THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA. 17 



For 128 years the existence of Mt. Royal has been a matter of history. The 

 elder Bartram, a Philadelphia Quaker, on his way down the St. John's, January, 

 1766, stopped at Mt. Royal. Under date of the 25th he writes : l "* * * "About 

 noon we landed at Mount Royal, and went to an Indian tumulus, which was about 

 100 yards in diameter, nearly round, and nearly 20 feet high, found some bones 

 scattered on it, it must be very ancient, as live oaks are growing upon it, three feet 

 in diameter ; what a prodigious multitude of Indians must have labored to raise it ? 

 to what height, we can't say, as it must have settled much in such a number of 

 years, and it is surprising where they brought the sand from, and how, as they had 

 nothing but baskets and boards to carry it in ; there seems to be a little hollow 

 near the adjacent level on one side, though not likely to raise such a tumulus the 

 50th part of what it is, but directly north from the tumulus is a fine straight 

 avenue about 60 yards broad, all the surface of which has been taken off, and 

 thrown on each side, which makes a bank of about a rood wide, and a foot high, 

 more or less, as the unevenness of the ground required, for the avenue is as level 

 as a floor from bank to bank, and continues so for about three-quarters of a mile to 

 a pond of about 100 yards broad and 150 yards long, N. and S. seem to be an 

 oblong square and its banks 4 feet perpendicular gradually sloping every way to 

 the water, the depth of which we could not say, but do not imagine it deep as the 

 grass grows all over it ; by its irregularity it seems to be artificial ; if so, perhaps the 

 sand was carried from hence to raise the tumulus, as the one directly faces the 

 other at each end of the avenue ; on the south side of the tumulus I found a very 

 large rattlesnake sunning himself, I suppose this to be his winter quarters ; here 

 had formerly been a large Indian town ; I suppose there is 50 acres of planting 

 ground, cleared, and of middling soil, a good part of which is mixed with small 

 shells ; no doubt this large tumulus was their burying place or sepulchre ; whether 

 the Florida Indians buried the bones after the flesh was rotted off them, as the 

 present Southern Indians do, I can't say ; * * * " 



Shortly before the Revolutionary War, the younger Bartram (William) went 

 up the river alone as far as what is now called Lake Beresford, passing a night at 

 Mt. Royal. The place had been under cultivation, which was not the case when 

 John Bartram went up the river. " At about 50 yards distant from the landing- 

 place," he writes, " stands a magnificent Indian mount * * * But what greatly 

 contributed towards completing the magnificence of the scene was a noble Indian 

 highway, which leads from the great mount, on a straight line, three-quarters of a 

 mile, first through a point or wing of the orange grove and continuing thence 

 through an awful forest of live oaks, it was terminated by palms and laurel mag- 

 nolias on the verge of an oblong artificial lake which was on the edge of a green 

 level savanna. This grand highway was about fifty yards wide, sunk a little 



1 A Journal kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty for the Floridas, upon a 

 journey from St. Augustine up the river St. John's as far as the Lakes. With explanatory Botanic notes- The 

 third edition, much enlarged and improved, London, sold by W. Nicoll, No. 51 St. Paul's Church-yard; and 

 T. Jeffries at Charing Cross— Geographer to His Majesty, MDCCLXIX. 



