INTRODUCTION
Mayport Chronicles is a collection of essays or articles done over an eight
year period, but it is not a history of Mayport. The very name Mayport is not
precise nor constant. In many ways, Mayport is a geographical expression.
Mayport lost its government charter in 1919, again becoming an
unincorporated part of Duval County, Florida. The village has always been very
small. Some say the village began about 1820 when people living there began
to organize themselves. That’s when the St. Johns River Bar Pilots organized. In
1827, the settlement was named Hazzard which became Mayport Mills in 1849.
In 1870, it was Mayport, and it grew to 600 inhabitants by 1885. Mayport
became a town in 1909 and then ceased to be in 1919. There were too few
people.
There was Mayport and East Mayport (which, at various times included
Pablo Plantation, Naranjal, Burnside Beach―later called Seminole Beach―,
Wonderwood by the Sea, and Wonderwood Estates. Most people reached the
area by the river or by sea. There were trails but travel was difficult. Boats have
always been important in the Mayport area. The Jacksonville, Mayport, and
Pablo Railway and Navigation Company ran trains from Arlington to Mayport to
Burnside Beach and back. It was short-lived. The Florida East Coast Railway
extended the line from Pablo Beach to Mayport in 1900, using some of the JMP
track, and stayed until 1932. In 1926, the Florida East Coast Railway renamed its
station there to Wonderwood, reflecting the power and prestige of its biggest
landowner, Elizabeth P. Stark, but most still called it East Mayport. Then, what is
now Naval Station Mayport took much of East Mayport. The former residents
moved but the Navy continued to expand. Jacksonville annexed all of Duval
County in 1968 and Mayport, that tiny sliver of land bounded by the Navy base
on the east, the river on the north and west, and Atlantic Beach on the south, a
neighborhood within a large metropolitan area. Some places in east Mayport
now have Atlantic Beach addresses. Yet, the village has a unique history, a
collective memory that persists, a Mayport state of mind, if you will.
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Mayport and East Mayport, 1918, showing the RR tracks
Source: US Geological Survey
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Others say the village dates back to 1562 when Ribault and his crew
stopped there briefly. The history of the Huguenot colonization efforts need
attention to understand this claim.(Before European settlement, the area of the
mouth of the St. Johns River was controlled by the Saturiwa, a Timucua
chiefdom. They spoke Mocama, a dialect of the Timucua language. On the
south (Mayport) side of the river, the chief was Chief Satouriba, whose name is
also spelled Saturiba. When the French and the first Spanish arrived, these
people were illiterate but the Europeans, particularly Jacques Le Moyne de
Morgues and Theodor de Bry painted images of them.1
“Mocama Archeology,” UNF Archeology Lab, http://www.unf.edu/~kashley/Mocama.html;
“The Saga of Jean Ribault and the French Colony in North Florida Celebrate 450,”
http://beta.coj.net/commemorate450/docs/450th-32312a.aspx; and Godard Design Associates,
Inc., Historic Resources Survey, Mayport Village, Florida, June 30, 2000. Florida Memory. “Jacques
Le Moyne de Morgues and Theodor de Bry’s Images of Florida Indians,”
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The French presence on the St. Johns River was fleeting at best. Jean
Ribault arrived in 1562 and left the same year. The French returned in 1564, and
left one way or another, in 1565. Most of them were heretics, Calvinists not
Catholics. These Calvinists were called Huguenots in France, where they were
tolerated, barely, and represented one-eighth of the population.2 Jean Ribault
and 150 men in three ships made landfall south of present-day St. Augustine and
then coasted northward until the encountered the St. Johns River (they named it
the River of May) and entered it, landing on the north side of the river on May 1,
1562. Fortunately, the Timucua they met on both sides of the river were curious,
not, hostile, and helped them. Ribault’s men included soldiers; the expedition
was military in purpose. He erected a stone column and left, heading
northward. They bumped along the coast until they reached the Beaufort River
in South Carolina on May 27th. At this place, the residents had to be enticed to
cooperate. Ribault wanted to take some back to France to show them to the
Queen. He convinced some of his entourage to stay in Charlesfort as he and
the others sailed back home to obtain supplies and colonists; he left June 11,
less than a month and a half after he landed on the shores of the St. Johns
River.3
http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2012/05/02/jacques-le-moyne-de-morgues-and-theodorde-brys-images-of-florida-indians/.
2 Francis Parkman, Huguenots in Florida, published 1865, 1885, 2004.
http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?action=nextpre&bid=65. Also see George R.
Fairbanks, The Spaniards in Florida Comprising the notable settlement of the Huguenots in 1564,
and the History and Antiquities of St. Augustine, Founded A.D. 1565 (Jacksonville: Charles Drew
Co, 1868).
3 Ribault’s journal was published as The True and Last Discoverie of Florida, made by Captain
John Ribault, in the Yeere 1692, dedicated to a great Nobleman in Fraunce, and translated into
Englishe by one Thomas Haclcit.
