Dr. Bronson's St. Augustine History II

10/16/2026

Revolutionary War wreck off St. Augustine brings era to life
By Matt Soergel - November 2017 – Florida Times Union

As November turned to December in 1783, thousands of war refugees flocked to Charles Town, S.C., fearing for their safety, hoping for a new start in a world turned upside-down.

They were American colonists who had stayed loyal to Britain, even as those around them took up revolution. They were British soldiers, defeated at the end of a long, brutal war. They were slaves and free African-Americans. In a mass evacuation, the refugees — described by a British officer as “poor wretches” — boarded a flotilla of hundreds of ships bound for havens in England, Nova Scotia, Jamaica, St. Lucia and St. Augustine.

Some of the ships didn’t make it to St. Augustine, the capital of the loyal British colony of East Florida. In the confusion, as many as 16 ran aground on the treacherous sandbars at the inlet to the city, though it’s likely rescue boats were able to save many of those aboard.

Divers from the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program found one of those wrecked ships in 2009, about a mile off of Anastasia Island. In the next few years, often working in pitch-dark conditions, they recovered evidence that the ship, which they dubbed the Storm Wreck, was one of the Revolutionary-era British vessels carrying the war refugees.
The first evidence was a pewter button bearing the letters “RP” for Royal Provincials, the colonists who’d gone to war for Britain. Other evidence soon followed.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum now displays many of the recovered artifacts, including the ship’s bell, cannons, a flintlock pistol, buckles, the ship’s deck pump and what marine archaeologist Chuck Meide calls “the oldest barbecue grill in the state of Florida.”

And though its exact location is still not made public, earlier this year the wreck was selected for the National Register of Historic Places. That’s fitting, since the wreck was a significant find that brings attention a largely forgotten story, said Roger Smith, a research historian and author living in St. Augustine, “When I see the artifacts from Storm Wreck, that’s when you start seeing faces, people,” Smith said. “It’s no longer just numbers: It starts becoming personal when you see these artifacts. You see a child’s toy, a man’s spittoon — this puts flesh on the topic and brings it to life.”
Smith, who has a doctorate from the University of Florida, specializes in the Revolutionary War history of Florida and is author of “The 14th Colony: The American Revolution’s Best Kept Secret.”

When war broke out, East Florida, which was controlled by the British, was a frontier territory with just 3,500 inhabitants, most in St. Augustine, the only city there. But it wasn’t overlooked by George Washington; Smith said he wrote more than 80 letters about St. Augustine being either a military target or concern.
“That’s how significant a role St. Augustine had,” he said. “This idea that nothing happened down here (during the war) no longer holds water”.

The city was intensely loyal to Britain: Samuel Adams and John Hancock were burned in effigy when news of the Declaration of Independence reached town on Aug. 11, 1776. By 1778, East Florida had grown to 10,000 people after the British colonies to the north fell. By the end of war, after the evacuation from what was then known as Charles Town, there were as many as 22,000 living there.
More than half of them were black, slave and free, Smith said. Another 6,000 were Native Americans, some from as far as the Great Lakes, who found the British to be better allies than the revolutionaries.

It was a chaotic time in a city ill-prepared for such a sudden influx of hungry, desperate people.

In comparison, Smith said, Philadelphia had about 30,000 people, New York perhaps 25,000. East Florida was almost as big — briefly.
In 1783, Britain gave East Florida back to the Spanish as part the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. Those who’d given up everything to make it to St. Augustine, where they planned to remain loyal British colonists, were crushed. “The bitterness ran pretty deep,” Smith said.

Some left for the Bahamas, other spots in the Caribbean or Central America, or even back to England. Some stayed under Spanish rule and ended back up in Charleston and Savannah when the tumult of war calmed down.

Meide, director of maritime research at the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, spent a week at the National Archives in England in 2013 combing through documents. He found almost 1,000 pages about what was going on in Charleston and East Florida in 1782.

He likes to imagine the lives of the refugees on board the Storm Wreck, trying to find clues in the wreckage and official documents.
And he likes to quote from a British officer in Charles Town, who wrote a vivid portrayal of those fleeing from the city for St. Augustine, “the Governor of which granted each family a tract of land upon which they sat down and began the world anew.”
The officer went on: “There were old grey-headed men and women, husbands and wives with large families of little children, women with infants at their breasts, poor widows whose husbands had lost their lives in the service of their King and country, with half a dozen half-starved bantlings tugging at their skirts, taking leave of their friends.

