The St. John river is about 400 miles in length, and from two to three miles wide, as far up as Lake George. It is, in fact, rather an arm of the sea than a river, and probably is the remains of an ancient lagoon. Its current is about one mile an hour, and the slope of its bed so little that at such a distance from its mouth as at Lake Monroe, a careful survey showed that it was but three feet six inches above sea level. The tides are perceptible as far as Lake George, and its water more or less brackish at least this far. This may be partly owing to several large salt springs which empty into it. Its waters are of a light coffee-color, frequently covered with a perceptible scum. Above Lake George they are pleasant to the taste, but do not easily quench the thirst, apparently owing to the salts of various kinds in solution.
Contrary to all the other large streams in the United States, the St. John flows nearly due south until within fifteen miles of its mouth, when it turns abruptly to the east, entering the Atlantic at 30 degrees 24 seconds, north latitude. For this peculiarity of its course, the Chahtas named it Il-la-ka, corrupted into Welaka by the whites. Mr. Buckingham Smith asked an intelligent native what the word meant. He answered slowly: “It hath its own way, is alone, and contrary to every other.”
The only important tributary it receives is the Oklawaha. They each drain a row of numerous ponds, lakes, and marshes, and are separated by the Thlauhatke, or White Hills, the highest hills in the peninsula, and an elevated sandy ridge, covered with scruboak, known as the “Eteniah scrub.”
The St. John was discovered in 1562, by Jean Ribaut, leader of the Huguenot colony of Admiral Coligny. He named it the River May, having entered it in that month. In the Spanish chronicles it is referred to as the Rio de San Matteo (St. Matthew). When it was named San Juan, does not appear, but the English took this name and translated it into the present appellation.
In accordance with the best usage of our geographical writers, I shall omit the possessive sign, and speak of it as the St. John river; and in mentioning localities on the right or left bank, the reader is notified that while geographically these terms are used as if a person were descending the river, for the convenience of the traveler I use them as of one ascending it.
The mouth of the St. John is hardly a mile wide, and is impeded by a shifting sand bar, having rarely more than seven feet of water at low tide. The entrance is by a southerly pass, which leaves the course of the stream concealed by the shore of Baton island, on the north. This island is settled by a number of river pilots with their families, hardy and worthy people. On the southern shore the tourist sees the old and new lighthouses, and a row of brilliantly white sand dunes extending inland a mile or more.
Baton Island passed, an extensive salt marsh is seen to form the northern bank of the river; through this numerous sluggish streams wind their way, forming part of the “inside, passage” to Fernandina. Near the entrance of this passage a number of symmetrical mounds, from 20 to 50 feet in height, strike the eye. These are known as “The Sisters,” or more prosaically as the “Oyster Banks,” as, on examination, they prove to be composed almost exclusively of broken oyster shells, covered with a tangled low shrubbery. No doubt they are relics of the many glorious oyster feasts indulged in by the indigenes in times gone by. I regret that they were not visited by Prof. Jeffries Wyman, who has given us so excellent an account of the “Fresh-Water-Shell-Heaps of the St. John’s River, East Florida,” (Salem, Mass., 1868).
Having passed the bar, the river rapidly widens. About six miles from the entrance the channel runs close along the base of a hill or headland of moderate height, covered with pine, cedar, etc. This is *St. John’s Bluff, and is unquestionably the site of Fort Caroline, the settlement of Coligny’s band of Huguenots in 1562.
A tragic interest surrounds this spot. Here, in 1564, Rene de Laudonniere established the colony of French Protestants, intending to reclaim a portion of this vast wilderness. His action was soon reported at the jealous court of Spain.
Phillip II. at once despatched Pedro Menendez de Aviles, an accomplished soldier and earnest Catholic, to root out the feeble colony. It was done only too well. In the excitement of a surprise, Sept. 19th, 1565, the orders of Menendez to spare the women, the old men, and the children were disregarded by the furious soldiery, and nearly every one was massacred. Laudonniere and a few others escaped by scrambling down the rough and thorn-covered eastern face of the bluff, and wading through the marshes to the mouth of the river, where they reached their ships. They bore the distressing tidings to France. The ruler of that realm, the projector of the massacre of St. Bartholemew, and the son of Catharine de Medicis, was not the one to trouble himself about the death of a few Huguenots who had encroached on foreign soil. But the stain of unavenged blood did not remain on France. A private gentleman, Dominique de Gourgues, fitted out an expedition in 1568. Suddenly appearing before Fort Caroline, then manned by Spanish troops, he attacked and routed the garrison and burned the structure. As it was reported that Menendez had inscribed on a tablet that the massacre of the Huguenots was not done “as to Frenchmen but to heretics;” so De Gourgues returned the grim courtesy, and left an inscription that the dead men around had been slain “not as Spaniards, but as traitors, thieves and murderers.”