Fort San Marcos De Apalache | |
Location | 18 mi. S of Tallahassee, St. Marks, Florida |
---|---|
Nearest city | St. Marks, Florida [1] |
Coordinates | 30°09′18″N84°12′40″W / 30.15500°N 84.21111°W |
NRHP reference No. | 66000271 [1] [2] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 13, 1966 [2] |
Designated NHL | November 13, 1966 [1] |
San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida organized around the historic site of a Spanish colonial fort (known as Fort St. Marks by the English and Americans), which was used by succeeding nations that controlled the area. The Spanish first built wooden buildings and a stockade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries here, which were destroyed by a hurricane.
The stone fort was built beginning in 1753. It came under successive control by Great Britain, Spain, the United States and, lastly, the Confederacy during the American Civil War. A U.S. Marine Hospital was built from the materials of the fort. The US took control of the site again in 1865, and the fort site was abandoned.
On November 13, 1966, the fort area was designated a National Historic Landmark because of its significance and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. [1] [3] Designated as a National Engineering Landmark, the fort site has been highlighted on the Florida Native American Heritage Trail. On October 10, 1962, Congress authorized designating Fort Saint Marks as a National Historic Site [4] upon donation of the site to the National Park Service. That donation apparently never happened, however, and the site remains a Florida State Park and a National Historic Landmark.
The historic park is located in the vicinity of St. Marks, off S.R. 363, at 148 Old Fort Road.
In 1679, the Spanish built a wooden stockade at this site which they called San Marcos de Apalache. It was part of their colonial expansion in the northwestern Florida area. A settlement developed around the fort beginning about 1733. Another wooden structure was built about 1753. The wooden fort was destroyed and the garrison drowned, during a hurricane. [5]
In 1759, the Spanish began to build a stone fort, designed to resist bombardment by ships. They abandoned it to Indians for use as a trading post after ceding this territory to the British following the defeat of France in the Seven Years' War, also known as the French and Indian War. The British had a garrison at the fort.
But, following the American Revolutionary War, the British traded some territory with Spain, which took over West and East Florida again. (St. Marks was in East Florida; the boundary was the Apalachicola River). Spanish forces reoccupied the San Marcos fort in 1783, and they strengthened its defenses. [5] American settlers began penetrating the Southeast after the Revolution, settling deeper into Georgia and into the Mississippi and Alabama Territories.
General Andrew Jackson led some raids into this area during the First Seminole War and had his forces seize the Spanish Florida fort in 1818. In April 1818, the Fort was the site of the Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident. The U.S. occupied it for nearly a year. The Fort St. Marks military cemetery was established at that time, for the burial of men who died at the garrison. A total of 19 men were buried in the cemetery; most died from diseases, including dysentery and consumption. In 1819, the United States purchased East and West Florida from Spain, via the Adams-Onis Treaty, including the fort site.
In 1859, the federal government built a marine hospital here, using stones and other materials from the old fort. It provided care for sick seamen and area yellow fever victims. [5] [6]
During the Civil War, the Confederate army took over the fort, after Florida seceded from the Union. U.S. forces regained control in 1865, in the last year of the war. [5]
Remains of the stone fort are in evidence at the site. A museum and visitor center have been built on the foundation of the old hospital. [5] A stone well and a retaining wall have been reconstructed nearby, based on archeological documentation.
The park has such amenities as hiking and picnicking areas.
Wakulla County is a county located in the Big Bend region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,764. Its county seat is Crawfordville.
St. Marks is a city in Wakulla County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. St. Marks is located on the Florida Panhandle in North Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico. The population at the 2020 census was 274, down from 293 at the 2010 census.
The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in St. Augustine, Florida.
The Nature Coast is an informal, unofficial region of the U.S. state of Florida. The broadest definition of the Nature Coast includes the eight counties that abut the Gulf of Mexico along the Big Bend Coast defined by geologists: from west to east, Wakulla, Jefferson, Taylor, Dixie, Levy, Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco counties. The name "Nature Coast" was originally devised as part of a marketing campaign to promote tourism in Levy, Citrus, Hernando, and parts of Marion and Pasco counties.
