Sept. 5, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
3 6 9 
you are sitting, and Menendez came ashore 
where the cacique had his large oblong habita¬ 
tion which he gave Menendez, and the Spaniard 
at once began to throw his earthworks around 
it. 
This must have been on the very site of the 
present fort or just west on the reservation. 
Two days later he went a little way north to 
a spot you can see and mass was said. This 
was the first formal religious service within the 
boundaries of the present United States. 
nessed. It takes no very vivid imagination to 
recall them, for the change in the setting of the 
picture has been very slight. The sandhills and 
the marshes are as they were then, and the 
waves are dashing over the bar as they were 
when the larger vessels lay in the offing, unable 
to cross the bar. 
Barely twenty years passed and Sir Francis 
Drake, with his ships sailing to the Spanish 
Main, came in to find what he could and nearly 
destroyed the little town; but there was little 
In the early summer of 1740 on a peaceful 
day the sails of the fleet of Governor Oglethorpe, 
of Georgia, appeared beyond the bar. The 
greater number were of too heavy draft and 
so came to anchor beyond, while the lighter 
transports, after landing the troops four or five 
miles below, were able to sail over the bar with 
cannon and supplies, and the Spanish galleys 
took refuge near the mouth of the Sebastian 
well out of harm’s way. One can fancy the 
troops erecting their batteries on Anastasia and 
AN EARLY AND RARE VIEW OF THE HARBOR. 
From an engraving made about 1650, and now in the St. Augustine Museum. 
A day or two later Menendez went out with 
his dispatches for the king to the caravel lying 
beyond the bar, and even then Ribault’s fleet was 
bearing down upon him and he barely escaped 
capture by getting inside the bar just in time, 
while the caravel with his dispatches for the 
king sailed away. • Even then the September 
gale was rising and Ribault was forced to sail 
away before it, and Menendez with the genius 
of the great commander seized the opportunity 
to make that memorable march through the 
woods in the face of the fierce gale to the as¬ 
sault and capture of Fort Caroline, but our tale 
is only of the harbor and the scenes it has wit- 
booty and so he soon sailed away to seek for 
richer plunder. And then Morgan, the bucca¬ 
neer, not wishing to overlook anything on his 
plundering cruise, tried his hand. 
After that for long years the quiet of the 
harbor was broken only when the ships from 
Spain came to bear troops and food for the 
colony. Otherwise all the harbor saw were the 
numerous canoes of the Indians from the large 
village on the site of what is now known as 
Casa Cola, eight or nine miles up North River 
or from the large village at what is now Du 
Ponts near Matanzas, or from the smaller vil¬ 
lages between. 
on North Beach and the beginning of the siege. 
The fort was completed just as you find it now 
and the garrison seemed to have suffered very 
little from the bombardment. 
It must have been of great interest and of 
little danger to those who stood where you are 
standing and saw the shots fired from the clump 
of trees still standing on Anastasia Island and 
saw them harmlessly bury themselves in the 
walls of the fort. You have yourself seen some 
of these balls, rusty and rough, still preserved 
in the old museum down the street. But the 
early gales warned the commander of the fleet 
of impending disaster if he should remain off 
