St. Augustine Collections

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

7694

Time Period

17th-19th c.

Site History

This site is located on the grounds of the St. Augustine Historical Society property known as the Gonzales-Alvarez House of the “Oldest House”. See SA 27-18 site history for additional information.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

Initial excavations on this property were conducted by John W. Griffin during the fall of 1954 (September 20 – October 15) and the material recovered during the excavation was analyzed in the fall of 1957. The excavations, which were located in a “small portico area on the rear side” of the Gonzales-Alvarez house, were conducted prior to the installation of a new heating and cooling system. The field notes are on file at the St. Augustine Historical Society Library. It is not known if FS numbers were assigned during these excavations.

Excavations were conducted again during the summer of 1984 as part of an archaeological field school intended to train members of the newly formed St. Augustine Archaeological Association. John Griffin and Valerie Bell directed the field school and Valerie Bell supervised the excavations. A preliminary report exists and is on file at the St. Augustine Historical Society Library, Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board, and the Department of Anthropology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Copies of some of the field notes and analysis cards exist and are on file at the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board and the Department of Anthropology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, but most of the records have not been located. The artifact information contained in the SA 27-17 data file (SA 27-17.db) was taken from the tables included in the preliminary report. No field specimen log exists, so it is unknown if these tables included all of the material recovered during the excavations.

Apparently, FS numbers were assigned because numbers were written on the artifact bags sent to the Florida Museum of Natural History, but no FS catalog has been found at the St. Augustine Historical Society or the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Publications and Reports

Gjessing, Frederick, John Griffin, J. Carver Harris, Albert Manucy, Hale Smith, J. T. Van Campen, and Doris Wiles
1962 The evolution of the Oldest House. Florida State University Notes in Anthropology 7.

Site Type

Cemetery

Number of Specimens

1917

Time Period

1575-1600

Site History

SA-28-1, Spanish Hospital, is located in Block 28 on Aviles Street just north of the intersection with Artillery Lane and of the standing structure of the Military Hospital Museum.

The site was among those excavated as part of the project to delimit the boundaries of sixteenth-century St. Augustine (The Sixteenth Century Town plan). However, this work was done after the excavations covered in Deagan’s Archaeological Strategy in the Investigation of an Unknown Era: Sixteenth Century St. Augustine (1978) and was specifically aimed at delimiting the northern perimeter of the sixteenth century town.

Fieldwork consisted of excavation of one 3 x 3 meter test pit containing 32 field specimen numbers and 3 features. Most proveniences, including Feature 2, a trash pit, were underlain by burial pits. The following proveniences contained burials: Area 3, Area 6, Area 8, Area 12, and Area 14. Human bone fragments were found in most proveniences (see Provenience Guide). Feature 1, an articulated burial, and Area 3, which contained part of a burial which had been disturbed, were uncovered and photographed in the field. Measurements for the articulated burial are given in a table on p. 69 of the field notes. Recovery of pins in association with the skeletal material indicated it was a shroud burial, oriented east to west, with the head at the west.

Assignment of temporal associations to deposits is based on the provenience guide located with the analysis cards. That guide also gives the top and bottom elevations of deposits and the TPQ. It is reproduced in the site file notebook. Human bone was recovered from FS#s 8, 9, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, and 25.

Publications and Reports

Caballero, Olga and Martha Zierden
1979 Excavations at SA-28-1 (Spanish hospital site), St. Augustine, Ms. project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Deagan, Kathleen
1978 Archaeological Strategy in the investigation of an unknown era: 16th century St. Augustine. Unpublished project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

75000

Time Period

ca.1575-19th c.

Site History

Documentary and cartographic sources are available only from the 18th century onward, starting with the 1763 Jefferys map. Archaeological investigations provide evidence of occupation on this lot since the first Spanish settlement of the 16th century. The boundaries of the property changed through time.

Cristoval Contreras was the first recorded owner during the First Spanish Period. Parish records indicate that Contreras was a native of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He was a wealthy person, a slave owner, possibly a merchant. Contreras occupied only the southern portion of the Fatio lot. The northern area was owned by Manuella Alvarez de Santiago y Sotomayor. Parish records list her as the widow of a soldier, with several children.

Florida was ceded to England in 1763, after which there followed a series of four British owners of the property: Gerald Walton 1763-1765, a merchant from a New York firm; Dr. Richard Prichard 1765-1772, a surgeon; William Wilson 1772; and William Dry 1772-1783.

In 1791, during the Second Spanish Period, the property was purchased by Juan Hernandez from the Spanish Crown, who in turn sold it to Andres Ximenez in 1797. Documentation indicates that the property in 1797 possessed the ruins of a single masonry house and that Ximenez proceeded with the construction of the main house and related outbuildings. In his 1806 will, Ximenez noted a dwelling, two storehouses, wash shed and a stone kitchen with a chimney.

The property remained in the Ximenez family until 1830, when it was sold to Mrs. Margaret Cook. From this date until the early 20th century, the Ximenez-Fatio House served as an inn or boarding house run by a succession of enterprising women: Mrs. Cook 1830-1838, Mrs. Sarah Anderson 1838-1855, and Miss Louisa Fatio from 1855 until her death in 1875.

In 1939, the property comprising this lot, was purchased from one of Miss Fatio’s descendants by the present owners, the Florida Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America. The Colonial Dames have chosen to restore and preserve the house to the 19th century “Hotel” Period.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

There has been a long history of archaeological research at SA34-2. In 1963 Robert Steinbach initiated archaeological investigations by putting two trenches in the northern portion of the lot. This project was an attempt to locate outbuildings shown on early 18th century maps. The tests located a tabby foundation which was probably related to the 1st Spanish period occupation of the lot.

During the summers of 1972 and 1973 two projects were conducted in the vicinity of the detached kitchen structure. This research was carried out under the supervision of Carl MacMurray and Kathleen Deagan respectively. Dr. Charles Fairbanks was the Principal Investigator.

