East Florida was delivered by Governor Coppinger to Lieut. Rob. Butler, U. S. A., on the 10th of July, 1821. It had been intended to have the transfer take place on the anniversary of the declaration of American Independence; but the Spaniards, feeling no particular regard for the 4th of July, made no efforts to hasten the settlement of the preliminaries, and were therefore unprepared to turn over the province until the tenth of the month.

On the 30th of March, 1822, Congress passed an act incorporating into a territory the two Floridas, and authorizing a legislative council and a superior court, which were to meet alternately at Pensacola and St. Augustine. William P. Duval was appointed the first governor, to hold his office for three years. It is an interesting fact that among those who were saved with LaudonnÈre at the massacre of the French Huguenots was one “Francis Duval of Rouen, son of him of the Iron Crown of Rouen.”

General Jackson had been compelled to imprison the Spanish governor of West Florida for refusing to deliver certain papers that were considered indispensable. Fearing that the attempt would be made by the Governor of East Florida to carry away papers which should be delivered with the territory, General Jackson sent Captain J. R. Hanham from Pensacola to demand such papers and records as properly belonged to the Americans after the change of flags. Captain Hanham made the journey across the State—a distance of 600 miles—in seventeen days. He arrived none too soon, as the vessel was then in the harbor upon which it was intended to send papers and archives sufficient to fill eleven large boxes. After Governor Coppinger had refused to deliver these, Captain Hanham forced a room in the government house and seized the boxes, which had already been packed with the papers ready for shipment. Other valuable papers were shipped and lost on the passage to Havana, some say destroyed by pirates, others by the wreck of the vessel.

In 1823 St. Augustine witnessed for the second time the assembly of a legislative body, the second session of the territorial council being held that year in the government house. In the same year a treaty was concluded at Moultrie Creek, seven miles south of the city, with the Indian tribes of Florida, in which they agreed to surrender all their lands in the territory. It is needless to say that this treaty was never executed.

Forbes’s “Sketches,” published the year of the cession, gives an interesting account of the condition of St. Augustine at the end of the Spanish possession. It is related in these words: “The town, built in Spanish manner, forms an oblong square, or parallelogram; the streets are regularly laid out, but the buildings have not been put up to conform strictly to that rule. The streets are generally so narrow as to admit with difficulty carriages to pass each other. To make up for this inconvenience they have a terrace foundation, and, being shaded, renders the walking very agreeable. The houses are built generally of a freestone peculiar to the country, which, with the aid of an outer coat of plaster, has a handsome and durable effect. They are only two stories high, thick walls with spacious entries, large doors, windows, and balconies, and a garden lot to each, more commonly stocked with orange and fig trees, interspersed with grape-vines and flowers. On entering this old town from the sea, the grandeur of the Castle of Fort St. Mark’s presents itself, and imposes a degree of respect upon travelers upon seeing a fort forty feet high, in the modern taste of military architecture, commanding the entrance. The works are bronzed and squamated by age, but will, with some American ingenuity, be justly deemed one of the handsomest in the western hemisphere. It mounts sixty guns of twenty-four pounds, of which sixteen are bronze, and is calculated to contain one thousand men for action; with which, and the courage such a fort should inspire, it is capable of a noble defense, having in old times resisted some formidable attacks. It is not liable to be shattered by balls, nor does it expose its defenders to the fatal effects of storms [stormings]. From the castle, southward, are the remains of a stone wall trenching its glacis, built to prevent the incroachment of the sea; along this is a very pleasant walk as far as the market-place, which is opposite the old Government House in the center of the town, and separated from it by an oblong square called the parade, on which there is a Roman Catholic church of modern construction and quite ornamental. In front of this there formerly stood a handsome and spacious edifice, built in modern style by Lieut.-Governor Moultrie for a State-house, which was not completed. For want of an exterior coat of plaster it has crumbled to pieces, leaving not a single vestige of its former splendor.