“Here you saw people who had lived all their days in affluence (though not in luxury) leaving their real estates, their houses, stores, ships, and improvements, and hurrying on board the transports with what little household goods they had been able to save.
“In every street were to be seen men, women, and children wringing their hands, lamenting the situation of those who were about leaving the country, and the more dreadful situation of such who were either unable to leave or were determined, rather than run the risk of starving in distant lands, to throw themselves upon, and trust to, the mercy of their persecutors, their inveterate enemies, the rebels of America.”

Meide reads that long excerpt with relish. Between those words and what divers have found, the refugees’ story becomes real.
“That’s what’s great about this shipwreck,” he said. “This is a really under appreciated and not-remembered story. American historians have always focused on our forefathers, our founding fathers. They were the good guys, they were the patriots. But there were whole other groups of people who considered themselves patriots, and loyal to king and country, and their story has been largely forgotten.”

(photograph credit: Keith Dotson Photography)

10/15/2026

Revolutionary War Prisoners
In the fall of 1776 the first batch of prisoners arrive in St. Augustine from Virginia. There were 28 prisoners and their slaves sent by Lord Dunmore. Some were kept on the sloop Otter that was used as a prison ship. Some including Col. Lawson and Captain Weltcoat were kept in the Fort.

Reverend John Kennedy arrived in 1777 with a royal appointment to the Free Schools in East Florida as schoolmaster up to 1785. The subjects taught, according to a table of fees fixed by the Council in 1775, and included English, writing, arithmetic, Latin and Greek.
On the Plaza you may notice next to King Street and the Government House a plaque that honors the American signers of the Declaration of Independence that were kept here in the American Revolution.

Thomas Heyward Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge were the signers as well as many other people who were held in town and at the Castillo (now called St. Marks by the British). Also held were General Gadsden and Mr. Calhoun. General Gadsden (his son, the Rev. Dr. Phillip Gadsden was in the American Period the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in the fall of 1825) and Mr. Calhoun refused parole and were held at the fort. Eventually General Rutherford and Col. Isaacs of North Carolina joined them.

The Patriots were captured in the fall of Charleston, South Carolina. Josiah Smith was one of a group of thirty-seven Charlestonians who, in spite of the parole, were sent to St. Augustine, Florida, in 1780. Smith remained in St. Augustine for about a year, when the British exchanged him sending him to Philadelphia.

Some French were also held prisoners here. They included Chevalier De Bretigny, sixteen of his officers, and two hundred of his enlisted men who were captured by the British Florida Navy. Included in this group was at least one person who would report back to France on the possibility of taking St. Augustine. There were at least 17 French vessels taken from the Charleston area with crews (over 400 people) to St. Augustine. These people were originally kept on Anastasia Island in the tower on the lighthouse. However as the group increased in size they were given liberty for the island. These men were finally sent on to the French Caribbean.
Spanish sailors were also held in St. Augustine. At least 52 total were held but they were given privileges to wonder about St. Augustine. One can only wonder if it was a homecoming for any of them.

William Brown served as Tonyn's Commissary for Prisoners. Lieut Col. Glazier served as Tonyn's Secretary and Commandant of the Army.

Of course, there is one other British landmark that almost every tourist to St. Augustine experiences -- St. George Street named after good, old King George III.

(From the Gil Wilson collection.)

Plaque is located in the Plaza de la Constitucion in St. Augustine.

10/14/2026

This Saturday, October 17, 2026. Thanks to the Historic Tolomato Cemetery.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1By2fk6Rhu/

This beautiful rendering of Tolomato views by Lauren Melton of the DAR is on the cover of the DAR program announcing the Annual Patriot Remembrance Ceremony at Tolomato Cemetery! The DAR refers to people who served in or helped the American side in the Revolutionary War as Patriots, and as you know, we have three Patriots buried and commemorated in Tolomato Cemetery.

This is the fifth year the DAR has held this lovely ceremony at Tolomato, and it is one of the high points of our yearly cycle of Open Days. So join us this Saturday, October 17th at Tolomato Cemetery for the DAR Patriot Remembrance and our regular Open Day. We’re open from 11:00 m to 2:00 pm for our usual tours and visits, and the DAR ceremony will begin at 11:30. It lasts about an hour.

