One of the orange groves was pointed out as that purchased by Major John Hay, late the President’s private secretary. It had been sold for unpaid taxes by the Land Commissioner—the taxes having remained unpaid for the sufficient reason that the owner was away in the Rebel army—and Major Hay had secured it by an investment of some five hundred dollars. Last year, as an enthusiastic Floridian explained, the orange crop was worth two thousand five hundred dollars! But, unfortunately for my dormant enthusiasm, Hay had told me of his financial success in Florida before I left Washington. “Incidental expenses” had required him to advance another sum about equal to the original purchase money, and while the orange crop might, for all he knew, have been a very fine one, he had never seen an orange or received a penny from it! The Floridian pointed out beautiful little groves that were soon to be sold, and dilated on their advantages; but the party produced no purchasers.
There is great uncertainty, of course, about the titles in these tax sales, and many people find it difficult to regard the transactions as very creditable to the Government. There is no doubt, however, that, if the titles stand, investments made in the lands about St. Augustine must be profitable. The exquisite climate will always make the place a resort for debilitated people, and particularly consumptives from the North; and the orange crop, although occasionally injured by the frost, is so nearly certain that, for those who can have it properly attended to, it must, at the present prices for investments, prove unusually profitable. At the rates now ruling, the gross returns of a single year’s crop will nearly pay for the land. Whoever purchases, however, will here, as elsewhere through the South, have to bear the odium among the returning Rebels, who will soon make up again the bulk of the population, of having taken advantage of their misfortunes and helplessness to get possession of their property for nothing. Under such circumstances, let the climate be never so delightful, and the profits never so inviting, a sensitive man might still find residence in St. Augustine unpleasant.
The negroes here seem to have a vague idea that they are free; but little change in their relations to their old masters is perceptible. In the back country they remain, as usual, on the little cracker plantations, and neither masters nor negroes succeed in more than making a rude living.
Little boys were “playing marbles” in the streets with green oranges, as we returned to the wharf, and a crowd of people, who had seen no other opportunity for months to get North, were begging permission to go on board our boat, and return with us to Fernandina.
[22]. “Reynando en Espana el Fernando Sexto y Siendo Govor y Capo de Esa Cd Sato ango de la Florida y Sus Prova el mariscal de Campo Dn Alonzo Ferndo Hereda Asi Concluio Este Castillo El Anod 1756 Dirig endo Las obras el Cap Ingruro Dn Pedro de Brazos, y Garay.”
“Don Ferdinand the Sixth, being King of Spain, and the Field Marshal Don Alonzo Fernando Hereda being Governor and Captain General of this place, St. Augustine, of Florida, and its provinces, this fort was finished in the year 1766. The works were directed by the Captain Engineer, Don Pedro Brazos y Garay.”
The Fort first erected was called San Juan de Pinos. The same name attached to the present Fort at the commencement of its erection. Subsequently it was called St. Mark; and finally, upon the acquisition of Florida by the United States, Fort Marion. Don Juan Marquez Cabera commenced the construction of the present Fort in 1681. The Apalachian Indians were employed upon it for more than sixty years. The first Fort was built by Don Pedro Melendez de Avila, in 1565. In the same year, the foundation of St. Augustine was laid. It is thus, by more than forty years, the oldest town in the United Slates.
[23]. This is a specimen of Spanish sanitary precautions, but those of Anglo-Saxon origin in the South were little better. Till within a very recent period, Southern physicians have held that it was unhealthy, in low latitudes, to pave the streets of a city, because the dust and sand were needed to absorb the unhealthy moisture! And to this day New Orleans is the only Southern city that can be said to be paved at all.