MOTOR AGE December 2, 1915

Chicago, December 2, 1915 Vol. XXVIII, No. 23 $3.00 Per Year The Reddington house, built in 1665 and now used as a museum for the exhibition of a wonderful collection of antiques St Augustine-Patriarch merican Cities By J.C. Burton - LORIDA is a realm of charming con dining native of Aragon, who shipped with F tradictions. Rival real estate agents Columbus on the latter 's second voyage to indulge in them. Swaying palm trees hum America, that gave to St. Augustine that the siesta lullabies of the tropics, while characteristic which he could not tolerate sturdy pines stand erect and defiant to in himself—age; a characteristic that lends meet the snow-lugging blasts of winter, to the 402-year-old city the charm of the which never come, with Belgium-brave re- lovable great-grandmother and none of the sistance. Although the last of the great hideousness of the tottering, bent-backed national frontiers, yearning for settlement miser. and development, it can boast of having Tiring of hearing his barber prate of within its boundaries the first colony of hair tonics which were absolute failures as the European on the mainland of North irrigation projects on barren pates and of America—St. Augustine, cradle of the listening to the creak of his joints as he Spanish empire in the new world and bowed to the ladies of the court, Ponce de patriarch of all American cities. Leon sailed from Spain in 1512 in search Had Ponce de Leon lived in the modern of adventure and the fountain of youth. A day of "Collegiate Clothes for Sires of poisoned arrow cut short his quest for ad- Sophomores," which are alleged to make venture. He never found the magic waters old men look young; of cafes dansant, which, according to the redskin quacks of where stiff-kneed septuagenarians mimic the Porto Rico, would turn his silver hair to steps of youth and the Castles; of Broad- brown, erase the wrinkles from his face way revues, where the exposure of bare and free his body of rheumatism. feminine knees brings a blush of childish Although his parlous "See America shame to wrinkled cheeks, St. Augustine First" trip was a crushing disappointment might not be able to boast of such a dis- to him, the wanderings of this venerable tinction. For it was this intrepid but de- gadabout were not in vain as far as King 6 MOTOR AGE December 2, 1915 The old pillars and the sentry boxes of the city gate at St. Augustine, cherished landmarks of a brace past and conspicuous relics of an elaborate system of fortifications that once defended the patriarch of American municipalities Ferdinand of Spain, his royal descendants 44 years before the Pilgrims set foot on be pictured on the screen as the epochal and the future generations of southern Plymouth rock, are far more authentic and episodes of the centuries actually were un- tourists and Florida realty dealers were sanguinary than those of the disappointed folded. The life of the old town has been concerned. Ponce de Leon discovered the seeker after youth. Eager to find the a thrilling one. In its time it has seen peninsular state of the Union on Easter waters that would make him young again siege and slaughter, loot and conflagra- Sunday, 1513, and put St. Augustine on and to flee approaching death, Ponce de tion. Through its narrow streets have the map. You will find it so written in Leon was a roving explorer. Menendez, marched the mailed conquistadors of Spain, the ancient archives of the Castilians. appointed governor of the Floridas on con- the bearded crews of pirate ships, the cap- A Historical Brass Knocker dition that he expel the French from the tured chiefs of the Seminoles, the blue- There are no visible proofs of Ponce de land and conquer the natives, was a coated soldiers of the United States and. Leon's visit to the greybeard of American colonizer. It was natural that he should the gray-clad troops of the Confederacy. cities. The prints of. his mailed shoe in be. It would be a queer governor, indeed, Shot, fired from the buccaneer ships, has the sand have not been preserved for pos- that would not create something over furrowed its beach and found a target terity and obliging guides. There are no which to govern. Such was the impulse in its forts. Galleons, flying the red and holes in the beach where he must have that changed St. Augustine from an un- yellow flag of Spain; pirate craft, with prospected for the magic aqua juveiitatis inhabited stretch of sand to a lasting set- the skull and crossbones at the masthead; which, had he discovered it, would have tlement that was destined to have a crim- yankee battleships and gunboats have rid- been a Florida water much more in