Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — AT OLD FORT MARION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AT OLD FORT MARION

THE QUAINT DEFENSE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. Aa Hletorie Spot Which BaeaDa Kaay Beenea of Interest—Two ladlaa Captives —A Fort Has Existed There for Over Three Centuries. Story of the Place. There are few places in these United States about which clings that old-time flavor of historical as-

sociation which forms such a charm about many spots i n England and Europe; few have that air, half true, half false, wholly I romantic and mysterious, which can call up dreams of the past and make

the spectator for a time live in a world apart. Still, we are not wholly destitute of such spots, practical and common-sense people as we are. None, however, does that dim atmosphere of romance enshroud more closely than the old-world dty of BL Augustine, in Florida. Visions of Spanish grandees, of noble knights and fair ladies come to the visitor as he wanders through the ruined sections of the quaint old city and feeds his mind on stories of the SaL But it is in the old Fort arion that such visions come to him more perfectly and fill his mind with legends and traditions. Fort Marion is built on the north •nd of the sea wall and commands the harbor. A huge gray mass of ooquina stone, it rises up, the only example of mediaeval fortification on the continent and a fine specimen of military engineering at the date of

Its construction. It covers more than twenty-two acres, and from Its walls may be had a magnificent view of the blue-and-silver sea and the white breakers dashing in yeasty spray against the barrier built to repress their violence. On the fort’s outer wall is an escutcheon bearing the arms of Spain, beneath which a worn and broken tablet gives the date of the fort’s completion, 1756, when Don Ferdinand VL was King of Spain. Within is a central court and from this open various small rooms used once for barracks, storerooms, messrooms, etc. A Grewiome Place. From one of these rooms the visitor enters the far-famed dungeon of Fort Marion. A narrow passage In the

solid masonry leads from a small room to a hole two feet square, and through which, for five feet, the visiter crawls into in inner vault. The arched roof here is* of solid masonry and there Is no other qutlet than the hole. In one

THE SPANISH ARMS.

of these chambers are still pointed out marks in the masonry in the shape of a cross where the woodwork of a rack to torture-criminals upon la said to have been imbedded. Human bones are said to have been found there and rusty chains with which the helpless victims were confined while their lives wore away in that damp, dark dungeon,, shut out forever from the sun and warmth, hearing no •pond, however much they might of one word of human speech. The existence of this inner vault was unknown until 1839 when, [some repairs being made to the fort, it was accidentally discovered. It may disappoint the reader to know that, after all, authorities doubt whether these “dungeons” were anything more than rubbish holes and whether any human _ bones were found at all. There is no harm, however, in clinging to the story and no one need reject even the tale of the rack If he has a real liking for horrors.

Tw6 ladlaa Captive*. But there are some true romantic stories cCApdcted with the old fort which, inthqir way, are quite as satisfactory as these more grewsome

tales. Two of the most Influential I n dian chiefs in the Seminole war which began In t 1835 were capitated and 1mhere with their followers, whence

they were to Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor. The chiefs were Osceola and Coacoochee. The latter resolved on escape and with great daring and bravery managed to get out of the fortress. He crawled up to a window, qr rather a narrow silt in the wall of his cell, 25 feet from the outside ground. Here he fastened a rope which he put out the window, with much difficulty he got his head through and, incredible as it seems, worked his body, intq the open air. He was fqrcqq. to make the first part •f the descent head downward, he says in the account he has given of

his escape, but he finally achieved IV At last, however, Coacoochee .surrendered and Osceola was removed to Fort Moultrie, where he afterward died. A tree is growl hg An the wall near the casement whence Coacoochee made hia etcafcie and it is still pointed out to visitors, who regard it with much interest The Fort's History. Under different names, and having different forms, a fort has existed at St Augustine for more than three centuries. It was formerly a rude log structure and gradually was replaced by a building of stone. Menendez, the founder of the city, began the fort by using the Indian log council house there standing as a defense against the threatened attack by the Huguenots from Fort Caroline, on the St John’s River. Menendez, on one occasion, massacred some Huguenots and, fearing a hostile fleet from France, made additions to the fortification, strengthening the log structure. Discoveries of coquina quarries suggested to the Spaniard that he should put a stone structure on the site, and this was begun about the middle of the 17th century. Convicts from Spain and Mexico, Indians, and slaves all toiled at the walls and, when Jonathan Dickinson, the shipwrecked Quaker of Philadelphia, came to St Augustine in 1695, the walls were thirty feet high. It was then called San Marco, and under that name was vainly besieged by Moore, the British Governor of Carolina, and Gov. Oglethorpe of Georgia in 1740. In 1821 the fort came into the possession of the United States and was renamed Fort Marion in honor of Gen. Francis Marlon, the famous revolutionary hero.

GRN. MARION.

OLD FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.

OSCEOLA.