St. Augustine is our Nation’s oldest city. Established in 1565 by Spain, it has a centuries-long history that is well preserved and celebrated. Its Spanish heritage is so rich that it easily overshadows its short 20-year British history. However, to Bartramites, it’s what happened there during the British Period that draws us to this wonderful City, the desire to walk in the many footprints left there by William Bartram during his first visit to Florida in 1765-66. It seems incomprehensible that this City, which so celebrates its amazing place in history, appears to have little or no awareness or appreciation for its place in the life of William Bartram. There are no resources and no Bartram-themed tours to help visitors understand and appreciate this vital aspect of their shared history, which is unfathomable to us.
St. Augustine has long been recognized as a significant resource along the Bartram Heritage Corridor and is identified as such in The Bartram Heritage Report (BHR). The BHR defines a “Primary Heritage Resource” as “a specific site or area in the Southeast which William Bartram visited, observed, or experienced personally and which continues to exist today.” The Bartram Heritage Report identifies and lists a number of these sites but states that “more sites will be added to this list as they are identified and documented in the future.” The Report only lists two such sites in St. Augustine: the Castillo de San Marcos and the Coquina Gravel Beds.
However, William first arrived in St. Augustine with his father, John, on the 11th of October, 1765. He spent the next two and a half months exploring the City and the surrounding countryside before the two departed on a two-month-long expedition to discover the origin of the St. Johns River and to describe its environs. Upon their return, William continued to live in or near St. Augustine, spending a total of 1 year in Florida before returning north. John Bartram’s Diary describes in great detail the time he and William spent in Florida, listing numerous places both he and William visited during their time together in St. Augustine. John’s Diary provides just the documentation needed to identify Primary Heritage Resources in the city.
In 2024, Dr. Kelly Enright, Curator of Campus Collections and Associate Professor at Flagler College, in cooperation with the Bartram Trail Society of Florida, used William Bartram’s stay in St. Augustine as the theme for her Fall Semester Heritage Tourism class. Using John Bartram’s Diary and other documents, she and her class identified and documented over a dozen Primary Heritage Resources in and around St. Augustine. The results were compiled in a detailed report given to the Bartram Trail Society. Ultimately, the Report will be used to guide the development of the Bartram Trail in St. Johns County and provide the content for the County’s portion of the Society’s Website.
A more immediate application of the Report occurred this past summer, when the Bartram Trail Conference held its annual meeting in St. Augustine. Armed with the Report, the Bartram Trail Society of Florida designed a Bartram Bus Tour of St. Augustine and offered it to the attendees of the Annual BTC Conference.
Bartram Bus Tour Sites
The Tour began at Flagler College, where the Annual Meeting was held, and visited 12 of the top sites documented in Dr. Enright’s Report. The tour lasted three hours and made stops at seven key Bartram Sites, including Quarry Creek on Anastasia Island, the Bartram Trail Historic Marker at the St. Augustine Amphitheater, the Spanish Quarry, the site of the old watchtower, the Governor’s House, and Fort Mose.
The Tour offered at the Conference was facilitated by the St. Johns County Parks and Recreation Department, which provided the passenger van and driver used for the tour.
It has long been a dream of the BTSF to have Bartram Heritage-themed tours offered by commercial tour companies operating in St. Augustine, marketed and offered alongside other themed tours available in the City. Hopefully, this dream is now one step closer to reality and, perhaps in the near future (relatively speaking), St. Augustine will be as well-known for its connection to William Bartram as it is for Pedro Menendez and Henry Flagler.