In 1975, John Clauser conducted extensive testing north of the house and in the courtyard to locate outbuildings. This work was done through the University of Florida field school under Charles Fairbanks as Principal Investigator.

In 1976 a systematic subsurface survey testing program was conducted throughout St. Augustine in an effort to delineate the boundaries of the 16th century town. The location of the Ximenez-Fatio house falls squarely within this area of initial occupation of St. Augustine.

In 1979 field work was resumed under Kathleen Deagan, Principal Investigator, and supervised by Olga Caballero of Florida State University. Archaeological work was directed towards uncovering evidence of a wooden structure, indicated on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. Excavations were also conducted in the interior of the kitchen to define the stages of construction.

During the Spring of 1980 more work was done behind the kitchen building. Supervised by Julia A. King and Frederick Gaske of FSU, this project served as a field school in archaeology. Dr. Kathleen Deagan served as Principal Investigator. The general objective for the 1980 project included the study of the architectural evolution of the kitchen building and the investigation of the area west of the kitchen.

In February 1981 an archaeological monitoring project was undertaken in the courtyard, or patio area, between the house and kitchen under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Deagan, with field work conducted by FSU graduate students Frederick Gaske and Charles Poe.

Further work was done during the 1982-83 field season conducted by Charles Ewen under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Deagan. The general objectives of the project included the location of gardens, pathways, fences, and outbuildings in the yard area, associated with the hotel period component of the site.

In 1985 archaeological investigations were conducted at the Ximenez-Fatio site by Bonnie McEwan, also under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Deagan. The objectives of this project were to re-investigate a series of post-molds exposed during the 1983 season and determine if they were from the hotel period.

Publications and Reports

Beidelman, Katherine
1976 Ceramic means as indicators of socio-economic status
in colonial St. Augustine. Unpublished MA Thesis, University
of Florida, Gainesville.

Clauser, John
1974 Excavations at the Ximenez-Fatio house: Backyard
archaeology in St. Augustine. MA thesis, University of
Florida, Gainesville.

Ewen, Charles
1985 The Ximenez-Fatio House: A view from the backyard. In Indians, Slaves and Colonists, edited by K. Johnson, et al., Florida Journal of Anthropology Special Publication. University of Florida Anthropology Department, Gainesville, pp. 57-69.

Gaske, Fred
1982 The Archaeology of a Territorial Period Boarding house in St. Augustine. MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.

MacMurrary, Carl
1972 Excavations at the Ximenez-Fatio House, St. Augustine
Florida. Historical Archeology 6:57-64.

Reitz, Elizabeth J., and C. Margaret Scarry
1985 Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth century Spanish Florida. The Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication No. 3.

Scarry, C. Margaret
1985 The use of plant foods in sixteenth century St. Augustine.
Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):70-80.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

75000

Time Period

ca.1575-19th c.

Site History

The Ximenez-Fatio Annex falls within the center of the 16th century town boundaries. Its location and archaeological evidence suggest an occupation dating back to that period. Historical information pertaining to the site does not exist for the 16th and 17th centuries, but cartographic and documentary sources from the mid-18th century provide information on changes of site use, ownership, and physical boundaries.

The first documented owner of the Ximenez-Fatio Annex site was Don Buenaventura Lazaro de Ortega. The 1764 Puente map shows one stone house as the only structure on this lot, owned by Ortega. The 1762-63 Jefferys also shows only one structure. In 1764 the lot was sold to James Henderson, who owned a large amount of property in the city.

The 1788 Mariano de la Rocque map and list Don Manuel Solana as owner of a masonry house. The 1834 Clements map lists Dirk Fleishman as present claimant. In 1837 Flieshman sold the property to Margaret Cook for $371.00. Mrs. Cook owned the Ximenez-Fatio house and ran it as a boarding house. She sold both properties to Sarah Anderson in 1838 who continued to operate it as a boarding house until 1855 when she sold it to Louisa Fatio who operated the boarding house from then on to 1875. The Annex site lot remained part of the Ximenez-Fatio house until around the turn of the century. In 1983 the lot was purchased by the Colonial Dames, after the removal of two house structures that dated to the early 20th century.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

During the spring semester of the 1990 academic year, archaeological investigations were conducted at the Ximenez-Fatio site by the University of Florida Field School in Historical Archaeology under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Deagan. Ricardo Fernandez-Sardina served as field supervisor.

This field season was part of the ongoing investigations at the Ximenez-Fatio site. The general objectives of the 1990 project were to investigate the 19th century “Hotel Period” occupation and related boarding house activities and to trace the changes in occupation and use of the site since the 16th century.

Publications and Reports

Fernandez-Sardina, Ricardo
1990 Preliminary Field Report of Archaeological Investigations at the Ximenez-Fatio Annex (SA34-2B) St. Augustine, Florida. Project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

19885

Time Period

18th-19th c.

Site History

SA34-3 is located in the oldest section of St. Augustine, at the northern perimeter of the area which has been settled and built-on since the 16th century. The property is located at the corner of Artillery Lane and Aviles Street. Historic maps depict buildings on the property since at least the end of the First Spanish Period in the 1760’s. Moreover the Sixteenth Century Survey Project run by Dr. Kathleen Deagan in the early 1980’s noted that the property also contains archaeological remains from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Maps from the 1760s to the 1780s depict two rectangular structures on the lot. According to the 1764 Puente map, the lot belonged to Don Antonio Urana de Melo, a First Spanish Period resident. In 1769 the Jefferys map shows the same two buildings on the property, and documents from 1777 list the owner as English planter Henry Skinner. Between 1777 and 1782 the lot passed rapidly through the hands of five British owners. When Spain established dominion again over Florida, the last British owner, William Slater, sold the property in 1785 to Pablo Cortinas, a merchant from Spanish Morocco, who then resold it in 1786 to Bernardo Segui. With the last purchase, the lot was to remain as a Segui residence until the 1820’s.