“The old Government House, now much decayed, is occupied as a barrack for the Royal Artillery. It leaves the marks of a heavy pile of buildings in the Spanish style, having balconies in front, galleries and areas on both sides, with several irregular additions well contrived for the climate. Among these was an outlook built by Governor Grant, on the western summit of the main building, which commanded a full view of the sea-coast and surrounding country. The garden attached to the Government House is surrounded by a stone wall; it was formerly laid out with great taste, and stocked with most of the exotic and indigenous plants common to the tropics and the Middle States, such as the pomegranate, plantain, pineapple, papau, olive, and sugar-cane. The orange and lemon trees here grow to large size, and produce better fruit than they do in Spain and Portugal.

“From the square environed by orange trees the streets extend southwardly to some stone buildings, one of which was formerly a Franciscan convent, now converted into a jail, but under the British was used as barracks. In addition they constructed the very large and handsome buildings, four stories high, of wood, with materials brought from New York and intended for Pensacola, but detained by Governor Grant. These barracks at the southern extremity of the peninsula in which the town is built formed an elegant appendage to it, but were burned and now exhibit only the stack of chimneys. In a course westward from these vestiges of royalty are streets leading to a bridge formerly of wood but now of stone, crossing a small creek running parallel with the sea, on the east side, and St. Sebastian on the west. Over this are several valuable and highly improved orange groves and several redoubts, forming the south and western lines of fortification. Near the bridge, in the same street as the Government House, is the burying-ground of the Protestants, where stood an Episcopal church with a handsome steeple, not a vestige of which remains.

“Before the entrance of some of the houses built by the Spaniards rises a portico of stone arches, the roofs of which are commonly flat. There are nearly one thousand houses of all descriptions in the town, which is about three-quarters of a mile in length by one-quarter in breadth. As it is built upon a point of land it is in some degree insulated by the conflux of Matanzas River and St. Sebastian Creek, by which means the egress by land must be by the northern gates, and by a bridge and causeway in a western direction. The whole forms a very picturesque piece of scenery, being surrounded by orange groves and kitchen gardens. Within the first line [of redoubts upon the north] was a small settlement of Germans, with a church of their own, on St. Mark’s River: within the same was an Indian town, with a church also; but it must be regretted that nothing of these remains, as they serve if not as temples certainly as ornamental relics.

“The governor has given the land belonging to this township as glebe land to the parish church, which will no doubt be confirmed by the American Government in its liberal appropriations for religious purposes. The harbor of St. Augustine would be one of the best in the world were it not for the bar, which admits vessels drawing not more than six feet with safety. It is surrounded by breakers which are not as dangerous as they appear. There is a roadstead on the north side of the bar with good anchorage for vessels drawing too much water to enter the harbor. [A part of Anastatia Island] is known as Fish’s Island, and from the hospitality of Mr. Jesse Fish, one of the oldest inhabitants of the province, is remarkable for the date and olive trees, the flavor of the oranges, and the cultivation of his garden.”[32]

The location of the Protestant cemetery as here described is confusing, being located near “this bridge, in the same street as the Government House.” Probably the text should read, in the same street as the Convent House, which would place the Episcopal church and cemetery near the southern end of St. George Street.

Another account, published about the same period as Forbes’s, gives the following picture of the town: “Somewhat more than half way between the fort and the south end of the western peninsula a stone causeway and wooden bridge crosses Mari-Sanchez (Santa Maria) Creek, and connects the two portions or precincts of the town. It is to the north of this causeway that the principal part of the buildings are placed, forming a parallelogram somewhat more than a quarter of a mile wide from east to west, and three-quarters in length from north to south. The neck of land (on which the town is built) is divided into two peninsulas by Mari-Sanchez (Santa Maria) Creek, running parallel to the harbor, but heading in some low lands within the lines. It is on the eastern peninsula alone that the town is built, the western one being occupied by kitchen gardens, corn fields, orange groves, and pasture grounds. The houses on the side of the harbor are chiefly of stone, having only one story above the ground floor: these latter are invariably laid with a coat of tabia, a mixture of sand and shells, and are scarcely ever used but as store rooms, the families living in the upper stories.[33]

