On a beautiful balmy and serene December afternoon in 1972, my wife and I arrived in St. Augustine aboard our home built 46-foot sailing vessel Dursmirg. Sailing with us was Jim Muller from Savannah, Georgia.
We were just wrapping up an adventurous four month maiden
voyage from Superior, Wisconsin. This trip took us across the Great Lakes, through the Erie Barge Canal, down the Hudson
River to New York,
and then south along the Atlantic Ocean and
the Intracoastal Waterway.
We arrived in a fairyland and destiny planted us in St.
Augustine.
When our crewmate Jim Muller returned to Savannah, Jane and I settled into a pleasant
routine that included time each day to take in the local points of interest,
shop tourist shops, and do some much needed upgrades to the boat. Our most
fascinating endeavor was discovering the historical stories behind the curious
monuments, statues, and old narrow streets. Our goal was to investigate the
real history behind the Ancient
City’s objects of
curiosity and try to put a human face on it all. Everything we encountered had
its own fascinating tale to tell.
Jane and I were intrigued by the name Ponce that popped up everywhere we turned.
There was Ponce
Boulevard, Ponce
Hotel, Ponce Country Club, Ponce Motor Lodge, Ponce Care Center, Ponce BP, Ponce Golf Course, Ponce Rehabilitation
Center, Ponce Exxon,
Ponce Landing, and even a Ponce
monument and more. What could this all be about? Our curiosity was aroused.
We began looking into the Ancient City’s
history. Our first effort began by taking the sightseeing train. The narrated
tour took us to all the attractions.
As the tour train approached the entrance to the Fountain of
Youth, the narrator stated that this was the place where old people arrived in
wheel chairs and were rolled out in baby carriages. Our curiosity was keyed up
by this spoof, and we just had to investigate.
We got off of the train at the Fountain of Youth. There we
discovered a second Ponce de León monument, this one resembling a fancy
cemetery marker at water’s edge and commemorating Ponce’s landing here, supposedly at that very
spot, in 1513 on his quest for the Fountain of Youth.
Upon leaving the Fountain of Youth on the tour train, we
recalled what the train operator had told us “Old people are pushed inside in
wheel chairs and out in baby carriages.” Now this could be true, but we didn’t notice
any baby carriages when we left.
St. Augustine: The First Rogue
Meet the first rogue to materialize in the Oldest City:
Juan Ponce de León.
This earliest European visitor planted his name on Florida leaving a
lasting legacy in his pursuit of the Fountain of Youth. For whatever it is
worth Juan Ponce de León’s search was successful because he never did grow old.
In 1493 Juan Ponce de León, at the age of 18, he set sail
with Christopher Columbus on the second voyage of Columbus along with 1,200 of
his conquistador countrymen. Spurred on by Inquisition fervor, he quickly rose
to political prominence as governor of Puerto Rico by the age of 25, and he was
awarded a large land grant and a sizeable slave colony there.
At age 28, while searching for the Fountain of Youth, he
discovered Florida.
On a return voyage of colonization to Florida he was injured
by an indian arrow and escaped to Cuba where he died of his wound at the age of
47.
On his first voyage to Florida, Ponce de León recorded the latitude
of St. Augustine
at 30º North. This information enabled
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to sail directly across the Atlantic Ocean to St.
Augustine from the Spanish Canary Islands in 1565.
Note: On the downtown waterfront of St.
Augustine is located a larger then life-sized bronze statue of Ponce de León
perched on top a marble pedestal. This statue was cast in New York in 1882 from the metal of English
cannons captured in 1792 at San Juan,
Puerto Rico. An identical monument stands in
downtown San Juan
today.
James (Jimmy) Augustine Ponce Sr.
In our explorations of the streets of St. Augustine looking for historical stories
to unfold, it wasn’t long before we became well acquainted with the Ponce family.
While we were aboard Dursmirg
and in the anchorage in Matanzas
Bay off the City Yacht
Pier, a spot that had been used as an anchorage for centuries, we snagged an
ancient ship’s anchor. This brute was a chore to retrieve. It was nearly ten
feet long and still had attached a very long length of enormous chain. What
made this particular anchor interesting was that it was a “stockless” style
anchor of the type used by old Spanish sailing vessels at least two centuries
ago. Word of our recovery of the anchor got
around St. Augustine
fast, and it wasn’t long and Jimmy Ponce paid us a visit with cash in hand—he
wanted that anchor! We were happy for Jimmy to get it and an instant friendship
was formed.
Jimmy’s ancestry goes way back many generations to the very
first Spanish settlers of the Old
City.
And as America
goes you just can’t be more established than that.
In 1965, enterprising Jimmy, making the best of every
situation, donned the outfit of a conquistador and was off on a nationwide
publicity campaign to promote St. Augustine and put the Oldest City
on the map.
Read more about St.
Augustine’s colorful history and its remarkable people
in the book, Sailing to St. Augustine available in paperback and digital
editions worldwide.
This book is dedicated to James
Augustine (Jimmy) Ponce Sr., his wife Jackie, and his father-in-law David
Swain.
Jimmy and his beautiful
supportive wife Jackie made an unbeatable team of two. They built their
business making it into something St.
Augustine could be truly proud of.
Decked out in his conquistador
regalia, Jimmy went nationwide publicizing St. Augustine.
David Swain, Jimmy’s
father-in-law, loved to tell about the Florida history that he lived and loved.
