Hey you guys! Thanks for joining us on another journey. Today
we're in the oldest city of America, St. Augustine Florida. If you're new to the channel
this is April--hey--and I'm Wayne; we do a video every Thursday from somewhere in the world.
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in this video we're going to teach you the things that you can do in St. Augustine in just one day
we're playing tourists in the place that we grew up in we're currently in the old town
of Saint Augustine for those people who don't know this is the oldest city in America
it's a little tip when you come to Saint Augustine and you're gonna go to the old town get here early
because it gets hot and humid you got the sweat going on i got the sweat going on and it's only
like 11 o'clock me too but our bodies aren't used to it anymore our bodies are like what's happening
no sweaty sweat yeah the old town's kind of a touristy area
but it's still fun to walk around because it is so old and it's still alive and kicking
this is on the national register of historic places the Rodriguez Alvaro Sanchez house first
Spanish colonial period built prior to 176. and you can lease it i know a lot of people think
that uh Christopher Columbus discovered America but it was actually Ponce de Leon
tell us about it it's the oldest schoolhouse in America
the school was actually built um it was a house of boards in 1740 and there was a Spanish soldier
named Thomas Ramos that owned it at that time we feel that he was probably married to a
widow because Spanish soldiers generally didn't have enough money to even have a house of boards
you know usually they were barracks so it existed in 1740 Juan Genopoly purchased it in 1780 then he
did like a major remodel fireplace and what have you in the early 1800s when was Saint Augustine
actually founded 1565. 1565 so it was before Columbus before the pilgrims before the pilgrims and he
never even stepped foot in the United States yeah he was Honduras yeah oh okay i went to Virginia
one time and i just i love going to historic places they had a first person um gathering
with Thomas Jefferson so you know he talks in first person you know and looks you know
yeah yeah me just they're like any questions and i go what do you think about St. Augustine that was
established in 1565 that's Spanish because everybody leaves that out they do leave that
out it's not even in the history books really it's really really hard we've gotten some great history
books um that have been written Michael Francis did a gorgeous book for the 450th anniversary
of Saint Augustine 2013 we celebrated 500th anniversary Juan Ponce de Leon landing
so 2014 we had the 150th class reunion here at the schoolhouse the last class was 1864. and
many of the families are still here it was pretty awesome to try to bring that back together
you know and it's like you guys are the backbone of this town
so they were all the craftsmen and the fishermen in agriculture they knew how to build the boats
build the forts build the buildings dairy farmers you name it they did it all so
the man that actually bought this turned it his living room into a classroom because the kids
were Menorca and they were a little bit Turkish Greek Italian and they were in a British colony
the kids needed to learn English and so that was how the school started and this in and of itself
is one of a kind because this is a Menorca homestead it's the only northern homestead left
your living room your sitting room your bedroom your kitchen your garden the same
well right right and so we interpret it as a homestead yeah but also a school so we're
kind of dual right it's been an interesting year oh i can imagine sanitizing a 250 year old museum
you do whatever it takes to make everything safe yeah are people starting to come back or we yeah
we have more people probably on the weekends because the kids did start back to school and
we didn't know how really that was going to go we used to get a lot of school groups in the fall and
the spring--that's when i came--and unfortunately you know the public schools aren't traveling yeah at all at
all right you know because you can't put them on a bus and we have sanitation stations here because
we just want to make sure that everybody that visits here feels comfortable right and safe yeah
yes we do have that class bell is that structure original too then or no structure
no actually my father designed that it started in 2000 i believe but that building has actually
helped protect the schoolhouse if you think about the winds yeah they're hurricanes and
the same one over there there's a chain and it goes actually through the building
now that was actually made in the Jacksonville shipyards by my grandfather and he put it through
the building to basically hold it down to anchor it exactly and so but in order to keep it safe
we do have footers because that chimney i call it a full court press wrapped inside the building oh
yeah and you've got the full fireplace upstairs and downstairs it's a lot of weight and so
as it was settling it was like you know just let's make sure it doesn't fall together but we
actually hung a plum bomb at the top of that peak because that way you could actually show the kids
a little you can always educate them yeah yeah yeah because Juan Genopoly wasn't just
a teacher he was also a carpenter uh he would have used the plum bomb
significance of this pot over here the big that is what they used in the balance of the boats and
they put drinking water looks similar to the pot that we saw in Bulgaria on the archaeological dig
yeah actually it kind of does but they're they're great um because if you think about
it they were on ships they really didn't know where they were going and you knew if there was
going to be fresh water take out an empty one and catch rainwater in it so how old is that one um
that one came i believe from Cuba mid-1800s okay and this statue was just dedicated
March 7th it was given us by the country of Greece and it's Juan Genopoly it's their ideological
