Petals Plucked from Sunny ClimesBrooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
History
Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes
Brooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
Cuba -- Description and travel; Florida -- Description and travel; Florida -- History
The present city of Pensacola stands on a bay of the same name, which
contains a safe and capacious harbor, where vessels drawing twenty-one
feet of water can enter at low-tide, and find shelter and fine
facilities for anchorage. It was formerly named Ochusa, from a tribe of
Indians who lived here. Where the city is now built it is fine siliceous
sand, supported by an understratum of clay, which is of varied colors.
This clay is manufactured into brick, from which some of the houses are
built, also pottery, and the monkey-jug, or water-cooler, so much used
among the Spaniards in Cuba and Key West. The present plan of the city
was laid out by the English in 1763, after they took possession of it.
The streets cross each other at right angles, making squares of two
hundred and fifty by four hundred feet, with a bay front of nearly a
thousand feet. Many fine buildings were erected at that time--among
which might be mentioned Casa Blanca, the residence of the Governor. The
gardens attached to the city lots, the strong fortifications, and the
edifices of different designs which graced the streets and squares, were
the pride of Florida. The Governor rode in his chariot, making
pleasure-trips to his landed estates, six miles from town, escorted by
his postilions, and surrounded by his companions in authority, thus
deporting himself like a genuine scion of royalty. During these days of
prosperity Pensacola was attacked and conquered by the Spaniards under
Count Galvez, in 1781. The place was defended by General Campbell; but
the magazine at Fort St. Michael being blown up, resistance was useless,
and the town surrendered. This event marked the commencement of its
decline; the work of twenty years was blighted, and the prosperity of
the city waned. When Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States,
St. Augustine in East Florida, and Pensacola in West Florida, were the
only towns of any importance in the State. The country about the city
was poor, the good lands of the interior being occupied by the Indians;
besides, the original settlers were not as enterprising a class of
people as those in East Florida. The above considerations, together with
disease, fierce contests with foes of other nations, its
inaccessibility, and no large water-course connecting it with the
interior fertile cotton-lands, are the combined reasons why Pensacola is
not equal in size to any town on the Gulf.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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