When Florida became a territory of the United States, the property was rented from the Segui heirs by Judge Joseph L. Smith and was the boyhood home of Edmund Kirby Smith, a Confederate general during the Civil War.

During the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, General Kirby Smith rented the building to tenants and then sold the property to Elias P. Dismukes in 1887 for $6500. In 1895, Dismukes sold the building to John L. Wilson for $5000 to serve as the new St. Augustine Public Library. The library remained in residence until its move to new quarters in 1987, when the Segui-Kirby Smith property was acquired by the St. Augustine Historical Society to serve as its future research library.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

In 1977, as part of a survey to test the extent of 16th century deposits in St. Augustine, archaeologists from Florida State University put in a 2 by 2 meter test pit at Kirby Smith. Excavation revealed extensive 16th-century deposits, overlain by a 17th century and Second Spanish Period occupation. Little evidence was found for an 18th-century First Spanish Period occupation.

In 1981, inquiry into 16th century deposits at the site continued with a 1 x 7 meter trench along an east-west line in the middle of the backyard. This trench was divided into 1 x 1 meter sections, labeled A-G.

In March 1991 Dr. John Griffin and James Cusick ran a short 10-day excavation at SA34-3 to determine whether planned construction would threaten archaeological resources. Excavations revealed a large, trash-filled pit associated with a Second Spanish Period coquina block foundation, a sculpted coquina block footer for the original house and a second footer for what can definitely be defined as an addition off the south end of the house. It also showed that the area within two feet of the back wall of the main house has been heavily disturbed and
mixed. During further monitoring of construction by Dr. Griffin a British Period coquina-block well was discovered.

Excavations were resumed during the fall of 1991 when a total of five test units and one test pit were excavated. The 1991 excavations produced evidence for large scale building activity at the site during the Segui occupation in the first decade of the 18th century. Domestic trash and food remains recovered in a large trash pit dating to this period were incorporated into research on Spanish and Minorcan households of the late colonial period. Excavations also recovered evidence for the Kirby Smith kitchen building, including its association with a current standing wall, and allowed a conjectural reconstruction of its articulation with main house. Finally, testing of the northeast section of the yard confirmed the existence of earlier structures, possible dating back into the early 17th century.

Publications and Reports

Cusick, James
1993 Final Report on the 1991 Excavations at the Segui-Kirby Smith Site (8SA34-3), St. Augustine. Project report submitted to the St. Augustine Historical society.

Cusick, James
1993 Ethnic Groups and Class in an Emerging Market Economy: Spaniard and Minorcans in Late Colonial St. Augustine. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Johnson, Richard E.
1981 Report on Spring 1981 Excavation at the St. Augustine Public Library Lot (SA34-3) in The Town Plan of Sixteenth Century St. Augustine: The Archaeological Evidence by Kathleen Deagan. Manuscript of file at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, Fl.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

47927

Time Period

1575-19th c.

Site History

The Palm Row site is located within the boundaries of the 16th and 17th century townsite, but no documentary information is available for these time periods. The first documented reference to the Palm Row site appears on the 1763 Elixio de la Puente map. A structure is illustrated and the property owner is identified as Francisco Ponce de Leon, a member of a prominent and affluent criollo family. Francisco Ponce de Leon was born in 1710 and married Jacobina Pueyo in 1743. By 1763, he had attained the rank of Ayudante Mayor (Chief Adjutant). In this position he acted as the military assistant to the Sargent Mayor, the commanding officer at the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine and answered to the Royal Governor. Ponce de Leon and his family left St. Augustine in 1763 when the town was ceded to the British. No structures are illustrated on either the 1762 Jefferys map or on the 1765 Moncrief map. The Jefferys map does depict the existence or orchards during the British Period of the 18th century.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

There were two seasons of field work conducted at the Palm Row site, spring 1978 and summer 1978 (6 months). No field report was written. Some material from Palm Row was reburied on site by Robert Steinbach of the Historical St. Augustine Preservation Board. A list of reburied FS#’s is in museum records.

Publications and Reports

Deagan, K. A.
1983 Spanish St. Augustine: The archaeology of a colonial creole community. Academic Press, New York

King, Julia
1981 An archaeological investigation of 17th century St.
Augustine. Unpublished MA thesis, Florida State
University, Tallahassee

King, Julia
1984 Ceramic variability in 17th century St. Augustine, Florida. Historical Archaeology 18(2):75-82.

Reitz, Elizabeth
1980 Fauna from the Eighteenth Century Spanish Francisco Ponce de Leon Site. In Spanish Colonial Frontier Research, edited by H. Dobyns, pp. 55-65. Center for Archaeological Studies, Albuquerque, N.M.

Reitz, Elizabeth J., and C. Margaret Scarry
1985 Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth century Spanish Florida. The Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication No. 3.

Scarry, C. Margaret
1985 The use of plant foods in sixteenth century St. Augustine.
Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):70-80.

Site Type

Monastery

Number of Specimens

131000

Time Period

ca.1575-19th c.

Site History

Site SA42A is located at the corner of St. Francis and Marine Streets in St. Augustine, Florida. Beginning with the construction of a Franciscan monastery in the late 16th century, the site has been continually occupied and today housed the State of Florida Department of Military Affairs Headquarters.

No known maps exist of the property during the 16th century, but the historical record reveals that a Franciscan monastery was constructed there in 1588. The friary functioned as a training center for new friars prior to their departure for their respective mission stations.

In 1599 a fire destroyed both the convento and chapel and neither were rebuilt until sometime in the early 1600s. Apparently the chapel was rebuilt by 1603 since at this time the remains of three Franciscan friars killed in present day Georgia by the Guale in 1597 were brought to St. Augustine and interred in the Franciscan chapel. By 1610 the convento had been rebuilt and the King of Spain selected it as a Capitular or Province House. By 1674, the friary served as the headquarters for the Santa Elena province and was staffed by a guardian, a preacher and a lay brother.