“The dwellings on the back streets with few exceptions, particularly in the north-west quarter, have but the ground floor, and are generally built of wood, though stone ones are common, but almost all are laid with tabia flooring.”[34]

At the census of 1830 St. Augustine and environs contained four thousand inhabitants, of whom eight hundred and forty-four were free blacks. The large number of free persons of color is accounted for by the fact that St. Augustine under the Spanish had been an asylum for all the runaway slaves from the neighboring colonies. They had been formed into a military company, and after the “patriot war” of 1812 to 1816 lands had been donated to them for their services. It was also said that those born in the province were registered from their birth, and a severe penalty imposed upon any master of a vessel who should attempt to carry any of them away.

In 1822 an attempt was made to deprive the Roman Catholics of the cathedral. A petition of the inhabitants was thereupon presented to Congress, and that body passed an act on February 8, 1827, granting and confirming to the Catholic society of St. Augustine the building and grounds where they now worship.

In 1821 Rev. Andrew Fowler, a missionary from Charleston, South Carolina, organized the present Episcopal parish. The corner-stone of the present church edifice was laid by the Rev. Edward Phillips on the 23d of June, 1825, and the building was consecrated by Bishop Bowen of South Carolina in the year 1833. The church is a small and plain structure, but in very good taste, and ornamented with a steeple. It is built of coquina, and from its location fronting the plaza, is one of the most noticeable buildings in the city.

The Presbyterian church, though built later, 1830, has a less modern appearance. This church, which was fitted in quite the old-fashioned style, with high-backed pews facing the entrance doors between which was the pulpit, underwent a remodeling of the interior in 1879.

By act of Congress dated March 30, 1823, East and West Florida were united as one territory. Florida was admitted into the Union as a State, March 3d, 1845.

In 1830 there was quite a spirit of speculation rife in the old city. A canal into the St. Johns River and another between the Halifax and Matanzas rivers, also a railway to Picolata were projected, and sanguine people fully expected to see these projects completed immediately. To this day the railway alone has been completed, and is barely able to pay a dividend to its stockholders with a tariff of two dollars for a carriage of fifteen miles. All the other projects are still being talked of.

One of the bubbles of the speculation of this period was a new and large city to be built north of the fort. Peter Sken Smith, a gentleman of some means, erected the frame of a large hotel on grounds outside of the city gate, and there were also built there several houses and stores, a market, and a wharf. Judge Douglass, the first judge of the territory, entered largely into the business of raising the silk-worm. He set out a large number of mulberry trees and built a large building on his plantation called Macarasi, or more commonly Macariz, situated just beyond the end of the shell road, which gave to the place the general appellation of the “Cocoonery.” Judge Douglass has been ridiculed for yielding to the “silk-growing fever,” but the enterprise which was so disastrous to him and others will one day become a lucrative business for many in the mild climate of Florida.

The large and handsome residence on the lot adjoining the Episcopal church, now owned by L. H. Tyler, Esq., was built by Peter Sken Smith, in 1833. The artisans and much of the materials were brought from the North, and the sum of forty thousand dollars was said to have been invested on the house and furniture. Shortly after the house was for sale at less than two thousand dollars.

The plaza was inclosed about this time, and the cannon placed at the corners. The old guns yet to be seen about the city were used by several private citizens to ornament the corners of the streets upon which their lots fronted. In a cut published thirty years ago showing the plaza, etc., the date-palms in Mr. Tyler’s yard appear to reach to an altitude almost the same as at present, showing the extreme slowness of their upward growth.

St. Augustine, immediately after it came under the jurisdiction of the United States, began to receive a most desirable addition to its population in a class of Americans of culture and means, who had long desired to avail themselves of the benefits and delights of its climate, but had hesitated about becoming citizens of the place under Spanish rule. I have heard old citizens say that there was no town of its size in the country where there were so many persons of refined tastes and independent means as in St. Augustine at that time. The Indian war soon after brought to St. Augustine a large addition to its population. This consisted mostly of the military, both regulars and militia, of Florida and the neighboring States, and the many officers, agents, and attachÉs of the government. It was the government headquarters and a depot of supplies, and for a season was full of bustle, excitement, and more activity than it has ever experienced since.

