APPENDIX A: HISTORIC CONTEXT AND REFERENCES FROM THE HISTORIC PROPERTIES RESURVEY, CITY OF FERNANDINA BEACH, NASSAU COUNTY, FLORIDA, BLAND AND ASSOCIATES, INC. 2007 Colonial Period, 1565-1821 Founded in the early nineteenth century and incorporated in 1824, Fernandina Beach is one of Florida's oldest cities. The principal city of Nassau County, Fernandina Beach is located on the north end of Amelia Island, which has a colonial heritage associated with early French explorers, the First Spanish period, the British period, and the Second Spanish period. Early French explorers named the island "Isle de Mai" and Pedro Menendez built a fort there in 1567. In 1598 and 1675, Spanish missions built on the island contributed to a larger system implemented by the Spanish Crown to convert the Indians to Catholicism. In 1702, an English incursion from Charleston, South Carolina, attacked St. Augustine, but also invaded an outpost on the island and threatened the missions. Later, in 1735, when James Oglethorpe attempted to secure the St. Marys River as the southern boundary of his new colony, the Georgian scouted the island, which he named Amelia for one of King George II's daughters (Johannes 2000:3-4). Between 1513 and 1763, Spain failed to settle permanently any area of Florida except the immediate environs of St. Augustine. Besides establishing a permanent base at the port city and a chain of missions into the interior, the Spanish accomplished little of lasting significance. Farmers and ranchers cleared land for cattle, and planted crops and fruit trees. But, the growth of English colonies to the north in the 1700s and forays by settlers and militia into Florida destabilized Spain's nascent agricultural economy and mission system. In 1702, Governor John Moore of South Carolina attacked and burned St. Augustine. The marauders reduced the influence of Spain's mission system and the Crown's settlement policies. Gold contends that after Moore's attack "the colony lost all geographic meaning outside the port city of St. Augustine" (Gold 1969:32). Later, in 1740, using the War of Jenkins's Ear as a pretext, James Oglethorpe led his Georgia troops into Florida. Oglethorpe captured Fort San Diego and Fort Picolata, using the former as his temporary Florida headquarters, but failed to capture St. Augustine. In 1743, he invaded Florida a second time, but failed to capture St. Augustine. After repelling the Georgia leader a second time, the Spanish improved their defensive positions. But, the threat of incursions by the English dampened further expansion of the land grant system and the nascent economy based on cattle ranching and citrus languished. Over the next two decades, Spain developed a strong defensive network in Florida and demonstrated effective diplomatic skills in playing off Native Americans against the English and French. After 1743, the English made few attempts to dislodge the Spanish Crown from Florida (Adams Bell Weaver 1985:18, 22; Sastre 1995:26-29, 32, 35; TePaske 1976:xxxix-xl). In 1763, the Spanish Crown, for its part in backing the defeated French in the Seven Year's War, was required to surrender Florida to England. In October 1763, as one of its first official acts in the newly acquired colony, England reorganized Florida, creating east and west districts. General James Grant, a prominent British subject, was appointed governor of East Florida. Serving until 1771, Grant developed amicable relations with the Seminole Indians. His equitable policies kept the Seminoles loyal to England during the American Revolution. Grant was also responsible for improving the King's Road, which extended south from St. Augustine. The road, completed to New Smyrna in 1776, served as the principal overland route in East Florida. Its alignment through the region supporting the Nassau River and St. Marys River led to the establishment of plantations in the region (Tebeau 1971:75-77; Johannes 2000:121-123). The English Crown issued 122 grants in 1767, the peak year for Florida grants by the royal government. East Florida real estate attracted more British investment than any other Crown province in the decade before the American Revolution. Many of the grantees were Scots who became associated with the East Florida Society of London, which, in part, contributed to the Scottish renaissance of the late eighteenth century. Perhaps the most famous of East Florida's investors was the Scottish physician Andrew Turnbull and the ill-fated colonization experiment at New Smyrna. Indeed, the British Crown conceived settlement in Florida far different than that in Georgia and South Carolina, where colonial and trustee grants had been relatively small. By contrast, in East Florida the British Crown awarded grantees large tracts of land ranging from 5,000 acres to 20,000 acres. Despite the relatively large grants, Henry Laurens of South Carolina saw little of promise in the sandy soils. Still, East Florida played