In 1702 the church and convento were again destroyed by fire during Colonel Moore’s attack on St. Augustine in that same year. A new monastery was not rebuilt until the 1750s. During this time, the friars used wooden huts for living quarters and a coquina structure for their chapel. The new friary was constructed of coquina and it is most likely this monastery that appeared on the 1764 Castello map of St. Augustine, the first known depiction of the compound.

In 1763, the Franciscans vacated the property when Spain ceded Florida to England under terms of the first Treaty of Paris. During the subsequent British Period, the former monastery housed British soldiers and several renovations occurred. A two-story building was constructed adjacent to the convent and incorporated the former chapel into its design. In 1774, a three-story wooden barracks was constructed on land currently occupied by the National Cemetery.

Spain once again gained control of Florida in 1784. Several Franciscan friars re-established themselves in the monastery from 1786 until 1792, when the three-story wooden barracks on the site of the present cemetery burned. Following this fire, Spanish soldiers took possession of the property and occupied the two story building constructed during the British period. The Spanish remained on the site until Florida became a United States territory in 1821.

During the first decade of the Territorial Period, the property was used briefly for a jail. In 1832, it was established as an United States military reservation and occupied as such until 1900. It was during this period that the property was first referred to as the ” St. Francis Barracks”.

In 1900, the property was abandoned by the United States Army and briefly occupied by orphans and sisters from the Sisters of St. Joseph convent. The site was vacant from 1901 until 1907 when it was leased to the State of Florida as State Military Headquarters.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

In 1988 the Florida National Guard awarded a contract to the Florida Museum of Natural History to perform an archaeological evaluation of that portion of the property known as the quadrangle. The project was designed to mitigate the impact of proposed sub-surface construction activities on archaeological resources and to uncover evidence of the Franciscan friary, as well as any other archaeological remains not related to the religious occupation of the property.

Under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Deagan as Principal Investigator and Kathleen Hoffman as Site Supervisor, a four month archaeological excavation was initiated on March 15, 1988. A total of 29 excavation units were excavated and 1068 proveniences (discrete archaeological deposits) were identified.

Publications and Reports

Hoffman, Kathleen
1990 Excavations at the Convento de San Fransisco, St. Augustine (Site SA42A: The National Guard Armory). Project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Hoffman, Kathleen
1994 The development of a cultural identity in colonial America: The Spanish-American experience in La Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville

Hoffman, Kathleen
1993 Archaeology of the Convento of San Francisco. In Spanish Missions of La Florida, edited by Bonnie G. McEwan, pp. 62-86. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

32741

Time Period

18th-19th c.

Site History

The Avero house is believed to have been originally constructed sometime after the English siege of 1702. At sometime between 1702 and 1712 the house was acquired by the Averos, a criollo family. It was occupied by Avero descendants over the next sixty years with a few improvements. The Averos departed St. Augustine during the general exodus from Florida during 1763. During the British period, the house is shown to have been occupied by Mr. Kipp. In 1777, there was a private oratory or shrine for Catholic Minorcans at the site. During the second Spanish period, the house is again listed as an Avero possession, but is described as being in poor condition. In 1804, the Avero heirs sold the house, which by then may have been uninhabitable. Between then and 1815, a coquina structure was apparently rebuilt from the Avero ruins. In 1946, the property was acquired by Walter Frazer and reconstructed. Following the 1974 excavations by Kathleen Deagan, the house was again reconstructed as the present day “Greek Orthodox Shrine”.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The Greek Orthodox Shrine, Avero, or SA7-5 site has a long and mostly obscure excavation history. Apparently, Robert Steinbach of the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board, worked there during 1971, 1972, and 1973 probably in an effort to locate architectural features, then of great concern to the Preservation Board. There are no field records or maps relative to these investigations which are represented solely by a collection of analysis cards of unknown proveniences.

In 1974, Kathleen Deagan excavated the site,
(1) in order to recover architectural details for use in reconstruction
(2) to better define Spanish colonial material culture and
(3) to provide a base description of criollo material culture of 18th century St. Augustine.
Reports and field records are in good order for this year.

In 1975, C. Ganzel, a former student of Deagan’s apparently did some work on the backlot elements of the site at the behest of the Preservation Board. The investigations from this year are not written up and only analysis cards for unknown proveniences are available.

In 1977, C. Ganzel again returned to work on backlot elements of the site, particularly in an effort to locate a courtyard wall of the back east wing as illustrated on the 1788 Rocque map. She did locate this feature which is believed to have been constructed sometime between 1759 and 1763. The report and field records are in good order for this excavation.

Also during 1977, John Bostwick, then a current student of Charles Fairbanks apparently worked on the site. Some field records, but no notes or maps survive from this excavation. Analysis cards are available.

Recovery techniques for the 71, 72, and 73 work are unknown. The 1974 excavation used wooden screens with ¼” mesh and water screening. The 1977 Ganzel excavation used ¼” and 1/8″ screens, and wet screening. Recovery techniques for other excavations are unknown, but probably involved ¼” screens and wet screening as well.

Publications and Reports

Arnade, Charles
1962 The Avero Story: An early St. Augustine family with many daughters and many houses. Florida Historical Quarterly 40:1-34.

Deagan, Kathleen
1975 Archaeology at the National Greek Orthodox Shrine Florida State University Notes
in Anthropology # 13. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.

Deagan, Kathleen
1975 New dates for creamware from closed contexts in St. Augustine. Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology Papers 9:13-29.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

50187

Time Period

18th-19th c.

Site History

The first recorded owner of the house at 43 St. George St. was Antonio de Mesa, a native of Vera Cruz, Mexico who came to St. Augustine in the 1740’s. When Spanish rule gave way to British in 1763 de Mesa evacuated with his family to Havana, where he died two years later.

