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| Fort Matanzas |
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| 50 feet on each side with a 30-foot tower was built of coquina, a local shellstone. Lime for the mortar was made by burning oyster shells. A foundation of close-set pine pilings driven deep into the marshy ground gave the fort stability. Soldiers were rotated from St. Augustine for one-month duty tours at Matanzas, the normal |
| compliment being the cabo (officer-in-charge), four infantrymen, and two gunners. More could be assigned to this remote outpost when international tensions increased, up to the planned maximum of 50 during a crisis. The soldiers lived and ate together in a sparsely-furnished room off the gundeck, the officers lived in the vaulted room above. |
| The fort could bring five guns to bear on the inlet: four six-pounders and one 18-pounder. All of the guns could reach the inlet, which in 1742 was less than a half-mile away. Loopholes in the south wall of the tower allowed the infantrymen to fire their muskets from inside the fort. Besides warning St. Augustine of enemy vessels and driving them off if necessary, the fort also served as a rest stop, coast guard station, and a place where vessels heading for St. Augustine could get advice on navigating the river. |
| The fort's primary mission, though, was maintaining control of Matanzas Inlet. After thwarting British attempts to gain the inlet in 1742, the fort never again fired its guns in battle. |
| Below The Watchtower |
| Matanzas Inlet was the scene of crucial events in Spanish colonial history. The massacre of French soldiers here in 1565 was Spain's opening move in establishing a colony in Florida. The construction of Fort Matanzas in 1740-1742 was Spain's last effort to ward off British encroachments on St. Augustine. |
| After the completion of the Castillo de San Marcos in 1695, the town only had one weakness: Fourteen miles to the south Matanzas Inlet allowed access to the Matanzas River, by which enemy vessels could attack the town from the rear, out of range of the Castillo's cannons. Spain had good reason to fear attack. Beginning with Francis Drake's raid on St. Augustine in 1586, England had repeatedly harassed the Spanish colony. In 1740 troops from the British colony of Georgia, lead by Gov. James Oglethorpe, blockaded St. Augustine inlet and began a 39-day siege of the town. On a few occasions during the siege Spanish vessels managed to evade the British blockade and resupply the town. With the siege broken and with the onset of the hurricane season, Oglethorpe gave up the attack and returned to Georgia. The Spanish learned their lesson. If the British had contolled the inlet, they could have starved the town into surrender. Construction began soon afterward. In 1742, with the fort near completion, Oglethorpe arrived off the inlet with 12 ships. The fort's canons drove off his scouting boats and the warships left; it had passed its first test. |