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Copy of LeMoyne Painting of Spaniard and Indian by Elizabeth Stark
The Charlesfort remnant, mostly soldiers, sailors, and gentlemen, sought
gold and other precious objects. They expected the longtime residents to feed
them, which they did until they convinced the Frenchmen that there were
better pickings to the south. A guide was supplied and the locals managed to
rid themselves of the mendicants for a time. The chiefs to the south fed and
supplied them. They returned to Charlesfort. Life got harder. Their storehouse was
consumed by fire; they rebelled against their leader and killed him; and then
fought among themselves, demonstrating to the locals that the French were,
after all, just ordinary people, not demi-gods. The survivors decided to head
back to France in a makeshift vessel. Few made it, even though they resorted to
cannibalism. An English ship rescued them.
René de Laudonnière, Ribault’s lieutenant, arrived again on the St. Johns
River on June 25th, 1564 with three ships full of men. He was met by Chief
Satouriba, who remembered him from the year before and welcomed him.
Satouriba’s people farmed and fished, so there was plenty to eat. They also
fought another tribe upriver from which they had acquired some silver.
Laudonnière and Satouriba became military allies; the Europeans lusted after
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precious metal. The French established Fort Caroline, probably on St. Johns Bluff,
upriver from Mayport, but the location is disputed. Two ships returned to France
for supplies and people. Laudonnière soon had his hands more than full.4 This
expedition, too, had come to get rich but life was hard and grew harder. Soon
they were fighting among themselves. He had to quash a mutiny. They involved
themselves in local wars, including against their chief local benefactor. The 1th
century historian, Francis Parkman, put it well:
And now, in ample measure, the French began to reap the harvest of
their folly. Conquest, gold, and military occupation had alone been their
aims. Not a rod of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores
were consumed, and the expected supplies had not come. The Indians,
too, were hostile. Satouriona hated them as allies of his enemies; and his
tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exulted in their
miseries. Yet in these, their dark and subtle neighbors, was their only
hope.5
Life was difficult, fraught with warfare and conspiracy. Temporary relief
appeared when Sir John Hawkins and his fleet appeared on August 3, 1565.
Hawkins sold them a ship, gave them some supplies, and left. Many of
Laudonnière’s men, who hoped to leave with Hawkins, now saw this ship as their
means of escape. Twenty-five days later, Ribault returned with men, women,
and supplies to create a colony at Ft. Caroline. He also brought an order for
Laudonnière to return to France to defend himself against charges made
against him.
The Spanish, who had been awarded the territory by Pope Alexander VI in
1494 in the Treaty of Tordesillas and, specifically, Florida by the right of discovery
by Ponce de León in 1513, would not tolerate another monarchy encroaching
on their territory. The treasure fleets from Mexico and South America needed
protection, so the Spanish monarchy established St. Augustine. Pedro Menéndez
de Aviles was ordered to drive the French heretics out. Ribault’s fleet appeared
near St. Augustine, but all but two ships were destroyed by a storm. Believing he
had experienced God’s grace, Menéndez marched 500 men overland to Ft.
Caroline. He showed no mercy to these Protestants (the Spanish term for
Protestants was Lutheran), for they opposed God, as Catholics saw it in those
days. He spared some women and children. A few men escaped. The Spanish
renamed the fort San Mateo. Ribault and survivors came ashore. One group
went to Matanzas Inlet south of St. Augustine where they were captured by the
Florida Memory, http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/tag/rene-de-laudonniere/.
Francis Parkman, Chapter 6: 1564, 1565. Famine. War. Succor, Huguenots in Florida,
http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?action=nextchapter&bid=65&cid=6.
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Spanish. The “Lutherans,” including Ribault, were executed; the Catholics
spared.
Spain held Florida until 1763, when, as an ally of France, it lost the Seven
Years War (French and Indian War in United States history), a world war. Spain
did regain Cuba and the Philippines and also gained the Louisiana territory from
the French, who the British wanted to weaken.
And then began the granting of tracts of land in Florida with the aim of
populating Florida with sympathizers. The British did it until they lost the next
international war in 1783, the American Revolution. The Spanish then awarded
land grants. When the United States acquired Florida in 1821, it recognized those
grants.
The English divided their newly-acquired colony into East Florida with its
capital in St. Augustine and West Florida with its capital in Pensacola as part of
its strategy of colonizing the vast territory. Colonists in East Florida received
2,856,000 acres. They hoped that men of property (like the ruling class in
England) would settle there but such was not to be the case. In 1776, for
example, only sixteen families settled in Florida out of the 114 grants made.
Florida was not attractive. So Governor James Grant decided the recruit small
landowners. Denys Rolle brought lower class Londoners to farm on the St. Johns.
The experiment was a failure; they were urban people who had neither
expertise not desire to farm. Dr. Andrew Turnbull recruited peasants from
Greece, Italy, and Spain (principally from the island of Minorca) to settle in
Florida in his New Smyrna colony but this desolate coast could not
accommodate 900 new people and the English there did not trust these
Catholics. The colony was a disaster and the Minorcans fled to St. Augustine
(largely Catholic) for protection.6 When the Spanish crown regained Florida in
1783, it sought to recruit colonists who were Spanish or willing to swear
allegiance to Spain. It would tolerate heretics as long as they did not practice
their religion in public. The Crown understood the adage “to govern is to
populate” and, to fend off English encroachment, it sought settlers loyal to the
Crown. Most of Mayport was a grant made to Andrew Dewees. Dyle Johnson
refers to the grants made in the Mayport area in Chapter 3: “Mayport
Minorcans” as he traces the Minorcan heritage character of Mayport.