With the British arrival the property was acquired by New York merchant William Walton whose export company had contracted to supply St. Augustine from 1726-1739 and 1754-1763. After Walton’s death in 1768, the property reverted to the British crown who granted it in 1771 to Joseph Stout, the manager of a 31,000 acre estate at Mt. Tucker on the St. John’s River. Stout used the building on St. George St. as both a town house and offices.

When Florida was returned to Spanish rule in 1783, Stout departed for the Bahamas selling the house to Juan Sanchez, the Chief Master Caulker of the Royal Works. The property remained in the Sanchez family until 1832 when it was sold for $1000.00 to Lewis G. Melizet of Havana and John M. Melizet of Philadelphia.

The property changed hands frequently during the next 100 years. It was used as a boarding house, hotel, music store, antique shop, and residence over the years. In 1959 Gerald Horton Fitch opened the building to the public as an exhibition called The Old Spanish Inn. Horton restored the building to appear as an inn might have appeared during the Spanish period of the town. The property was purchased by the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board in 1977.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The Preservation Board launched a major restoration project in 1977, for which Herschel Shepard of Jacksonville was the architect. Archaeological excavations were led by Dr. Kathleen Deagan of Florida State University. The archaeological excavations uncovered 5 Native American burials and several layers of tabby floors. Analysis of the archaeological materials recovered dated the tabby floors to ca. 1760, ca. 1800, and ca. 1813. Evolution of the building from its original one room to its current two-story L-shape was traced.

Further excavations were undertaken in 1977 and 1978 by the HSAPB under the direction of John Bostwick. These excavations were undertaken to assist in proposed extensive restorations by providing further documentation of the architectural evolution of the structure.

Publications and Reports

Bostwick John
1978 Further Excavations in the de Mesa – Sanchez House 1977-1978. Manuscript on file Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Deagan, Kathleen
1978 1977 Excavations of the de Mesa – Sanchez House. Manuscript on file Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Gest, T. R.
1977 Archaeology and Physical Anthropology of Three Burials at the de Mesa Site SA7-6, St. Augustine, Florida. Manuscript on file Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Reitz, Elizabeth
1977 Faunal Remains from the de Mesa Site in St. Augustine. Manuscript on file Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Scardaville, M.
1978 Historical Outline of the DeMesa – Sanchez (Spanish Inn) Site, B-7, L-6, St. Augustine, Florida, with Chain of Title Appended. Manuscript on file Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

113908

Time Period

18th-19th c.

Site History

The site was occupied from 1728 to 1763 in the First Spanish Period by Maria de la Cruz, a Guale Indian woman, her husband Joseph Gallardos, a soldier, and their family. During the British Period, the lot was sold to an English owner, but was occupied after 1777 by Bartolome Usina and his family, Minorcans who had arrived in Florida as indentured servants and subsequently became residents of St. Augustine. The Usinas remained at the property through the Second Spanish Period, having purchased the lot from the Crown in 1803.

The Puente and Jeffreys maps of St. Augustine depict three structures on the lot during the de la Cruz occupation. These were revealed in excavation to be two coquina block buildings on poured tabby foots and a kitchen building evident as shell footings and aligned posts. Structural evidence of the later Usina occupation consisted of a wall trench probably associated with the timber and thatch house ascribed to the Usinas on maps and property tax assessments in the 1790’s.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

“The Maria de la Cruz site (SA 16-23) was the first site in St. Augustine to be excavated with an explicitly processual problem orientation. It was chosen for excavation for a number of reasons; primarily because of its interesting colonial background, but also because of its imminent scheduling for development and its undisturbed and accessible condition – a rarity in the St. Augustine colonial town boundaries”

University of Florida field schools excavated SA 16-23 in 1972 and 1973 by Carl McMurray and Kathleen Deagan under the direction of Charles Fairbanks. The two field seasons recovered a total of 354 field specimen samples covering the occupational history of the site.

The 1972 field season resulted in excavation of 56 features. McMurray (1975: 24-34) describes the two wells that were excavated and 34 other features dating to the colonial period. One of the wells dates to the Second Spanish Period.

First Spanish Period proveniences from the 1973 excavations include foundations to three structures, a garden wall, 1 well, 6 areas of sheet deposit, 3 possible cooking pits, 30 discrete trash pits, and other deposits (see Deagan 1983). Two other wells, constructed during the First Spanish Period, were filled in during the British Period. Descriptions of the 43 features from the 1973 excavations are given in museum records and are also presented in Deagan (1974, 1983).

Zooarchaeological materials relevant to the de la Cruz occupation were analyzed by Elizabeth Reitz and Stephen Cumbaa and the results summarized in Cumbaa’s dissertation and in Deagan (1983). Materials are curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Publications and Reports

Cumbaa, Stephen
1975 Patterns of Resource Use and Cross-Cultural Dietary Change in the Spanish Colonial Period. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Deagan, Kathleen
1973 Mestizaje in colonial St. Augustine. Ethnohistory 20:55-65.

Deagan, Kathleen
1974 Sex, status and role in the mestizaje of Spanish colonial Florida. Ph.D. dissertation, Gainesville, University of Florida.

Deagan, K. A.
1983 Spanish St. Augustine: The archaeology of a colonial creole community. Academic Press, New York

Fairbanks, Charles
1977 Backyard Archaeology as a Research Strategy. The Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology Papers 11, 133-139.

MacMurrary, Carl
1975 The archaeology of a Mestizo household, SA-16-23. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida.

Otto, John and Russell Lewis
1975 A Formal and Functional Analysis of San Marcos Pottery from Site SA-16-23, St. Augustine. Florida Department of State, Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties
Bulletin 4.

Reitz, Elizabeth
1979 Spanish and British Subsistence Strategies at St. Augustine, Florida and Frederica, Georgia between 1565 and 1783. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

150000

Time Period

ca.1575-19th c.