The incidents of that war would be out of place in a history of St. Augustine. Two of the principal characters of that exciting time were, however, brought to St. Augustine, and, with about three hundred other Creeks and Seminoles, confined in Fort Marion. Osceola, a young chief of the Mickasookie tribe, of great daring, considerable education, and great natural abilities, inherited with the Caucasian blood derived from his father, was for some time confined at St. Augustine, and afterwards removed to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston Harbor, where his body is now buried. Though captured through a base trick, Osceola had, through a sullen sense of honor, refused to escape from Fort Marion with Wild Cat. It was said that he died of a broken heart when he learned the fate of his nation, and the intention of the government to remove the remnant of the Seminoles west of the Mississippi.

The casemate in the south-west bastion of the fort has been rendered famous by the escape of a body of Indians, including the famous Coa-cou-che. This Indian, also called Wild Cat, was the youngest son of Philip, a great chief among the Seminoles. He was a man of great courage, of an adventurous disposition, and savage nature, lacking the intellectual abilities of Osceola, but possessing great influence among his nation. Like most of the young chiefs, he was bitterly opposed to the execution of the treaty signed by the older chiefs, by which the Seminoles agreed to remove west of the Mississippi. At an interview immediately before the breaking out of hostilities, Colonel Harney observed to him that unless the Seminoles removed according to the treaty the whites would exterminate them. To this Coa-cou-che replied, that Iste-chatte (the Indian) did not understand that word. The Great Spirit he knew might exterminate them, but the pale-faces could not; else, why had they not done it before?

During the war this young chief was captured and placed under guard in Fort Marion. It is reported that he was at first confined in one of the close cells, and, in order to be removed to a casemate which had an embrasure through which he had planned to escape, he complained of the dampness of his cell and feigned sickness. This, like many other incidents connected with his escape, is probably fictitious. There were at the time a considerable number of Indians confined in the fort, and unless they showed themselves querulous and dangerous, they were all allowed the freedom of the court during the day, and confined at night in the several casemates. It is probable that Coa-cou-che chose the casemate in the south-west bastion from which to make his escape, because of a platform which is in that casemate. This platform is raised some five feet from the floor, and built of masonry directly under the embrasure through which he escaped. This opening had been constructed high up in the outer wall of the casemate to admit light and air. It is thirteen feet above the floor, and eight feet above the platform, which had probably been constructed for the convenience and dignity of the judges, who doubtless used this casemate as a judgment room. The aperture is about two feet high by nine inches wide, and some eighteen feet above the surface of the ground at the foot of the wall within the moat. It is said that as he took his airing upon the terre-plein the evening before his escape, Coa-cou-che lingered longer than usual, gazing far out into the west as the sun went down, probably thinking that ere another sunset he would be beyond the limit of his farthest vision, enjoying the freedom of his native forests. That night he squeezed his body, said to have been attenuated by voluntary abstinence from food, through the embrasure in the wall, and silently dropped into the moat at the foot of the bastion. The moat was dry, and the station of every guard was well known to the Indian, so that escape was no longer difficult. Coa-cou-che immediately joined his nation, but was afterwards captured and sent west. He was recalled by General Worth, and used to secure the submission of his tribe. General Worth declared to him that if his people were not at Tampa on a certain day he would hang from the yard of the vessel on which he had returned, and was then confined. This message he was ordered to send to his people by Indian runners furnished by the general. He was directed to deliver to the messengers twenty twigs, one for each day, and to make it known to his people that when the last twig in the hands of the messenger was broken, so would the cords which bound his life to earth be snapped asunder unless they were all at the general’s camp prepared to depart to the reservation provided for them at the west. The struggle in the mind of Coa-cou-che was severe, but his love of life was strong. He sent by the messenger his entreaties that his people should appear at the time and place designated, and take up their abode in the prairies of the west. Desiring to impress upon his people that this was the will of the Great Spirit, with consummate policy he directed the messenger to relate to them this, Coa-cou-che’s dream: “The day and manner of my death are given out so that whatever I may encounter, I fear nothing. The spirits of the Seminoles protect me; and the spirit of my twin-sister who died many years ago watches over me; when I am laid in the earth I shall go to live with her. She died suddenly. I was out hunting, and when seated by my campfire alone I heard a strange noise—a voice that told me to go to her. The camp was some distance off, but I took my wife and started. The night was dark and gloomy; the wolves howled about me. I went from hommock to hommock, sounds came often to my ear. I thought she was speaking to me. At daylight I reached the camp, but she was dead. I sat down alone under the long gray moss of the trees, when I heard strange sounds again. I felt myself moving, and went along into a new country where all was bright and beautiful. I saw clear water ponds, rivers, and prairies upon which the sun never set. All was green; the grass grew high, and the deer stood in the midst looking at me. I then saw a small white cloud approaching, and when just before me, out of it came my twin-sister dressed in white, and covered with bright silver ornaments. Her long black hair which I had often braided fell down upon her back. She clasped me around the neck and said, ‘Coa-cou-che, Coa-cou-che.’ I shook with fear; I knew her voice, but could not speak. With one hand she gave me a string of white beads; in the other she held a cup sparkling with pure water; as I drank she sang the peace song of the Seminoles, and danced around me. She had silver bells upon her feet which made a loud sweet noise. Taking from her bosom something, she laid it before me, when a bright blaze streamed above us. She took me by the hand and said, ‘All is peace.’ I wanted to ask for others, but she shook her head, stepped into the cloud, and was gone. All was silent. I felt myself sinking until I reached the earth when I met my brother, Chilka.”[35]

