Annual Meeting and Conference

TROLLEY TOUR

Join City Archaeologists Dr. Andrea White and Katherine Sims on a guided tour through St. Augustine’s buried past! Attendees will experience a 2-hour ride on the Red Train that will highlight a selection of past and present excavations conducted by the City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program. Since the inception of St. Augustine’s local Archaeology Preservation Ordinance in 1986, over 1,000 projects have been conducted within the city limits. Sites dating from 2,000 BC to the early 20th century dot the urban landscape, and all contribute to the rich history of St. Augustine. The tour will include a cruise through the original 16th century colony, Native American mission communities, Timucuan villages, plantations, and much more.

Explore Fish Island  

Join archaeologist Marsha Chance for a guided hike through Fish Island Preserve. Fish Island was inhabited by Native Americans between 1,000 and 2,000 BC and between 500 BC and AD 1500, who left behind pottery and oyster shell debris. Jesse Fish, an export agent and procurer of needed goods, assisted in the transition of the colony from British back to Spanish rule in 1785. By the mid-1700s, he owned Anastasia Island and the adjacent small island that bears his name where he established a commercial orange plantation, shipping fruit from three thousand trees, noted for sweetness and thin skins, as far as London. He built his home, “El Vergel,” of native coquina, as well as outbuildings, canals, wells, a boat basin, and a wharf on Fish Island. He imported enslaved Africans to work the groves, introducing most of the African slaves registered in Florida between 1752 and 1763. Archaeological remains of the plantation buildings and features are present. In the late 1800s visitors described mansion ruins, pathways, fields, furrows, and aged orange trees.

This historically significant island links Florida’s orange history, plantation life, and trans-Atlantic slave trade in early St. Augustine, and is also a stellar example of the natural coastal environment along the Matanzas River. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was purchased by the state in 2019, and is managed by the city.

St. Francis Barracks and St. Augustine National Cemetery 

The headquarters of the Florida National Guard is located in the historic St. Francis Barracks, a compound originally constructed as a chapel with friary in the 18th century for use as the headquarters of Florida’s Franciscan mission system. The historic St. Francis Barracks property was first converted for use as a military headquarters during Florida’s British Period (1763-1783). Since 1907, the property served as the Headquarters of the Florida National Guard. The tour features the early history of the property as a Franciscan headquarters, its use as a military reservation through the 19th century, the history of Florida’s militia, and the historic St. Augustine National Cemetery. Alison Simpson is the Command Historian for the Florida National Guard.