Site History

No documentary or cartographic information regarding the 16th or 17th century occupation of the de Leon sites exists, but archaeological investigations indicate that the Lorenzo Josef de Leon site has been continuously occupied since the 16th century. Historical and archaeological evidence also suggests that it has always been the site of a domestic occupation. The first documented reference to this property appears on the Elixio de la Puente map, a map that depicts St. Augustine at the close of the First Spanish Period in 1763. On this map, Lorenzo Josef de Leon, a prominent and affluent criollo who held a high position in the militia as Captain of the Mounted Dragoons, is listed as the owner of the lot in 1763. The house located on the lot was sold in 1764 to Jesse Fish, who is listed as the lot owner on the Moncrief map of 1765. The next reference to this lot was made in 1782, when the British crown granted the lot to John Henley.

In 1785, the property was sold to Bernando Sequi and in 1787 it was legally transferred to Jeoseph Bousqet. At the time of this sale, a two story stone house existed on the lot. The property was owned by various members of the Bousqet family from 1787 until 1824 when it was sold to John Drysdale. Lois Drysdale, John’s wife, sold the house to the Trinity Episcopal Church in 1858. The property was sold again in 1905, and several owners are listed for the site during the 20th century.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The Lorenzo Josef de Leon site is situated approximately one block to the west of the Matanzas River near the southern end of the 16th century colonial town of St. Augustine. Today, the site is on a lot bounded by Bravo Lane to the north, Aviles Street to the south, Charlotte Street on the west, and Marine Street on the east, and houses a private, domestic residence. Beginning in 1977 and continuing until 1979, Florida State University and the University of Florida conducted three separate archaeological excavation projects at the de Leon site (Singleton 1977; Braley 1978; Caballero and Zierden 1979). The primary purpose of these excavations was to recover spatial patterns and material culture associated with the 16th century town. Additional excavations were conducted by the City of St. Augustine in 1979, but no field records or field reports exist, and the location of the original analysis cards is unknown. However, xeroxes of most of the analysis cards are on file in the Historical Archaeology lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Publications and Reports

Deagan, Kathleen
1978 Archaeological Strategy in the investigation of an unknown era: 16th century St. Augustine. Unpublished project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History,
Gainesville.

Deagan, Kathleen
1985 The archaeology of sixteenth century St. Augustine. The Florida Anthropologist 38:6-33.

King, Julia
1981 An archaeological investigation of 17th century St. Augustine. Unpublished MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee

King, Julia
1984 Ceramic variability in 17th century St. Augustine, Florida. Historical Archaeology 18(2):75-82.

Reitz, Elizabeth J., and C. Margaret Scarry
1985 Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth century Spanish Florida. The Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication No. 3.

Scarry, C. Margaret
1985 The use of plant foods in sixteenth century St. Augustine.
Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):70-80.

Singleton, Teresa
1977 The Archaeology of a Pre-Eighteenth Century House Site in St. Augustine. Master’s thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Zierden, Martha
1981 The archaeology of the nineteenth century second Spanish period in St. Augustine, Florida. MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

62439

Time Period

ca.1575-19th c.

Site History

This property lies within the borders of the sixteenth century town. Little documentary information regarding the lot layout, its occupational history or its function during the First Spanish Period is available. The Puente map shows the existence of two houses, a frame house owned by Don Domingo Rodriguez Jacinto and a tabby dwelling owned by Micaela Villaverda, at the end of the First Spanish Period in 1763 (Deagan 1978: 11). Archaeological investigations have revealed that the property has been continually occupied since the late 16th century and may have functioned as a domestic residence throughout the period of Spanish occupation (Deagan 1978, 1980, 1981; Williams 1979). During the 1900’s, a large hotel, called the Aloha House, was located on the property.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The Trinity Episcopal Church lot its located one block south of the modern town plaza of St. Augustine, and is bounded by St. George Street to the west, Cadiz Street on the south, Artillery Lane on the north and by the Oldest Store Museum to the east. The lot is presently occupied by the Episcopal Church playground. Initial archaeological testing by Florida State University took place from April until September of 1977 under the supervision of Dale Benton (Deagan 1978), and were continued in the spring of 1978 under the supervision of Maurice Williams (Williams 1978), in the summer of 1979 and the spring of 1980 under the supervision of Richard Vernon (Vernon 1980, 1980a), and in 1981 under the supervision of Charlie Stevens (Stevens 1981).

Publications and Reports

Deagan, Kathleen
1978 Archaeological strategy in the investigation of an unknown
era: 16th century St. Augustine. Unpublished project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History Gainesville.

Reitz, Elizabeth J., and C. Margaret Scarry
1985 Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth century Spanish Florida. The Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication No. 3.

Scarry, C. Margaret
1985 The use of plant foods in sixteenth century St. Augustine.
Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):70-80.

Williams, Maurice
1978 Test excavations at a sixteenth century site in St.
Augustine, Florida SA-34-1. Project report on file,
Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

73425

Time Period

18th-19th c.

Site History

No documentary or cartographic information regarding the 16th and 17th century occupation of the de Hita site exists, and it was apparently unoccupied until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The de Hita site appears on the Jefferys map (1762), the Puente map (1763), and the Moncrief map (1765). The lot had two houses on it. The northern structure was the property of Bernardo Gonzales, a mestizo. The southern house, a two room structure with an outbuilding in the back, was occupied by Geronimo de Hita y Salazar, a criollo native of St. Augustine. Unable to sell his portion of the lot prior to the British occupation of St. Augustine, Geronimo entrusted the property to Elixio de la Puente who eventually sold it to Jesse Fish in 1764. The de Hita and the Gonzales houses were sold in 1777 to Captain Andrew Rainsford, a British officer. The de Hita house apparently deteriorated or was pulled down later during the year and the property reverted to the Crown in 1778. The house belonging to Gonzalez presumably remained intact, at least for a short period of time. The lot was purchased by Luciano de Herrera, one of a handful of Spaniards who remained during the British occupation. Throughout the remainder of the British period and much of the Second Spanish period, the lot was used as a garden area. The property was sold to Rosalie Andrew in 1869 and remained in her family’s possession until 1884. During this period, there is a likelihood that one or more buildings were erected, but it is not until 1890 that firm evidence for a structure exists. Sometime during the 1880’s or early 1890’s a two-story frame dwelling was built. The house was still standing in 1910, but about 1916 or 1917 disappeared and was replaced by a wood-frame stuccoed building, the New Dixie Highway Hotel, described by one long time resident of St. Augustine as a hang-out for “bums and prostitutes”. The hotel occupied the site until about 1950. By 1955 lot 4 was being used as a parking lot and remained vacant until reconstructed during the early 1980’s.

