Sketch of Island Town—Its Destruction—The Third Pensacola—The Cession of Florida by Spain to Great Britain—Appearance of Town in 1763—Captain Wills’ Report—Catholic Church.

On February 17, 1720, five months after the destruction of Pensacola, a treaty of peace between France and Spain was signed. But it was not until early in January, 1723, that Bienville, under orders from the French government, formally restored Pensacola to the Spaniards, or rather its site and surroundings.

Of the first settlement of the Island town there exists no account, but it is probable it began immediately after the destruction of the Pensacola of Arriola. Its origin may be accounted for by the natural precaution of Governor Metamoras upon his recapture of that place and preparation for a struggle with the French, to remove the non-combatants to a place of safety, or rather the safest in the vicinity, and there was none possessing such great advantages as Santa Rosa island. It was a narrow, uninhabited strip of land, separated from the main land in its western portion by three miles of water, rendering a settlement there comparatively free from the danger of surprise by the Indians. The deepest water for landing on the bay-side, and a supply of fresh water obtainable by digging wells, would naturally determine the location of the settlement; and these conditions were met by a place about two miles from the western point of the island, not far from the present bay-wharf of the life-saving station.

The progress the settlement made in the course of a quarter of a century is presented by the annexed engraving, which is taken from a sketch made in 1743. The artist, Don Serres, who was a resident during that year, came there in the service of the Havana Company in a schooner with a cargo for the town.

He paid New Orleans a visit, and did some profitable trading there with six thousand dollars which he had at his command. He also secured a quantity of pitch and turpentine for his Company, as well as two pine spars, each eighty-four feet long, which he sent to Havana in the schooner. This was the beginning of the timber trade of Pensacola, its first known business transaction with New Orleans, and the last authenticated instance of one of its timber dealers engaging in the elegant pastime of sketching.

In vain has information been sought of its progress during the period between the time Don Serres made the sketch and 1754, which embraced the last eleven years of its existence, for in that year it was destroyed, together with many of its people, by a terrific hurricane. And thus it was that, as the Pensacola of Arriola perished in the conflict of human passions, its offspring was destroyed in a war of the elements.

The survivors, removing to the north shore of the Bay, settled upon a crescent-shaped body of dry land, about the eighth of a mile wide in its widest part, formed by the Bay and a titi swamp, which, extending from the mouth of an estuary on the west, curved landward to a marsh just below the outlet of another on the east. These estuaries, though seemingly the outlets of two, were in fact those of one and the same stream flowing through the swamp, and navigable by canoes for some distance from the bay. The bay-shore also curved deeply, the indentation being in fact the remnant of a cove, which, as old maps show, extended to and beyond the northern edge of the swamp.

That settlement was but a removal of Pensacola to its present site, like that by which it was removed to the island. Each settlement, in its order of time, like d’ Arriola’s town, being a continuation of the Pensacola founded by de Luna in 1559, four years before Menendez founded St. Augustine.

Of the history of the present Pensacola, beyond its bare existence, from 1754 to 1763, we have no information further than that its insignificance shielded it from the trials and sufferings of the seven years war ended by the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763.

By that treaty Florida became a British colony. On July 6 of that year Captain Wills, in command of the third battery of Royal Artillery, then at Havana, forming a part of the British force which had captured the city during the late war, was ordered by General Keppel to proceed with his command to Pensacola for the purpose of taking possession of the place. Arriving thereon the seventh of August, Captain Wills having presented the order of the king of Spain to the Spanish commander for the surrender of the post, it was promptly obeyed.

It was the duty of Spain under the treaty to remove her troops from Pensacola. Her subjects, however, were, under the Nineteenth article, entitled to remain in the full enjoyment of their personal rights, religion and property; but, resolving to remove to Mexico, they applied to the Spanish government for transportation, which was promptly promised. Accordingly, on September 2, transports for the removal of the garrison and people arrived; and, on the third, the Spanish troops and the entire population, to the last man, woman and child, sailed for Vera Cruz, leaving Captain Wills and his command the only occupants of the town.

It is to a report written by him a few days after the Spanish exodus that we owe all the information we possess of the character and appearance of the town at that time.

It consisted of “40 huts, thatched with palmetto leaves, and barracks for a small garrison, the whole surrounded by a stockade of pine posts.”

The report says: “The country, from the insuperable laziness of the Spaniards, still remains uncultivated. The woods are still near the village, and a few paltry gardens show the only improvements. Stock, they have none, being entirely supplied by Mobile, which is pretty well cultivated and produces sufficient for export.”

Of the Indians we are presented with the following glimpse: “The Indians are numerous around. We had within a few days a visit from about two hundred of five different nations. I was sorry not to have it in my power of making them any presents. I only supplied them with some rum, with which they seemed satisfied, and went off assuring me of their peaceful intentions and promising to come down soon with some of their principal chiefs.”

The church, which is so hallowing a feature in the sketch of the Island Town, is suggestive of the persevering devotion of the Catholic Faith to the spiritual welfare of her children. In 1559, when de Luna raised his national flag upon the shores of Santa Maria, his spiritual mother raised her cross beside it. With that sacred symbol she followed him in his explorations through the limitless wilderness, beginning and ending each day with her holy rites. She returned with Arriola, and, as he built his fort, her children under her pious promptings built her church. As the drum beat the reveille to call the soldier to the activities of life, the notes of her bell reminded him of her presence to admonish and console him. The engraving presents the next effort of her zeal. Afterwards, when the wing of the hurricane and the wild fury of the waves had swept away her island sanctuary, and left her children houseless on a desolate shore, she followed them to that hamlet which has just been described, where, around a rude altar, sheltered by the frail thatch of the palmetto, they enjoyed her consoling offices. When, in 1763, their national flag fell from the staff and her people went into voluntary exile, her cross went with them as their guide and solace. She returned with Galvez, and never for a day since then has she been without her altar and her priest on these shores to perform her rites for the living and the dead. For many years after the establishment of American rule, that altar and that priest were the only means by which the Protestant mother, more obedient to the Divine word than sectarian prejudice, could obey the sacred mandate: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not.”