The Mayport area had a few farms but the ocean and the river provided
the livelihood of most people. They fished in both, standing on the shore, casting
Florida of the British: British Colonialism in Florida, 1763-1783. http://floridahistory.org/british.htm.
“WPA History of the Spanish Land Grants,” Florida Memory.
https://www.floridamemory.com/collections/spanishlandgrants/wpa4.php.
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nets, especially when the mullet were running, or in boats. Shrimp fishing evolved
from casting a net from a boat to big trawlers which could and did venture
beyond the Atlantic Ocean into the Gulf of Mexico searching for large beds of
shrimp. Sollecito Salvadore (Mike Salvador) went to Fernandina in 1898 and
began using a haul net the next year. He increased the yield substantially. His
brother-in-law, Salvatore Versaggi, joined him 1906. Salvatore didn’t like
shrimping so he moved to New York City. He returned to Fernandina in 1912,
seeking the warm winters and convinced there was a more efficient way to
catch shrimp and send them to the buyers he had cultivated in New York. He
developed bigger boats which used a modified otter trawl and was sent far
offshore. It worked. After he died in 1925, the owner of ten boats, his son took
over the fishing business in Florida and the sales business in New York. They sent
ships to Louisiana, where they met success. By the 1940s, their fleets were fishing
all over the Gulf of Mexico.7
Henry C. “Booty” Singleton is the hero of the Mayport shrimping industry. Born in
Mayport in 1917 to a fisherman father, he began working on the docks in 1924,
beheading shrimp. Within a year, he decided that buying shrimp wholesale from
fishermen and selling them retail to housewives was more profitable and
pleasant than manual labor. His business grew. In 1948, he bought four trawlers
and went shrimping into the Gulf of Mexico. He moved his base of operations to
Ft. Lauderdale in 1949 and then to Tampa. By 1958, the yields had declined so
he went into processing in Tampa. The Shrimp King sold his businesses in 1981
and died in 1983.8 Other Mayport families shrimped for a living. Joseph “Buster”
Brown identifies some fleet owners. Nelton Seely, Charlie Vicio, and Mathias
Roland owned fleets. Bob Parker owned 5 boats. Over the years, the Pack family
has owned several boats. Commercial shrimping eventually declined in
Mayport; there are only a few commercial shrimpers left.
“The Versaggi Family, Florida’s Shrimp Pioneers,” Southern Shrimp Alliance.
http://www.shrimpalliance.com/stories/the-versaggi-family-floridas-shrimp-pioneers/.
8 “Singleton Seafood,” Tampa Bay Fisheries, Inc.,
http://www.tbfish.com/history.php?menu_id=20.
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Shrimp boats
Photo by Don Mabry
Mayport as Mayport has shrunk. It began shrinking in land area when the
Navy started acquiring its land and continued to do so. About the only thing the
two have in common is proximity. Sailors and their families who live off base do
not understand the Mayport heritage. Not only is the village of Mayport part of
Jacksonville but the City of Jacksonville bought a large section of riverfront with
plans to build a cruise ship terminal. Resistance left a large area of empty space,
but it stimulated people to try to preserve Mayport’s cultural heritage.9
Mayport Chronicles contains a variety of chapters, some written in the
past as independent articles that contribute to an understanding of Mayport’s
history. Previously mentioned Is ”Mayport Minorcans” by Dyle R. Johnson. He also
Godard Design Associates, Inc., Historic Resources Survey, Mayport Village, Florida, June, 2000
contains not only a good assessment of the village’s past and present but also fascinating
interviews with long term residents. Lyn Corley’s “Conversations from Mayport,” 400 pages
transcribing her interviews with Mayport residents has been winning awards and is scheduled to
be released to the public in late May, 2015. “Historic Mayport Village, “MetroJacksonville
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-mar-historic-mayport-village)is a pleasant photo
essay done in 2010.
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wrote “History of the Lighthouse Service in Mayport, Florida, 1833-I929”, and
“Uncle Charlie Leek.” He collected the documents in Mayport and River
Navigation. He retrieved “The St John’s Bar and the River from Jacksonville to
the Sea” by Lee E. Bigelow. My contributions are “Walter T. Galvin, Locomotive
Fireman; Yankee Engineer in Florida,” the story of F. W. Bruce, a man who
helped build the jetties; “Mighty Mayport Beats Jacksonville”, a story of how
Mayport saw itself as distinct from Jacksonville; “Florida's Napoleon,” about
Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward who had deep ties to Mayport;
“Princess to Pauper: The Legend of Elizabeth P. Stark,” who captivated locals
when she bought a large parcel of land in East Mayport; and “The King
House―Haunted?”. Mayport men served their country in World War I as shown in
“WWI Veterans: Jacksonville Beaches & Mayport, Florida.”
Enjoy this glimpse of Mayport history.
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Mayport Plat
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