The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1884-05-21
For the Farmer and Mechanic.
Old Fort San Marco.

scription of Fort Marion. as the old
Spanish fort of san Marco was re-christ-
eped when Florida was coded to the L.
s.
And vet touched with the langour OF
this Southern dream-land. the days fly
BY like sea gulls. and leave every pledge
still unredeemed.
Our first morning in St. Augustine
was dedicated to San Marco, which
reared its frowning parapets hardly
three hundred yards north of the house
wherein we lodged.
A brisk walk brought US to the draw
bridge, now, alas. a stationary one,
across a dry and disused moat. A few
soldiers from the garrison stationed at
st. Francis barracks, were on duty
there, the duty apparently being to
lounge on the walls and inspect the
passers-by. We crossed the bridge I'M
challenged, passed through the port
cullis. that now no longer falls to bar
the entrance of alien or foe, turn
ing to the left GO through an archway,
one on which is carved a shield bearing
the royal arms of Spain, and mounting
a flight of worn and broken steps find
ourselves within the Barbican.
What might the Barbican be? Well,
those who know must explain its use.
| cannot-but its appearance is an oddly
angled wall of grey stone, enclosing a
high grassy knoll, starred with blue
fowers-a glorious place to loiter, TO
make love. and to dream but farther
than that %deponent cannot 60. Out OF
the Barbican. we crossed the large
drawbridge.-drawbridge now no long
err, tho,-which led to the main entrance
to the fort. Over this entrance, which
| have an impression in military par
lance is termed the sally port, is carved
on a large block of stone, the royal
arms of Spain, surmounted by a globe,
and a Latin cross. and beneath a mall
tese cross and Agnus Del, runs this in
scription in Spanish, which translated
is said to read:
Don Ferdinand vi, being King of
Spain. and the Field Marshal Don
AlOnzo Fernando Hereda being Gov.
and Captain General of this place, st
Augustine of Florida. and its province,
this Fort was finished in the year 1856.
The works were directed by the Captain
Engineer, Don Pedro de Brozas y
Garay."
Passing through this archway you
find yourself in a square court. or parade
ground, which the guide books tell you
is one hundred feet square.
Inside are q case mates, 35 feet long.
and Is wide. all with high arched roofs.
Just opposite the sally port is a case
mate, the central one on the north side.
which was used as a chapel by those
queer contradictory old Spaniards who
always went to conquest with the sword
in one hand and the cross in the other.
and whose rule in warfare and religion
was emphatically rae rictis. This case
mate is still self evidently a chapel.
On either side of the door are the inches
where the vessels of holy water were
wont to stand. The altar and side al
tars are built of coquina, of which ma
terial the whole fort is constructed, by
the way. And over the altar, high up
in the wall, is the niche from which
some saint was taken when the fort
passed into the hands of "heretics.'
Over the chapel door are carved the
Spanish arms, the Keys, the Cross, and
the 4ngus Del, and, l think, a Bishops
mitre. The case mate on the right side
of the chapel is the one which contains
in its west wall the dungeon of which so
many wonderful stories have been told.
There is undoubtedly the dungeon there,
unutterably dark, wretched. and damp,
but the romanc of the cages found
therein and the skeletons which they
contained must be relegated to the wide
domain of invention. The dungeon had
been walled up, and its eXistance I'M
suspected for years, when an accidental
discovery was made of it.
On the Southwest portion is a case
mate used as a prison cell, out of which
the famous Seminole chieftain wild
cat' made his escape during the first
Seminole war. This casemate was
probably used us a judgment hall, for a
raised platform, some five feet high,
built of solid masonry, occupies one end
right under the embrasure through which
the escape was made. This embrasure
is s feet above the platform. and two
feet above the ground, at the foot of the
wall in the moat.
He chose a stormy night for his ex-
plot, and squeezing his body through
this narrow slit in the bare wall, drop
ped down to freedom and safety on the
other side. The fort is considered one
the finest specimens of military arehi-
lecture eXtant, having been constructed
on the principles laid down by the ia
nous engineer Vauban whoever he
might have been! The fort occupies
four acres of ground, and mounts one
hundred guards, and requires a garrison
of one thousand men. 1t is built, as 1
said, of coquina. The Appalachian In
dams were employed for more than six
ty years upon it, and to their labors are
due the immense amount of work in the
construction of the ditch, the glacis, the
ramparts. land the approaches. The walls
are twenty-one feet high. with bastions
at each corner, the whole structure is in
the form Of a trapezium, and encloses
area OF sixty yards square. 1t was
begun in 1906 aud completed in 1856,
and undoubtedly it took the labor of
many hundred people for many years to
get the stone from the coquina quarries
over On Anastasia Island.
The fort was no holiday theatre
wherein soldiers played at war-but a
grim old sea lion. who %stoutly held his
own in many a fierce encounter by sea
and land. And as l walked through its
classmates, saw the dismounted
lying idly in the sun, and took
note of the heavy iron-studded doors,
the immense thickness of walls and
arches, / metaphorically took off my
hat to the grim old sea dogs who had
defied no less a worthy than a
grandfather of my own-when in 1902
Gov. Moore, of South Carolina, held the
town for three long months, and finally,
wholly unable to reduce the stubborn
fort, burnt the pretty town in hot anger
and marched away! And his marching
away was OF the 18th of April l conjec-
ture, FOR in that year, 1902, the name Of