Federal commission here this fall?

   Mayor Joe Boles, a member of the federal St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission, reported to city commissioners Monday that the federal panel hopes to meet here in late September or early October, and wants a presentation by the city's original 450 director, Heritage Director Dana Ste. Claire, a timeline of developments, and information on the city's 450 website.

   A traveling exhibit of Spain's Colonial Empire is the focus of many on the commission, as well as the Spain-Florida 500 Foundation in Miami, and Spain has committed 400,000 euros ($575,200) to the project.

   The exhibit would travel to major cities in Florida, and an expected stop in St. Augustine brought discussion of expanding the Visitor Center to handle major exhibits.

   City Manager John Regan said adaptation of the space would cost $300,000 to $500,000, and suggested, "It's time to talk to adaptive reuse architects."

   Good Samaritan Director Lynette Horwath cites some creative gift-giving to support the Wildflower Clinic in West Augustine, offering medical and dental assistance.

Jane Thousand, wife of one of the volunteer dentists, was having a birthday celebration for herself and her granddaughter, Macey. In lieu of gifts, she asked friends to send a check to Good Samaritan. From the more than 20 checks from her friends came more than $500.

Rather than purchasing a commemorative plaque for Victor Yerrill, Memorial Presbyterian Church's Community Outreach Committee chairman who is stepping down, the committee took up a collection in his honor and sent $325 to the Wildflower Clinic.

Many creative as well as usual ways to help the clinic. Visit www.samaritanhc.org.

   It seemed a natural for some extra income. And who doesn't like to shop?

   Still, the 42-year-old St. Augustine resident thought it odd when he signed up on-line to be a mystery shopper, and received from Shelia Wagoner of Broadwater, Nebraska an envelope with a money order for $990 and instructions to put the money order in his bank account and make a money transfer to a Bernard Paisley of Chicago, Illinois.

   He did place the money order in his account, but did not make the money transfer.

   A few days later he became suspicious when he could not access his account. A local branch of Bank of America said the original money order was fraudulent and closed his account, avoiding any loss of funds.

   St. Augustine Police warn citizens to be aware of this scam, and if they are confronted with it or any other act that seems suspicious, to call the police department. The tip line is 209-3482.    

   From a dissertation by Philip Matthew Smith, Principia College, 2007

   British born surveyor Charles Vignoles provided one early account of St. Augustine and East Florida during the first year of territorial status. Vignoles arrived in St. Augustine aboard the Florida by July 28, 1821, just weeks after the change of flags ceremony. He compared the 1820s Spanish town unfavorably with how it had looked during the twenty-year period of British rule.

   "The undeviating salubrity of St. Augustine, while under the British flag, was certainly augmented by the perfect cleanliness and neatness which was the characteristic of the town during that epoch; ... [but] the buildings crumbled into ruins over the heads of the indolent Spaniards, and the dirt and nuisance augmented in every lot, is an additional proof of the natural unhealthiness of the place."

   The American public did not universally share this attitude toward Spanish-Americans. At best, Anglo Americans were ambivalent about Spanish America. On one hand, there was praise for the independence movements and the creation of new republics. On the other hand, there was unease with a social and legal system that accorded a degree of rights to people of mixed color and about Catholicism that many Protestant Americans regarded as anti-republican.

   Florida's former Spanish government had their own negative impression of Americans. In 1813, during the Second Spanish Period, planter immigrant Zephaniah Kingsley sent a letter to a militia captain recommending that United States settlers be allowed to populate Indian lands in order to secure the inland regions against slave runaways. Governor Sebastián Kindelán replied to Kingsley's suggestion that it would be better that Florida were deserted than populated by "American rabble."

   Attorney John Drysdale wrote from St. Augustine about the lack of an established legal system during the transfer of authority and its deleterious effect on "the population of this country, of a mixed and unsettled character generally, and partially passing from a state of comparative despotism..."

   By contrast, Florida's second governor, William Duval, recorded his impression of Florida's Spanish. "I have found those people much more orderly than the Americans who are here, and I do not believe I have seen a more moral or better people. They can be easily governed, if treated with kindness and confidence."

   Surveyor General George Clarke of Amelia Island wrote a report for Captain John Bell of the United States Army command in East Florida with his opinion of the Anglo population that came to Florida during the latter years of Spanish occupation:

   ". . . Warm climates are congenial to bad habits....Unfortunately for Florida, the laws of both governments [Georgia and Florida] had effect of making each country the asylum of the bad men of the other, consequently Florida must have received, we will suppose, twenty of those for every one it returned to Georgia."

   Evidently, United States' emigrants to Florida contained a noticeable element of troublemakers, but it is hard to imagine this not being the case in every newly opening territory.