Coa-cou-che’s appeal was successful. The messengers returned with the whole remnant of the tribe three days before the expiration of the time. They all embarked and took up their residence on the prairies, where the sun never sets and the grass grows high. It was not a field in which Coa-cou-che could distinguish himself, and from this time his name was never heard, except in connection with his past exploits in Florida.

Soon after the United States took possession of St. Augustine, the government began to make extensive improvements in and about the town. The barracks were immediately remodeled, and built as they are at present. The fort, which had become much dilapidated, was repaired and fitted for a garrison. It was while this work was being prosecuted that the cell under the north-east bastion was discovered, which has ever since been associated with the Huguenot massacre and the Spanish Inquisition, in annual editions of guide-books and tourists’ letters. It is constantly designated as “the Dungeon,” and, lest I should not be understood in referring to it as a cell, I shall also call it a dungeon, in explaining how it was found and what it did not contain. For some reason unexplained by any record left by the Spaniards, the terre-plein, near the north-east bastion, had been built upon large wooden beams. At the time the Americans took possession of the fort they found the last casemate, fronting on the court on the east side, filled with the coquina floor of the terre-plein, which had fallen in, as the timbers supporting it had rotted. Naturally, this half-filled casemate had become the place of deposit for all rubbish accumulated upon any part of the works. In the course of repairs the rubbish was cleared out of the casemate, and the entrance into the adjoining cell exposed. Entering this cell, and examining the masonry for anticipated repairs, the engineer in charge, said to be Lieutenant Tuttle, U. S. A., discovered a newness of appearance about a small portion of the masonry of the north wall. Under his instruction a mason cut out this newer stone-work and found that the small arch, under which those who now enter the “dungeon” crawl, had been walled up. Why the entrance had thus been filled with masonry is unknown, but it is extremely unlikely that it was done to insure the perpetual captivity and death of a human being. The engineer and mason entered the cell, and made an examination of the interior with the light of a candle. Near the entrance were the remains of a fire, the ashes and bits of pine wood burned off toward the center of the pile in which they had been consumed. Upon the side of the cell was a rusty staple, with about three links of chain attached thereto. Near the wall, on the west side of the cell, were a few bones. Finding these very rotten, and crumbling to pieces under his touch, the engineer spread his handkerchief upon the floor and brushed very gently the few fragments of bone into it. These were shown the surgeon then stationed at the post, who said they might be human bones, but were so badly crumbled and decayed he could not determine definitely. Nothing else was found in the cell.[36] The iron cages, which have been described as a part of the fixtures of this terrible dungeon, and which it has been said contained human bones, appear upon the united testimony of old inhabitants to have been found outside of the city gates entirely empty. It is said that, in 1822, a Mr. Deever, a butcher, while digging post holes on the grounds opposite to those now owned by Mr. Kingsland, just north of the city gates, came upon the cages and dug them up. One of them was made use of in his workshop by Mr. Bartolo Oliveros, a locksmith. The other one was allowed by Mr. Deever to lie near the city gate until it was appropriated by some unknown party. The cages are described as having had much the shape of a coffin; and the tradition is, that a human being had been placed in each, the solid bands of iron riveted about his body, and, after life had been extinguished by the horrible torture of starvation, cages and corpses had been buried in the “scrub” then covering the ground north of the gate. Doubtless these cages were used for the punishment of criminals condemned for some heinous crime; but whether they were introduced by the Spaniards or English is not known. An old gentleman, Mr. Christobal Bravo, tells me his mother has related to him that she had seen, during the English possession, these cages, or similar ones, suspended at the gates of the city, with criminals incarcerated therein. In the face of the facts it is feared that St. Augustine must lose much of the romance and melancholy interest excited by the stories of Spanish cruelty and torture. It is very probable that this inner cell at the fort was used as a place of confinement for criminals, and it is possible that some may have died therein. In fact, it was so reported and generally believed at the time the poet Bryant visited St. Augustine in 1843. Fairbanks, on page 157 of his “History and Antiquities of St. Augustine,” published in 1858, refers to the instruments of torture and skeletons walled in the old fort.