picture of what Juan Genopoly would have looked like ah here we go so Greece gave that to us it
was dedicated March 7th was that is that a newer statue then very new do you know
about the Menorcans no this okay this is how the Greeks got involved when the British took over
Dr Andrew Turnbull who was from Scotland part of the British at that time was uh granted
huge tracks of land in New Smyrna it's called New Smyrna after Turnbull's wife who was from
Smyrna Greece and he got the idea of getting a lot of the people from the Mediterranean over
to help establish the indigo plantation okay they had to establish an indigo plantation and if you
didn't do it everything came back and indigo was so so so expensive and so they thought it could be
the cash crop then Turnbull went over there he went to Greece Italy Turkey Spain Portugal Menorca
but everybody gathered in the island Menorca everybody had already started intermarrying
by the time they left and so that's why collectively they're called the Menorcans
because they all sailed from the isle of Menorca ah so they became their own community yeah you
were actually in the minority quarter of Saint Augustine all the years of living here i knew
nothing about that yeah it's a unique challenge to try to educate kids about what the Spanish
you you know the Spanish you know the British but the British here comes the Menorcans and it's
Menorcans stayed and the Spanish came back wow is the chains actually holding the fireplace or the
chimney you know what if you looked at photos of that chimney it's always kind of looked like that
oh yeah okay yeah of it being in the kitchen the chimney is built outside the building because it
helps pull the heat out of the kitchen but because of that though the way it settles it settles in
so there's a board that that is you'll see leaning up that's basically wedged up against the chimney
and i remember in 1964 watching Mr. Walter put that up you know i just
it was like one of those memories i just i loved him i loved his old
station wagon with all the wood hanging out the back and loved watching them
well this is probably the least expensive attraction in Saint Augustine Florida
yeah right i'm sure you're a non-profit and you accept donations and stuff like that too no
no this is a labor of love okay this is like i said it's been in my family so it's
really it can't be a non-profit oh yeah i'm third generation i'm just trying to keep it
together for the fourth generation and yeah for the rest of the United States because we really
are we try to be good stewards of history yes you guys are in the history we'll put a link
below to uh come and check this place out it's moving to me to sense her passion and you know
this is so important to St. Augustine and to the country school's in session school's in session
you see that kid at the front of the class with the dunce cap that would be Wayne only some days of the week the
dunce cap was not placed on the head of a bad child but instead on the head of a slow learner
the kitchen was not used for a cafeteria as in our modern schools the teachers who taught
at this oldest school did their own cooking in this building the students brought their
own lunches we got to do a diploma yeah you can take one yeah oh right here here we go
here you go we're getting a diploma from the oldest schoolhouse
Castillo de San Marcos Fort is open seven days a week from nine to five fifteen right now they're
allowing a maximum capacity of about a hundred people at any time because of covid and their
formal programs and historic weapons are still suspended Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest
masonry fort in the continental United States it is a large Spanish stone fortress that was built
to protect and defend Spain's claims in the new world construction began in 1672 and lasted 23
years until 1695. and you know the crazy thing is if you go to San Juan Puerto Ricco their fort looks
exactly like this fort i think it was because they were built by the same people there are brochures
and maps that will guide you around the site and you can get a self-guided tour on your device if
you have kids in tow make sure to help them earn a badge and become a Junior Ranger there are some
great views of the city of Saint Augustine from the gun deck and the fort's green
offers a recreation area perfect for picnic or a shady nap oh yeah many a days on that green lawn
the fort came under fire for the first time in 1702 British forces led by General Moore burned
the city but could not penetrate the Castillo's walls subsequent attacks in 1728 and 1740 yielded
similar results and the British were never able to take the city of St. Augustine by force oh look
at this detail on it bronze 15-inch mortar constructed in Barcelona Spain 1724. this
weapon captured by the United States during the Spanish-American war in 1898 is part of the Yale
University art collection if you come to the old fort in Saint Augustine and you have a national
parks pass it's free if not you have to pay the $15 entrance fee 15 for adults but totally worth
it tell us about a tidal toilet this colonial restroom had a twice daily natural flushing
system incoming tides filled the pit with water and outgoing tides flush waste out into the bay
that's a good way to keep it clean all filled in now in 1763 Florida became a British colony
with the signing of the Treaty of Paris thus beginning a 20-year period of English rule the
Castillo was used as a military prison during the Revolutionary War and at one time it held
three signers of the Declaration of Independence within its walls at the end of the Revolutionary
War Florida was returned to Spain in 1784 until Florida became a United States Territory in 1821.
i remember when i was a kid this just seemed so huge and now walking around it's like
tiny i mean like you know shorter and sure it doesn't feel as large right it doesn't feel as
big and it doesn't feel as tall as it did when i was younger right i'd come on field trips here.
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