Geronimo de Hita y Salazar was born during October of 1706, the son of the Adjutant Don Pedro de Hita y Salazar and the grandson of Pablo de Hita y Salazar, who was Governor and Captain-General of Florida from 1675-1680. At the age of twenty eight, in 1734, Geronimo joined the garrison and became a cavalryman. His rank, after 18 years of service, remained that of a private. He was the commanding officer of Fort Mose, a garrison of free blacks north of St. Augustine, but by 1763 this position brought him no increase in salary. Geronimo married on December 20, 1736, Juana de Avero, a twenty one year old window. The couple had five children, all whom attained maturity.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The de Hita site was excavated by students from Florida State University during 1975 and 1976 under the direction of Kathleen Deagan. The primary purpose of these excavations was to recover spatial patterns and material culture associated with the criollo peoples of St. Augustine. The site was also excavated from 1977-1978 by John Bostwick and again in 1982 by Jimmy Smith presumably under auspices of the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board. The only records of these later excavations are white analysis cards.

Publications and Reports

Reitz, Elizabeth
1979 Spanish and British Subsistence Strategies at St. Augustine, Florida and Frederica,
Georgia between 1565 and 1783. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida.

Shepherd, Stephen
1976 The Geronimo de Hita y Salazar site: A study of criollo culture in colonial St. Augustine. Master’s thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Shepherd, Stephen
1983 The Spanish Criollo Majority in Colonial St. Augustine. in Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of A Colonial Creole Community edited by K. Deagan,
pp. 65-97. Academic Press, New York.

Site Type

Domestic

Number of Specimens

101327

Time Period

ca.1775-19th c.

Site History

The first map depicting a structure at SA 7-7 is the 1765 Moncrief map, which shows one wooden structure on the lot, probably built during the British Period. The major occupation, and the focus of this excavation, was by the Minorcan Pellicer and de Burgo families who arrived during the British Period and remained afterward. Jose Peso de Burgo and Francisco Pellicer purchased the lot in 1780 and built two house and additional outbuildings. Both Pellicer and de Burgo eventually moved to other residences in St. Augustine and this property went through several owners during the Second Spanish Period. Researchers should consult the Lot and Block Files in St. Augustine for a list of successive residents. The principal closed context proveniences at this site are British and Second Spanish Period, although there appear to be some features dating to the 18th century First Spanish Period.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

SA 7-7 was excavated by Bruce Council in 1974 as a project for the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board. The goals of the project were to excavate the foundation of two buildings dating to the 1780’s and any associated deposits in order to reconstruct the buildings and provide an interpretive framework for furnishings and daily life. The basic excavation was 3 x 3 meters with 20 centimeter balks. Initial excavation was by arbitrary level, designated simply as LEVEL; arbitrary levels were used primarily for upper strata. Once it was possible to determine cultural or natural strata in each unit, proveniences were designated as ZONE, AREA, or FEATURE. There were also a large number of disturbances present, which were labeled as DISTURBANCE and identified by number. Total field specimens for the site numbered 422, including 27 features. The FS Catalog is in two separate volumes stored in the Historic Archaeology Lab. The first volume is FS# 1-153; the second from FS# 163-422. Information for FS#s 154-162 occur on the white analysis cards only. Additional information on features can be found in the preliminary site report. The site contained a barrel well but unfortunately there is no information on its feature number.

Publications and Reports

Council, R. Bruce
1974 Preliminary field report on excavations at the De Burgo
Pellicer site, B7-L7, St. Augustine. Project report on file, Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Site Type

Contact

Number of Specimens

102518

Time Period

1565-18th c.

Site History

This site contains a number of highly significant archaeological and historical resources dating from early prehistoric times to the 20th century. Archaeological evidence suggests occupation of the area from the Orange Period (ca. 1500 B.C. – A.D. 200). The site apparently was not used intensively during St. Johns I times (ca. A.D. 200 – A.D. 1200). Occupation during the subsequent St. Johns II period (A.D. 1200 – A.D. 1580) was more intensive. It was during the end of this period that the area is believed to have served as the Timucua chief Seloy’s village, and as the site of the original Menendez settlement of St. Augustine as there is extensive archaeological evidence for a pre-1580 Spanish occupation. The park also contains evidence of mission period (late 16th and early 17th century) deposits. There is limited evidence for occupation during the 18th century, though the area was heavily farmed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Today the site is a tourist attraction which is largely undisturbed by any 20th century activities.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The Fountain of Youth Park site has been investigated numerous times during the 20th century beginning with Dickson’s 1934 excavation of the historic period Indian cemetery located within the present day limits of the park. Dickson uncovered more than 100 burials which were later enclosed in a building for display, and were covered in 1992. Following Dickson’s work, the site was excavated by Vernon Lamme, then state archaeologist for the State of Florida.