10/14/2026

St. Augustine Record Extract – 1900
Mr. J. A. Usina, city stock impounder, desires to call the attention of the public, to an ordinance which prohibits the tying of cattle in the street to graze. Cattle found in the street, whether fastened or loose, will be impounded.

(Picture for illustration only - not related to article.)

10/13/2026

Throughout the war, nearly 6,000 Federal troops came through St. Augustine. {NPS} The results on the locals must have varied greatly.

Soldier Housing in St. Augustine
Fretwell, Jacqueline, Ed. Civil War Times in St. Augustine. St. Augustine, Florida: St. Augustine Historical Society, 1986.

Little, Henry F. W. The Seventh Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion. Concord, New Hampshire: The Seventh New Hampshire Veteran Association, 1896.

Dates of letters - October 12, 1862 and January 15, 1863
"The troops were largely quartered in and around St. Francis Barracks at the southern end of the town, though some would occupy tents on the terrreplain of the fort." (Fretwell, p. 29).

"At the barracks, which were large and spacious, were stationed companies B, D, F, K, and E, and Company G occupied their quarters in a building south of the barracks, nearer the large open field used for the drill-ground. At the barracks there were splendid conveniences, good roomy kitchens, large dining-rooms, and open fireplaces in each room, making the quarters look cheerful and homelike in the evenings." (Little, p. 78)

"At the northern extremity of the town were quartered four companies, three of whom, A, C, and I, were stationed inside Fort Marion; one, Company H, was quartered just outside the fort but inside the water batteries, and having procured some old lumber, this company erected for themselves some very comfortable quarters." (Little, p. 75)
(end)

Photographs - S. Cooley

10/12/2026

TELEGRAPH COMES TO ST. AUGUSTINE St. Augustine Examiner
December 7, 1867
We have lived to see what many never expected to see --- a telegraph to St. Augustine. After three hundred years of existence, the Ancient City is at length able to extend instantaneous greeting to her sister cities. We are now in direct communication with Calcutta by the way of England. The wires reached us from Jacksonville last week and in a few days they will be in active operation. The city is to erect the office for the operator upon the vacant lot in front of the City Hall. What we want now, to bring us up to the full dignity of a City, is a Rail Road. A road to Jacksonville would pay well, if it could get the usual appropriation from the State of every alternative section of land; and this would undoubtedly be allowed, if applied for. Will some of our monied men use their influence and means to forward this project? It would be the making of the old town and would cause it to extend indefinetly on the road to Jacksonville. One or two large first class Hotels would be well supported here, even now, without the advantage of a rail road. If some one of our money making northern friends would take advantage of this fact and come in and erect, a suitable house, he would please us and himself too, we are very sure.
St. Augustine Examiner
December 7, 1867

10/11/2026

The Florida School for the Deaf and Blind
(Yes, Ray Charles was a student from 1937 to 1945.)
Post Reconstruction - 1876 - 1885
The school located on San Marco Avenue was founded in 1885 by Thomas Hines Coleman. Governor W. D. Bloxham worked for the State of Florida to appropriate $20,00 for buildings and equipment. The school originally had 20 acres and provided instruction in Linotype operation, gardening, poultry raising, painting, shoe repairing, barbering, cooking, sewing, home-making, laundry work, beauty culture, basketry, rug-weaving, piano-tuning, mattress making, and broom-making. Music training was also given. The school maintained a 476 acre farm at Casa Cola on the North river about 6 miles north of the city. The farm provided fresh food and served as a training ground for agricultural students.

According to Wiki, today the school is the largest school of its type in the United States with 47 buildings on 82 acres of land. The school now has an annual budget of over $30 million, up from its original of $20,000. It currently serves 600 students on campus and 400 infants/toddlers and their parents through the statewide Parent Infant Program.

The school is Florida's primary public school for children who are deaf or blind. Students are transported to the school and back home from all over the state, residing in dormitories during the week. The school serves deaf and blind students in pre-school through 12th grade, and also has a post-secondary program. The school is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Conference of Educational Administrators Serving the Deaf, and the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped.

