by Jeanie Blanton
When you make your vacation plans to visit Florida, make sure to include The Castillo de San Marcos Fort in St Augustine. Man discovered a soft rock made of thousands of tiny shells. It is called coquina Wet coquina rock could be cut easily. As it dried, it became hard. Coquina rock was a good material for a fort. Cannon balls shot into it sank in without shattering the stone. Spaniards and Indians took more than one hundred years to build the fort. The fort has walls many feet thick and was so large that hundreds of people could live in it. In the courtyard there is a big well. There are rooms to store guns and powder, rooms to sleep, rooms for keeping food and for cooking, a jail and a chapel for church services.
One side of the fort faces the bay. Deep ditches or moats filled with water, protected the other sides. A drewbridge could be lowered to let people into the fort and could be raised to keep enemies out. There was a secret tunnel to the water side and supplies could be brought in if the fort was surrounded by enemies.
From the fort a wall ran to the San Sebastion River. A strong gate in this wall could be opened and closed. The city gates still stand in St Augustine.
The Spaniards built their houses close to the street. Behind the houses were beautiful fenced gardens with lawns, flowers and shrubs. In the garden of a big house, there might be a well. People who lived in small houses got their water from the big well in the fort..
Houses were made of tabby, a mixture of burned oyster shells and sand, and of coquina or wood. Many houses had two floors. Staircases on the gardenside led to the second story. Shingles of pine or cypress wood covered the roofs. Houses contained a large living room, a number of bedrooms, and a kitchen or patio cook room.
Women did their cooking with pots and pans over an open fire. In houses without fireplaces, cooking was done on charcoal burners or on fires in the garden. Mattresses of straw, corn husks, or feathers made comfortable beds. Candles or pine stick gave light, This fort has been preserved in much of it's former glory. My family has made visiting this fort a yearly tradition Make it a must see on your Florida vacation and you will as hooked on it as we are.
stay for the next post on the beautiful Spanish women who lived in St Augustine Florida
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