The Old Fort At St. Augustine

The Old Fort At St. Augustine — page 1 — Chapter 1 ATTACK IN THE NIGHT English pirates rowed silently toward the shore of St Augustine in 1668 their approach cloaked by the darkness of the night With little warning Robert Searle and his men laid siege to the town taking what they could and burning the rest as residents took cover in the woods and soldiers tried to fend them off from the cover of rotting wooden forts St Augustine St Augustine is the nation’s oldest permanently occupied European settlement It was founded 55 years before the Plymouth Colony 4

The Old Fort At St. Augustine — page 2 — The attack left many dead and the residents without food supplies and ammunition It also inspired the queen regent of Spain to provide funding for a new fort to protect the important Spanish town Freedom Fact An English sailor who joined Drake on the English expedition against Spain described St Augustine as a city built all of timber or bodies of trees set upright and close together Sir Francis Drake Robert Searle’s attack was not the first devastating blow to the Spanish shipping hub About 100 years before Francis Drake was appointed by Queen Elizabeth of England to lead an expedition to attack Spanish settlements in the Americas Under orders from the queen Drake and his crew of 2,000 men attacked and set fire to St Augustine in 1586 In historical documents you will often see the word circa before a date when the exact date is not known Circa means approximately or about Sir Francis Drake circa 1540 1596 5

The Old Fort At St. Augustine — page 3 — St Augustine was an important territory for Spain to protect especially as colonists from England and France began to settle nearby But the forts built by the Spanish settlers were not strong enough to withstand harsh attacks The damp Florida weather warped and weakened the wood used to construct them They needed something stronger Would you believe they chose to use tiny shells St Augustine Florida was established in 1565 It was created to protect the trade sea routes from the English and the French expansions 6

The Old Fort At St. Augustine — page 4 — Chapter 2 SHELLS SECURE ST AUGUSTINE In 1672 military engineers and stonemasons from Spain traveled to St Augustine to begin construction on the fort This time there would be no wood Instead they used coquina which means tiny shell in Spanish Oyster shells were baked until they became a fine white powder called lime The lime was allowed to age sometimes for a full year before it was mixed with sand and water to make mortar Freedom Fact Coquina is made from the shells of small clams that fused together over thousands of years The shell stone for the fort was quarried from Anastasia Island a barrier island off the coast of St Augustine It is only found in a handful of places around the world 7

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