an important role in England's North American policies, which encouraged settlers to move to the south of existing settled areas, rather than to the west. The British Crown attempted to block the movement of settlers beyond the Appalachians, where contact with Native Americans disrupted England's foreign affairs. The opening of Florida to settlers from the Carolinas and Georgia in the 1760s and 1770s briefly helped England displace some of its westward frontier pressures (Rogers 1976:479, 484, 486-487; Mowat 1943:21-26, 53-55, 57-61; Notes and Comments 1927:120-121; Harper 1958:118; Bailyn 1986:431-434, 451-452). Still, only sixteen grants in East Florida were settled by the outbreak of the American Revolution, most of those in coastal areas and near rivers, such as Amelia Island, and in close proximity to St. Augustine and New Smyrna. William Drayton, the chief justice for East Florida who held several estates in northeast Florida, inventoried various crops on East Florida plantations, finding indigo for dyes, naval stores for pitch and turpentine, and a variety of agricultural harvests, such as corn and rice. Many investors and settlers purchased or imported black slaves, a process that led to the Africanization of the East Florida colony during the British period. The process accelerated during the second Spanish period, especially after 1808, when the importation of slaves into the United States became illegal (Landers 1999:167, 175-176; Rogers 1976:479; Mowat 1943:21-26, 53-55, 57-61; Notes and Comments 1927:120-121; Harper 1958:118; Bailyn 1986:431-434, 451-452; Siebert 1929 1:68). References from the British period pertaining to Amelia Island associate the island with the Earl of Egmont, the son of one of the founders of Georgia. Egmont, also known as John Perceval, was famous in England for his nostalgia for a "feudal world long since vanished" (Bailyn 1986:79). Coined a "curious antiquarian and colonizer" by Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn, Egmont never intended to reside permanently on any of his overseas holdings. As an absentee landlord, he developed plantations in East Florida, Ireland, and Nova Scotia. Eventually, he claimed 65,000 acres in East Florida and over 120,000 acres in Nova Scotia (Bailyn 1986:366, 438). In 1770, William Gerard DeBrahm, England's surveyor-general for the southern district of North America, prepared a "Plan of Amelia Now Egmont Island," depicting Egmont Town and Morris's Bluff. DeBrahm assessed Amelia Island as the best of the coastal islands in British East Florida (DeVorsey 1971:125, 203). Egmont established plantations throughout northeast Florida early in Florida's British period (1763-1784). His first plantation was Mount Royal, located on the St. Johns River near Lake George. Communication problems, poor management, and slow development by Egmont's agent, Martin Jollie, compelled the British aristocrat to abandon the St. Johns River plantation in September 1770 and move the operation to Amelia Island. In September 1768, Governor James Grant had awarded Egmont 10,000 acres on Amelia Island, essentially the entire island. Fondly referred to by Governor Grant as the "Lordship of Amelia," Egmont made plans for a town named Egmont near the mouth of the St. Marys River and a series of sixteen slave villages, each located on one-square mile tracts. He encouraged the building of log houses modeled after thirty- eight by fourteen foot dwellings built by African Americans on the French island of Cayenne (Schafer 1982:47-48; Schafer 1984:176). Egmont had only recently launched his development of the island in 1770, when DeBrahm prepared his "Plan of Amelia, Now Egmont Island," which depicted most of the planned development at the north end. Egmont died in December 1770, leaving much of his plan unfulfilled (Schafer 1984:172-180; Mowat 1943:70). Lady Egmont, his widow, persisted in the development of the plantation, in part, by transferring management of the plantation to Stephen Egan, a supervisor at one of Egmont's Irish estates. On visits to Amelia Island in 1773 and 1774, respectively, Lieutenant Governor Moultrie and Frederick Mulcaster recorded fields of potatoes, 140 acres of corn and peas, 200 acres of indigo, and a herd of cattle. Plantation fields yielded over 1,000 bushels of corn in 1773 and nearly 2,100 pounds of indigo were shipped from the plantation to England in December 1774 (Schafer 1984:179-180). William Bartram visited Amelia Island the following year. He crossed into the region using King's Ferry along the St. Marys River, and then headed east to Amelia Island. Bartram wrote of the beauty of the river, which he estimated to be ten feet deep and 100 yards wide at the ferry (Johannes 2000:121). In his Travels, Bartram cited another waterway at "Amelia Narrows," which Harper later interpreted as Kingsley Creek and then theorized that Bartram probably made camp at the north end of Talbot Island (Harper 1958:350).