The account, as recited by the “Old Sergeant,” Mr. McGuire, ordnance-sergeant, U. S. A., gives the current legend connected with the dungeon. The sergeant alone can do justice to the narrative, in presence of an appreciative audience clustered around his smoking torch under the vaulted arch of the grim, damp cell. No pen can transcribe the sergeant’s Irish brogue, or his periods, his tones, and his inimitable expression of countenance, which seems to evince a combination of honest doubt and wishful credence in the melancholy tale of Spanish barbarity, which has proved so remunerative to himself, and so acceptable to the novelty hunting tourist. While the sergeant’s lamp holds out to burn, no visitor to St. Augustine should fail to hear his tale, “Just as it was told to me,” as he is particular to explain.

In the spring of 1875 a body of Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne chiefs were removed from the West by order of the government, and sent to St. Augustine. These Indians were, at first, confined within the old fort, under a guard furnished from the post at St. Francis Barracks. They had been sent under the charge of Captain Pratt, of the Tenth U. S. Cavalry. The selection of this officer was a most fortunate choice. Through his indubitable faith in the possibility of developing the better nature of the Indian, together with his unwearied perseverance under difficulties that none but a missionary among the depraved races of men can realize, by his great tact and his patience he succeeded in demonstrating that, by proper methods and efforts, the Indian problem is capable of a satisfactory solution. Under the system adopted by Captain Pratt the guard was soon dispensed with, and the Indians treated very much as if they were a company of enlisted soldiers. They walked the streets, attended the churches, and had their school, with no other restraint or hindrance than is imposed upon soldiers. They soon acted as their own guard day and night, assumed the dress of a soldier, and many of the manners and habits of the white man. After remaining at St. Augustine for about two years, a portion of the company were sent to the Hampton, Va. school, and the remainder were returned to their native tribes, where they must yet exert a powerful influence for the advance of civilization.

It is a remarkable coincidence that the first practical demonstration of the ability of the government to elevate and civilize the Indian, and the first advance in a rational method of making citizens of the remnant of our aboriginal population, was inaugurated at St. Augustine. The evil in the nature of the Caucasian who first landed in America, upon the shores of Florida, has proved a curse and a blight to the red man. The gratifying success that crowned the philanthropic policy inaugurated by the government among the representatives of the Indian race, while prisoners at St. Augustine, will, it is to be hoped, be the harbinger of the speedy civilization of the whole of the Indian race existing in America.