Crawling Through St. Augustine Archaeology: Week 4, the 19th Century
Every October, we traditionally host our St. Augustine Archaeology Pub Crawl to celebrate International Archaeology Day. Unfortunately, this year we are unable to host the event due to restrictions on public events because of the global pandemic. However, we'll be bringing you a virtual crawl through the City's archaeology through a weekly series featuring archaeological research, links to more resources, and fun beverage pairings. Keep your eyes peeled for a new post every Friday.
This week, we'll explore the big changes that come in the 19th century.
The Sites:
After changing hands between the Spanish and the Brits in the 18th century, the 19th century brings La Florida in to the United States as a territory in 1821 and a state in 1845. The 19th century is marked by the City's transformation into an American town, featuring new residents and businesses, and, by the end of the century, a budding tourism industry.
We can look to the cemeteries to see big changes on the landscape as Florida transitions from Spanish to American. For the first few centuries, most residents were Catholic and buried under church floors, and then at Tolomato Cemetery beginning in the 1760s. As protestants began to move into the area, many were buried on family property outside of town. However, the influx of protestants in the early 1800s was met with a yellow fever epidemic - and that meant the town was in need of a cemetery, and fast. And so Huguenot Cemetery was established just north of the City gates. The cemetery shows the strengthened connections to places like Charleston, SC as many of the families buried at the site - and many of the stones themselves, originated there. Both cemeteries were closed in 1884 due to health concerns.
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| Huguenot Cemetery, circa 1880s. Photo: Florida Memory |
Read more about Tolomato Cemetery on the Tolomato Cemetery Preservation Association's website, or Huguenot Cemetery on the Memorial Presbyterian Church's website.
Beginning in the mid-1800s, St. Augustine also sees the growth of another flourishing community: Lincolnville. In 1866, this area south of downtown was divided into lots for a neighborhood for recently emancipated slaves. The City Archaeology Program excavated the Kelton Site in 2002 and got a glimpse into the lives of four generations of the family who lived in the house beginning in the late 1800s. Archaeologists excavated trash pits and a privy, recovering food remains, personal items, decorative item and more.
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| Panel from the exhibit on the Kelton Site at the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center. Photo Credit: FPAN |
Read more about the Kelton site in our blog post, or check out the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center for more on Lincolnville.
Other sites in town tell the story of the burgeoning tourism industry. The Ximenez-Fatio House, with its original part constructed in 1798 and new additions over the next few decades, served as a family home and storefront before being converted into a boarding house for much of the 19th century. The boarding house was operated by several women (another cool aspect!) who offered a place for US visitors to see the sites of the new territory or convalesce is what was touted as a more healing environment. Today, the site operates as a historic house museum and is probably the most excavated property in all of St. Augustine! While archaeological finds date to long before the 19th century, the main structure and a lot of research has focus on the home and boarding house operating in the 1800s. In fact, archaeological clues have helped curators furnish the museum with items like ceramics in the style of what was actually used at the property historically.
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| The ceramics on display at the House Museum are the same types uncovered by archaeologists at the site! Photo: Ximenez Fatio House Museum |
Read more about the site, and view artifacts, at the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum's website, or the Florida Museum's online exhibit.
You can't very well talk about 19th century St. Augustine without mentioning Henry Flagler! He a built a winter vacation empire in Florida, starting in St. Augustine with the Ponce de Leon Hotel. While this building still stands, there are a few interesting buried sites linked to Flagler's enterprises in town. Excavations in 2016 ahead of new Flagler College dorm rooms revealed well-preserved logs that probably served as foundational support for Union Station. The station, opened in 1889, sat along Malaga Street, and brought guests and supplies to the hotels. The building was built in a very marshy area that required some serious stabilization.
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| These hefty logs served as foundational support for Flagler's Union Station, opened 1889. Photo: Florida Times Union. |
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| View of Union Station, circa 1910. Photo: Florida Memory. |
You can read more about this excavation in this news article.
The Beverage:
As Henry Flagler was making St. Augustine a winter vacation destination for the wealthy, cocktail culture was just beginning. One of the first big cocktails was the Manhattan, dating to the early 1880s and a widespread hit by the time the Ponce de Leon opened in 1888. For a local twist, why not try one made with St. Augustine Distillery's Florida Bourbon?
Words by Emily Jane Murray, FPAN Staff. Image credits noted in captions.