Excavation of the historic period Timucua Indian village associated with the burials began in 1950 under the direction of John Goggin of the University of Florida. During the 1970’s, the site was intensively surveyed and excavated as part of the Florida State University field school program under the direction of Kathleen Deagan (Luccetti 1976, Merritt 1977, 1983, Deagan 1983). The site was later investigated as part of the University of Florida field school program, again under the direction of Dr. Deagan. The excavations of the 1980’s revealed that there was a very early 16th century Spanish occupation of the site which predated 1580. Because of the geographical location of the site, the presence of an intensive late St. John’s II village, and the presence of pre-1580 European materials associated with the Timucua village site all suggested that the Fountain of Youth Park could have been the site of the original Menendez occupation of St. Augustine. The site was excavated further during 1991 to test the hypothesis that this was the site of the first camp or fort of Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Since 1991 additional excavations have been conducted in the southeast quadrant of the park through 2015. These projects have provided further evidence of the 1565 encampment of Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his settlers.

Publications and Reports

Chaney, Edward E.
1987 Report on the 1985 Excavations at the Fountain of Youth Park Site (8-SJ-31), St. Augustine, Florida. On file, Historical Archaeology Laboratory, DA.

Chaney, Edward and Kathleen Deagan
1989 St. Augustine and the La Florida colony: new life-styles in
a new land. In First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570, edited by Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. Pp.166-82.

Gordon, C. Gardner
1992 Report on the 1992 Excavations at the Fountain of Youth Park, St. Augustine (8-SJ-31), with Introduction and Summary Interpretations of the 1991 Excavations by Kathleen Deagan. On file, Historical Archaeology Laboratory, DA.

Merritt, James
1983 Beyond the Town Walls: The Indian Element in Colonial St. Augustine. In Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology
of a Colonial Creole Community, edited by K. Deagan, pp.
125-150. Academic Press, New York.

1977 Excavations at a coastal Eastern Timucua village in northeast Florida. Unpublished MA thesis, Florida State University Anthropology, Tallahassee.

Reitz, Elizabeth
1985 A comparison of Spanish and aboriginal subsistence on the
Atlantic coastal plain. Southeastern Archaeology (1):41-50.

Seaberg, Lillian
1951 Report on the Indian site at the “Fountain of Youth”. Ms. on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville. Reprinted in America’s Ancient City: Sourcebook on Spanish St. Augustine edited by K. Deagan. New York: Garland Press. 1991.

Stuhlman, Robin
1995 Acculturation in the Spanish colonies: a comparison of sixteenth century St. Augustine and Puerto Real. MA thesis, University of Florida, Anthropology.

Site Type

Mission

Number of Specimens

15495

Time Period

1565-18th c.

Site History

This site has been identified as a possible site of the first Spanish fort built in St. Augustine under the direction of Pedro Menendez de Aviles. The site itself is located on the grounds of the Catholic Nombre de Dios mission and the Shrine of Nuestra de la Leche just south of and adjacent to the Fountain of Youth Park (8SJ31).

Archaeology and maps demonstrate continuous use of the property since 1565. Middens associated with a late St. Johns period Timucua village, 16th century Spanish features, and burials associated with a 17th century mission have all been documented within the confines of the Fountain of Youth Park and point to it as the location of the original settlement. The mission of Nombre de Dios was established at the same time. Its location is unknown but tradition has placed it within the property boundaries of the current mission.

In the 18th century the mission of Nombre de Dios shared much the same fortunes as St. Augustine. The mission was burned in 1702 during Moore’s attack on St. Augustine. Afterwards, it was settled by Yamassee Indians from Georgia and became known as Yamassee Town. In 1728, the mission was burned again in a raid by Palmer. During the British and Second Spanish periods the grounds of the mission and of the shrine of Nuestra Senora de la Leche were leased for cultivation. The Catholic Church regained possession of the property in 1872 and built the current chapel building in 1915.

In comparison to information about the mission of Nombre de Dios there is comparatively little known about the location of early Spanish forts at the site. The property has always been considered a likely setting for 16th century fort remains. However it was not until 1985 that archaeological evidence was discovered which may have been related to the first fort.

Site Excavation and Analysis History

The earliest known archaeological investigations at Nombre de Dios was a series of trenches excavated by Jack Winter in 1938. Unfortunately, Winter’s maps and field notes were not tied-in to permanent landmarks so that it is now difficult to know the exact location of his work. The purpose of the 1938 field season was to locate evidence of a wooden fort supposed to be on the site in the late 17th century. No evidence for large scale structures or fortifications were found in Winter’s excavations.

In 1985, Edward Chaney, a graduate student at the University of Florida conducted test excavations at the site. Chaney discovered some type of trench or ditch that was dated to the 16th century and hypothesized to be the moat surrounding one of the early Spanish forts, perhaps the first.

In 1993, the Institute for Early Contact Studies at the University of Florida provided support for a three week excavation at the site. Under Dr. Kathleen Deagan as Principal Investigator, site supervisor James Cusick verified that the feature found by Chaney was indeed a 16th century moat.

In 1994, the University of Florida returned to the site to conduct an archaeological field school under Dr. Kathleen Deagan with John Morris as site supervisor. The 1994 excavations uncovered a larger portion of the “moat” feature as well as a large burnt feature thought to be a lime kiln.

Further excavations were conducted by the University of Florida field school under Dr. Kathleen Deagan in 1997. Gifford Waters a graduate student at the university served as site supervisor. These excavations were successful in further defining the “moat” feature, which terminated without turning, positively identifying the large feature as a lime kiln, and discovering more 16th century features. Unfortunately, the discoveries of this field season left as many questions as it answered. The most compelling of these questions was still the location of the fort.

Publications and Reports

Chaney, Edward
1986 Survey and Evaluation of Archaeological Resources in the Abbott Tract and North City, St. Augustine. MA paper on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville

Morris, John W.
1995 Report on excavations at 8-SJ-34, St. Augustine (1994). Unpublished project report on file, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville

Waters, Gifford
1997 Exploratory excavations at Florida’s First Spanish Fort : SJ-34. MA paper, Anthropology. University of Florida, Gainesville

St. Augustine Collections