Old St. A\igustine 
Her Harbor Come Hack to Its Own 
By DeWITT WEBB 
T WENTY-FIVE years ago the harbor of 
St. Augustine during society’s season was 
white with the sails of many yachts. 
There were more than seventy-five of them. 
Each morning saw them one by one leaving the 
wharf, each with its own pleasure party, bound 
for some point on the beach or some place up 
North River or down the Matanzas. Some re¬ 
turned for lunch, but more were out for the 
day. Another party would go out in the after¬ 
noon for a shorter sail, returning at evening 
with the rest. Ihe full beauty of the scene came 
when toward sunset they sailed slowly home in 
the glow of the setting sun. They sailed slowly, 
for the wind was going down with the sun, and 
the reefs taken in in the fresh breeze of the 
morning were now all shaken out to catch its 
last light breath before the calm of the evening 
finally fell. 1 hey did not all get to shore at 
sunset. Generally in the distance as the sun 
went down one or two idly flapping sails might 
be seen slowly making their way homeward pro¬ 
pelled by an "ash breeze,” the natural conse¬ 
quence of some party “from the interior” un¬ 
accustomed to the way of the wind in this part 
of the world, disregarding the warning of the 
skipper as to the falling of the wind at sunset. 
Then over the harbor, as the sun went down, 
boomed the sunset gun as it had for three hun¬ 
dred years; for, from its founding St. Augus¬ 
tine had been a garrison town, and the flag came 
down for the night as the sound died away. 
This was the life and beauty of the harbor 
for all the years. Every year had seen more 
graceful yachts built; every year saw more peo¬ 
ple sail them. Nowhere else was there such 
safe water; nowhere so few accidents. There 
were oyster roasts all along the beach, for the 
skipper could anchor his boat while he went 
on shore and assisted his sometimes rather green 
guests in the mystery of cooking these delicate 
bivalve^ close to the sea. Then the wander¬ 
ings by the sea. Every morning if you so de¬ 
sired you could go down to the sea wall by 4:30 
and get your fish from the cypress canoe you 
had seen paddled away for the lagoon the night 
before. 
1 hen came the spell of the bicycle; golf and 
tennis; the saddle; and then the larger crowd of 
people from the West and Northwest who were 
not familiar with the sea and were afraid to 
venture in the little yachts lest they should cap¬ 
size. So year by year the fleet grew smaller and 
one by one the skippers sought other callings, 
and a sad quiet settled over the harbor. Even 
the schooners that used to sail from Maine with 
ice and from New York with merchandise dis¬ 
appeared. The railway had come and their 
occupation was gone. So year after year the 
sad quiet grew, and the harbor which had floated 
'■ ' ' 
FORT MARION AND THE HARBOR TO-DAY. 
the caravels of Ponce de Leon and Laudonniere 
and Menendez and the buccaneer crafts of 
Drake and Morgan, for the greater part of the 
time was without a sail upon its bosom. The 
shell road in the vicinity of the city had made 
the carriage ride possible, and so it seemed as 
if the glory of the harbor had departed for¬ 
ever. 
Something else, however, was happening. 
Almost without observation the East Coast Canal, 
that for twenty-five years had been slowly and 
under many difficulties making its way, connect¬ 
ing the various arms of the sea along the coast, 
at last cut through the last barrier, leaving 
an open waterway from St. Augustine to the 
Florida Keys. The time found the motor boat 
ready. It had been growing in perfection and 
speed each year, and so all the way from the 
little racer to the commodious houseboat the 
various craft came from the South by the newly 
opened gateway of the canal and from over the 
harbor bar from all places 'North. They were 
of all classes and dimensions, from the com¬ 
modious houseboat in which the man and his 
family carried their home with them wherever 
fate or fancy might lead, to the tiny racer that 
seemed just alive for speed. A few carry masts 
and apologies for sails, but the assistant, the 
little engine chugging away below, does the 
work. 
Most of the old sailing yachts even have been 
converted into motors and sail over their old 
ground with the same sailing master, but with 
a new motive power less at the mercy and favor 
of wind and tide. It does not matter much, so 
that we are on the beautiful water. 
1 he general view of the bay has changed less 
perhaps than any other in the country. There 
is no more interesting body of water because 
of the men who have sailed it. 
Take a seat some day in a corner of a bastion 
of the old fort and look seaward. You may see 
a sail creeping along toward the bar and the 
inlet. So if you had looked seaward over the 
sandhills of North Beach on that spring day in 
I 5 I 3 y° u would have seen the ships of Ponce 
de Leon who, from the place where he had first 
come ashore a few miles further north, was 
making his way to the harbor where the inlet 
and the two arms of the sea reminded him of 
the holy cross. You can see him sailing away 
after his brief stay with a fleet of canoes filled 
with curious Indians from the village which 
lined the shore for many miles. Then for fifty 
years the canoes of the Indians alone sailed its 
sunlit waters. Then you can see Laudonniere 
coming to take possession in the name of France. 
He, too, sailed away for the St. Johns and built 
Fort Caroline. A year or two later the fleet 
of Menendez appeared and those ships that were 
light of draft came over the bar and sailing 
along came to anchor just in front of where 