San Marcos is the Spanish form of "Saint Mark".
Fort Barrancas (1839) or Fort San Carlos de Barrancas is a United States military fort and National Historic Landmark in the former Warrington area of Pensacola, Florida, located physically within Naval Air Station Pensacola, which was developed later around it.
William Augustus Bowles was an American-born military officer and adventurer. Born in Frederick County, Maryland, Bowles was commissioned into the Maryland Loyalists Battalion at the rank of ensign, seeing action during the American Revolutionary War, including the 1781 siege of Pensacola. He subsequently established an alliance with the Muscogee and founded the State of Muskogee. In 1803, Bowles was betrayed and handed over to the Spanish, who imprisoned him in Morro Castle, where he died two years later.
Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail is a rail trail and Florida State Park located on 16 miles (26 km) of the historic railbed of the Tallahassee Railroad, which ran between Tallahassee and St. Marks, Florida. The trail ends near the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers. The portion of the trail south of US 98 is designated as a portion of the Florida National Scenic Trail. A paved extension of the trail extends north for approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) into the City of Tallahassee.
Fort Ward was a Confederate States of America fort located in Wakulla County, Florida, at the confluence of the Wakulla River and St. Marks River and named after Colonel George T. Ward, owner of Southwood Plantation, Waverly Plantation, and Clifford Place Plantation south of Tallahassee. During the American Civil War, Confederate troops placed a battery of cannons at Fort Ward.
The St. Marks River is a river in the Big Bend region of Florida. It has been classified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as an Outstanding Florida Water, and is the easternmost river within the Northwest Florida Water Management District.
The Forgotten Coast refers to a largely undeveloped and sparsely populated coastline in the panhandle of the US state of Florida. The trademarked term was first used in 1992, but the Forgotten Coast's exact extent is not agreed upon.
The Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident occurred in April 1818 during the First Seminole War when American General Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida and his troops captured two British citizens, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, separately. They were charged with aiding the Seminole, the Red Stick Creek Indians and Maroons against the United States.
Mission San Luis de Apalachee was a Spanish Franciscan mission built in 1656 in the Florida Panhandle, two miles west of the present-day Florida Capitol Building in Tallahassee, Florida. It was located in the descendent settlement of Anhaica capital of Apalachee Province. The mission was part of Spain's effort to colonize the Florida Peninsula and to convert the Timucuan and Apalachee Indians to Christianity. The mission lasted until 1704 when it was evacuated and destroyed to prevent its use by an approaching militia of Creek Indians and South Carolinians.
The Tallahassee metropolitan area is the metropolitan area centered on Tallahassee, the capital of the U.S. state of Florida, in Leon County. It is located in the center of North Florida in the Florida panhandle.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
Pablo de Hita y Salazar was a Spanish military officer who served as governor of Spanish Florida from 1675 to 1680. The territory at the time stretched from current-day Florida west to Texas and north to South Carolina. He was best known for his work devoted to construction of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, the capital of La Florida.
St. Francis Barracks is a historic structure constructed of coquina stone located on Marine Street in St. Augustine, Florida, named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. The barracks were constructed between 1724 and 1755 by friars of the Order of St. Francis, to replace a series of wooden buildings which had been destroyed by the ravages of the tropical climate in La Florida and by fire, both accidental fires and occasional intentional ones, such as when the city was razed by the English in 1702.
Lucas Fernando Palacios y Valenzuela was a military official who served as governor of Spanish Florida from 21 April 1758 to 6 December 1761.
Milly Francis, daughter of Creek leader Josiah Francis, was born near what is today Montgomery, Alabama, about 1803. Her name is sometimes thought to be an Anglicization of the Creek name "Malee", but the most recent thinking is that "Milly" was her birth name. She was a member of the Red Stick faction of the Creek tribe.
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