The Ports of the St. Marks River, Florida

The Ports of the St. Marks River, Florida Burke G. Vanderhill Florida State University One of the many rivers finding outlets along the Florida Gulf Coast is the St. Marks, which enters Apalachee Bay between the better known Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers. Effectively blocked mid-way of its course by low limestone caps known as the Natural Bridges, the St. Marks River seems to lead nowhere, yet has been the locus of port activities off and on from early Spanish times. During the early Nineteenth Century five small communities were established at various points along the river ( Fig. 1 ) . Despite the problems of shallow channels, changing economic factors, and devastation by hurricane, epidemic and fire, two of these communities survive today. Intrigued by the long and checkered history of man's use of the St. Marks River, the writer was moved to view it in a geographic perspective . There is archeological evidence that prior to the coming of the Spanish to Florida the St. Marks River was used by various Indian tribes, as a portion of a route to the Gulf of Mexico, for perhaps four thousand years. Probably because the river banks were too low and wet for good village sites and the oyster beds near the mouth were inferior to those elsewhere along the coast, there was no important or permanent occupation of the river area by such peoples. (1) Ancient shell mounds found along the lower reaches of the river, however, indicate at least a seasonal pattern of visitation . It was only after the affairs of Florida were largely taken out of the hands of the Indians that the port function of the St. Marks River developed . EARLY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ST. MARKS, 1608-1821. Occasional visits by Spanish missionaries were made to the area of the Apalachee Indians after about 1608 and ships used the lower St. Marks River as the most convenient access to their territory, which lay inland about 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. With the establishment in 1633 of the mission of San Luis de Talimali, in what is now the western margin of the city of Tallahassee, the St. Marks became the water approach supplementing an overland trail from St. Augustine. Before 1640 foodstuffs from the mission area were being brought to the St. Marks River for export to food-deficient St. Augustine. (2) That vessels called at or near the site of the present town of St. Marks is indicated by the fact that the Spanish considered placing a fort in the area as early as 1662 and that in 1673 a redoubt was constructed on the St. Marks River near the point its principal tributary, the Wakulla, joined it. 16 The Southeastern Geographer MAP "B"- ST. MARKS RIVER AREA GEORG ORIOA ? } FOfTBSS PURCHASE NetareI Bridge* ROCK HAVEN Gulf of Mexico MAP A - REGIONAL SETTING AREA OF MAP ? AREA OF MAP *B ULS£__5° Apalaches Bay Figure 1 The selection of this site five miles from the mouth of the St. Marks River is not surprising. It had strategic value as a defensive position and the confluence of the two rivers provided a natural turning basin for vessels. Also, the river bank offered relatively unimpeded access northward to the mission area. A wooden fort, San Marcos de Apalache, was built during 1679-1680 on the low wedge of land between the St. Marks and the Wakulla. Captured and burned by buccaneers in 1682, the fort was soon rebuilt. The St. Marks River continued to function as a port, serving both the fort itself and the mission area inland. It is likely that few vessels called, however, and at rare intervals. It is presumed that they were anchored in mid-channel and that goods were lightered to and from the river bank. The whole Apalachee area including Fort San Marcos was abandoned by Vol. V, 196517 the Spanish in 1704 as the result of a raid by the English Colonel Moore from what is now Georgia. After a lapse of many years the fort was again rebuilt in 1718. San Marcos served strictly a military function with reference to Spanish shipping routes in the Gulf of Mexico until Florida was...