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.Hr.Hnrrt.1 Ayres OST ."an:-. _ir, Director San Antoni- .Texas.
Ay dear Ar.Ayres,
Your Ioar nook has neon received for which j. .hank jOU. I do not know where she ata -o that you mention ,concerning ohe settlement -f .Augustine in <u50 instead of 1565. I have never found any other date tut 1565. Ritault came in 1562 • the first tine and the second visit by the French was in 156A and the Spaniards came the. next year when St.Augustine v.-as founded. The house of the Cacique ,fortified, was called San Agustin also the triangular fort, built after the hurnin^ of the first,the} were one league south of the bar. The fort burned by make "St.John do Pinos" was on the site of the present fort two miles south of the bar. *h ..ext fort of which we have „ Hicoure on the petitior.,-,of Hernando no Mestas 15fp was .ailed kan Marco and at that date it was rour years old°It‘wFS part of an ucto.-en and there is also a full mao of Aw.The next reliable mao is that of the present fort 1$75 with the walls almost finished. Reports of the Governor l6?0 state the fort is completed the slaves idle,and it is described in M book of I6p6 and a. Boston newspaper of 1712- Tho tablet 1757 or 1756 refers to minor changes made after the attack by Oglethorpe. In 1702 Moor set fire to the town before ho left but the .uns being turned y,» him he stopped "and so some of the houses were saved".At least one house also went through the attack of Drake for the English foun'1 u house with the date upon it, 1571 • There are only three old houses left on the site of the city attacked by Drake and the Oldest House is the only one of the three of the type of building ’escribed in the; letters of the Governor in I69O. Our Society owns another of the three and the third belonged to Turnbull in the An ;lish period,is also on St.Francis 3t. The mission 0.' De La Leche built of clone ;.ns taken down to use the stone.in who present cathedral,this mission was a short distance north of the fort. There was also a stone mission on the powder house lot now the ball park, and a tower in Tolomato cemetury,all taken down for other buildings as also the powder house built in 1595-15p8 and the old blacksmith house. Fort ;..atans.as and the forts at Picolata were not built of stone until after 1?AJ ,had the missions outside of St. Augustine been built of stor.e the English would have mentioned it in their reports .
The stone missions o' the ,est seem to be of later date than St ’Helena now tho State Arsenal in St nugustine. It was burned in 1599 rebuilt,one of the places burned 1702 and rebuilt as it is now (that is the cells) the church was made into the large barrack building by the English,altered by the U.S. burned a few years ago and rebuilt.The old store walls wore whole and part,at least,is very old.
I enclose some data from some notes that will . ,ivu you an idea of tho material we bought on the Franciscans. I think I tol^ you we secured a copy of Tor^uemado"..lOnarchiu Indiana " written by a Franciscan about 1627 it gives the history of the convent in St.Augustine.
I am glad my notes reached you in oirne. 1 finn one report very interesting.