"Our fort was built in form of a triangle; the side towards the west, which was towards the land, was inclosed with a little trench and raised with turf made in the form of a battlement, nine feet high; the other side, which was towards the river, was enclosed with a palisade of planks of timber, after the manner that Gabions are made; on the south line, there was a kind of bastion, within which I caused an house for the munition to be made. It was all builded with fagots and sand, saving about two or three foote high, with turfes whereof the battlements were made. In the middest, I caused a great court to be made of eighteen paces long, and the same in breadth. In the middest whereof, on the one side, drawing towards the south, I builded a corps de garde and an house on the other side towards the north. * * * * One of the sides that inclosed my court, which I made very faire and large, reached unto the grange of my munitions; and on the other side, towards the river, was mine own lodgings, round which were galleries all covered. The principal doore of my lodging was in the middest of the great place, and the other was towarde the river. A good distance from the fort I built an oven."

Jacob Le Moyne, or Jacques Morgues, as he is sometimes called, accompanied the expedition; and his Brevis Narratio contains two plates, representing the commencement of the construction of Fort Caroline, and its appearance when completed. The latter represents a much more finished fortification than could possibly have been constructed, but may be taken as a correct outline, I presume, of its general appearance.

Barcia, in his account of its capture, describes neither its shape nor appearance, but mentions the parapet nine feet high, and the munition house and store house.

From the account of Laudonnière and Le Moyne, it was situated near the river, on the slope or nearly at the foot of a hill.9 Barcia speaks of its being behind a hill, and of descending towards it. The clerical-carpenter, Challeux, speaks of being able, after his escape, to look down from the hill he was on, into the court of the fort itself, and seeing the massacre of the French. As he was flying from the fort towards the sea, and along the river, and as the Spaniards came from a southeast direction, the fort must have been on the westerly side of a hill, near the river.

The distance is spoken of as less than three leagues by Laudonnière. Hawkins and Ribault say, the fort was not visible from the mouth of the river. It is also incidentally spoken of in Barcia as being two leagues from the bar. De Challeux, in the narrative of his escape, speaks of the distance as being about two leagues. In the account given of the expedition of De Gourgues, it is said to be, in general terms, about one or two leagues above the forts afterwards constructed on each side of the mouth of the river; and it is also mentioned in De Gourgues, that the fort was at the foot of a hill, near the water, and could be overlooked from the hill. The distance from the mouth of the river, and the nature of the ground where the fort was built, are thus made sufficiently definite to enable us to seek a location which shall fulfill both these conditions. It is hardly necessary to remark that there can be no question but that the fort was located on the south or easterly side of the river, as the Spaniards marched by land from St. Augustine in a northwesterly direction to Fort Caroline.

The River St. Johns is one of the largest rivers, in point of width, to be found in America, and is more like an arm of the sea than a river; from its mouth for a distance of fifteen miles, it is spread over extensive marshes, and there are few points where the channel touches the banks of the river. At its mouth it is comparatively narrow, but immediately extends itself over wide-spread marshes; and the first headland or shore which is washed by the channel is a place known as St. John's Bluff. Here the river runs closely along the shore, making a bold, deep channel close up to the bank. The land rises abruptly on one side into a hill of moderate height, covered with a dense growth of pine, cedar, &c. This hill gently slopes to the banks of the river, and runs off to the southwest, where, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, a creek discharges itself into the river, at a place called "the Shipyard" from time immemorial.

I am not aware that any remains of Fort Caroline, or any old remains of a fortress, have ever been discovered here; but it must be recollected that this fort was constructed of sand and pine trees, and that three hundred years have passed away, with their storms and tempests, their rains and destructive influences – a period sufficient to have destroyed a work of much more durable character than sandy entrenchments and green pine stakes and timbers. Moreover, it is highly probable, judging from present appearances, that the constant abrasion of the banks still going on has long since worn away the narrow spot where stood Fort Caroline. It is also to be remarked, that as there is no other hill, or high land, or place where a fort could have been built, between St. John's Bluff and the mouth of the river, so it is also the fact that there is no point on the south side of the river where the channel touches high land, for a distance by water of eight or ten miles above St. John's Bluff.

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1

The fountain of youth is a very ancient fable; and the reader will be reminded of the amusing story of the accomplishment of this miracle, told in Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, and of the marvelous effects produced by imbibing this celebrated spring water.

2

Barcia Ensayo, Cron. 66.

3

The galleon spoken of was Menendez's own flag ship, the El Pelayo, the largest vessel in his fleet, fitted out at his own expense, and which had brought four hundred men. He had put on board of her a lieutenant and some soldiers, besides fifteen Lutherans as prisoners, whom he was sending home to the Inquisition at Seville. The orders to his officers were to go as speedily as possible to the island of Hispaniola, to bring provisions and additional forces. Upon the passage, the Lutheran prisoners, with some Levantine sailors, rose upon the Spaniards, killed the commander, and carried the vessel into Denmark. Menendez was much chagrined when he ascertained the fate of his favorite galleon, a long period afterwards.

4

A low palm, bearing an oily berry.

5

Ternaux Compans.

6

Hakluyt.

7

Brevis Narratio.

8

W. Gilmore Simms, Esq.

9

Laudonnière says, "joignant la montagne."