de- son and charred fight for existence. den at anchor in its harbor. It has served mand than the present product bearing that Red, Fire-Lighted Legends four national masters — Spain, Great label, an eagerly quaffed potion that would St. Augustine's early history is written Britain, the United States and the Confed- have made embalming fluid a drug on the in blood, the merciless massacre of the erate States of America. market, put undertakers and cemetery sex- Huguenots, who had founded a settlement St. Augustine would make a splendid tons out of business and received a testi- on the St. Johns river in 1564, by Men- background for a historical movie. Grif- monial from Lillian Russel]. endez immediately upon his arrival and fith, producer of the historic film master- The only tangible evidence of Ponce de the retaliating butchery of the Spaniards pieces, "The Birth of a Nation" and Leon's association with St. Augustine is a by Dominic de Gourgues 3 years later, sup- "Martyrs of the Alamo," should proto- brass knocker, taken from the portals of plying the historians with enough red writ- graph it with a battery of moving picture his residence in Spain to ornament the ing fluid to balance the books of the world cameras. With the ancient city as an door of the Reddington house, which shares since the (lay of the Creation. Thrice, be- inspiration, what a scenario Cyrus Town- the disputed claim of being the oldest fore the town was a half-century old, the send Brady could write? I can almost see dwelling in the patriarchial city with two annalists penned chapters of defeat and the following subtitles of the various other antiquated structures. The knocker destruction as the pages of their records episodes of the story flashed upon the is genuine. A parchment, yellow with age were illuminated by crackling flames screen: and carefully preserved behind glass, bears started by the firebrands of the English History a la Movies testimony to its authenticity. Your only pirates, Sir Francis Drake and John Davis, "On Easter Sunday, 1513, Florida was wonder is that knockers should have been and the invading governor of South Caro- discovered by Ponce de Leon." used in a day when the hands of callers lina, Moore. "Fifty-one years later, a band of French were encased in gloves of mail. Visit St. Augustine and you voice the re- Huguenots, seeking religious liberty in the The achievements of Don Pedro Menen- gret, so commonly expressed, that the new world, settled on the banks of the St. dez de Aviles, who raised the royal ban- cinematograph was not the invention of Johns river." ner of- Spain over St. Augustine 52 years the ancients so that all history, from the ''Menendez, the bloody conquistador and after Ponce de Leon landed in Florida and fall of Adam to the fall of Przemysl, could colonizer, came to St. Augustine in 1565 December 2, 1915 MOTOR AGE 7 to set up the banner of Spain and the cross material, Franciscan friars in coarse brown of Catholicism in Florida and butcher in robes—and collect the properties—the the name of King Phillip II and Pope flags, the ships, the chains, the torches. Pius V." PERE St. Augustine a Bit of Spain "The booming guns of Sir Francis Founded and settled by Spaniards and Drake 's ships sent the Spaniards fleeing for more than three centuries a jealously to the swamps in 1586 when the English guarded possession of Castilian royalty, it burned the town." is no wonder that St. Augustine of 1915 "In 1665 the torch again was applied to is Spanish in atmosphere and architecture. St. Augustine, John Drake, the English It is exotic, so much like Seville that it is pirate, attacking and sacking the town." difficult to believe that it is an American "St. Augustine was reduced to ashes for city. The streets are narrow. You can a third time in 1702, when the war between measure the breadth of one of them, Treas- England and Spain spread to the American ury street, with outstretched arms. All the colonies and Governor Moore of South old buildings, and many of the new ones, Carolina laid siege to the town and are featured by the overhanging balconies, burned it." the pillared porches and towers so common "After 91 years of incessant labor, San in Spain and so foreign to the United Marco castle, now known as Fort Marion, States. In the plaza, you instinctively was completed in 1756, and St. Augustine listen for the tinkling bells of tiny don- was secure from sea attacks." keys that should be there but are not, and Florida Loyal to England the imperious screech of the motor horn "During the revolutionary war Florida seems both a sacrilege and an anachronism.

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