10/10/2026

Extracts from the 1900 St. Augustine Evening Record
April - August
Result of Carrying Weapons.
Wm. Crosby, who was given a preliminary hearing before Judge Mackey this morning, broke down and cried like a child on learning that he would be remanded to jail to await trial at the next term of Circuit Court. He said he owed his unenviable predicament to a moments' passion, and the revolver he carried. He says he owns a little home with several cows and other live stock, the result of years of toil and saving.

The practice of carrying fi****ms has plunged many into a sea of trouble, and the example of this case should not be lost on others. There is neither necessity or sense in carrying weapons, and he who indulges in the habit generally rues it.

Photograph - Florida Memory

10/09/2026

Castle Warden (now known as Ripley's Believe it or Not)
1880's Moorish Revival House built by William Warden a Standard Oil partner of Henry Flagler. The twenty-three room house was completed in 1887. It was in the Warden family until the end of the 1930s. The last Warden family member to occupy the house was Warden's daughter Elizabeth B. Ketterlinus.

The famed novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of The Yearling, Cross Creek, and South Moon Under) and her husband Norton Baskin owned it and had the penthouse apartment on the top floor. In 1941. Norton Baskin, a career hotelman who had managed the Hotel Marion in Ocala. He remodeled it into the Castle Warden Hotel, which became a celebrated literary gathering place, not hindered by the fact that the same year he bought the hotel, Baskin married Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. They had a
penthouse on the top floor. Literary guests at the Castle Warden included Zora Neale Hurston, Mignon G. Eberhart, Philip Barry, Margaret Widdemer, Hamilton Basso, Wendell Willkie, Sigred Undset.

Two women Ruth Hopkins Pickering and Betty Neville Richeson died in a fire in April 1944 at the Castle Warden Inn, as it was called during the World War II era.

The hotel was also a favorite for Robert S. Ripley, the newspaper cartoonist, writer and researcher made famous by his Believe It or Not! cartoons that ran in newspapers around the world. Becoming convinced that the castle would be an ideal home for a museum displaying his discoveries and collection of artifacts, Ripley tried unsuccessfully to purchase the structure.

Following his death in 1949, however, his heirs finally managed to secure the estate and in December of 1950 the nation's first Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum opened in St. Augustine.

William Gray Warden (1832-1895)
One of the chief backers of the St. Augustine Improvement Company was William G. warden of Philadelphia, a partner of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler in Standard Oil. He was the builder of Warden Castle now Ripley's Believe it or Not. He also helped establish the St. Augustine Gas and Electric Company of which he
was President and Financial Director of the St. Augustine Improvement Company.

Warden was a Pittsburgh crude oil commission merchant in the early 1860s. He joined with Lockhart, Frew & Company to built large iron storage tanks to hold crude. In 1865 he established a crude oil commission house in Philadelphia known as Warden Frew and Company They built a refinery in Philadelphia called the Atlantic. In 1874 he combined his business with John D. Rockefeller. In 1875 he was named to the Standard Oil board of Directors.
In St. Augustine he also founded Warden Academy school for blacks. Principal was J. B. Sevelli-Capponi who wrote a book entitled Ham and Dixie: A Just, Simple and Original Discussion of the Southern Problem (St. Aug 1895), The academy was destroyed by fire.

He died on April 9, 1895 at his northern home in Germantown Pennsylvania. His estate was estimated to be worth over $1,000,000.

10/08/2026

The News begins to Leak Out (Florida Times Union, May 20, 1885)
Saint Augustine to Build Another to Contain Five Hundred Rooms From sources which we deem entirely reliable we learn that St. Augustine is to have another hotel, larger even than the San Marco, to be built in the heart of the city, and to contain five hundred rooms.

The Sunnyside Hotel, a square west of the plaza on King street has been purchased by a company of Northern capitalists, among them Mr. Franklin W. Smith, of Boston, who has just had built across the street from it a Moorish castle after the olden style. It is said that something like a million dollars will be spent in buying the site, additional grounds, the building and the furniture.

There will be four eight-inch artesian wells, with power to throw water into the fifty story of the building. This will supply the water. Otis Bros. will put in an improved gigantic elevator. The furniture will be mixed, but all the most costly kind.

Maria Sanchez Creek will be filled in to form the rear of the hotel, and a street will be opened alongside of it.

John A. Maguire, who built the San Marco, will have the contract, and it is expected that the work will begin right away, as it is intended to open the new hotel next January. (end)

Panoramic view is of the Ponce de Leon, Casa Monica and Alcazar Source: Library of Congress