Jacksonville Florida or bust!

[major bill]

I will be leaving for the Jacksonville Florida on Friday, or perhaps Monday, or perhaps some time in the next couple weeks. I may stay a few days or perhaps a week or two. Ya I know us retired people can be a bit too laid back. I have been there before and need a few places to visit while I am down there? I need to start a list of what to do. What are the museums in Jacksonville like? What else is there to do in Jacksonville?

 

[Irishtom29]

North of Jacksonville is Fort Clinch, a well preserved Third System seacoast fort of unusual (for North America) polygonal design with caponiers for flanking fires and <very unusual> carnot scarps.

There's an NPS park in Jacksonville near the site of the piratical French colony that was destroyed by the Spaniard Pedro Menendez in 1565. There's a phony replica of the French fort Menendez stormed and put its garrison to the sword.

Menendez founded St. Augustine, about 30 miles to the south. Much history there including the crown jewel of NPS forts, the Castillo de San Marcos (where I was an NPS volunteer). A magnificently maintained example of gunpowder era bastioned fortification complete with glacis, covered way, fine ditch and a ravelin.

Lots of other history too—the site of Fort Mose where black Spanish militia and their families lived (slaves who escaped the English colonies to Florida were accepted by the Spanish and turned into Spaniards). At Fort Mose a British force was destroyed by the Spanish during the siege of 1740.

 

[major bill]

I have never been to Fort Mose. I have never been to Fort Menendez. I have been to St. Augustine but probably have more I could see there. An ancestor, with my last name, had a son-in-law who was a pirate who sacked St. Augustine.

 

[major bill]

I might want to visit the local used book stores for military books. My wife will want to sped a few days sitting with her 90 year old mother, so I may have a couple days to kill. I will have to buy a tacky Florida t-shirt, the tackier the better.

 

[major bill]

I probably only sent a half hour at the Battle of Olustee site. I could go there for half a day. I am not sure there is all that much to see there.

 

[Irishtom29]

I might want to visit the local used book stores for military books.

Well, a couple of years ago when my wife and I started traveling and living full time in our motorhome I sold hundreds of history books to the local bookstores; some turned out to be worth a pretty penny such as my signed copies of Sykes' Regular Division and the Bliss Farm fight book.

 

[bdtex]

Here is a thread about the Fort Clinch mentioned above:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/forgotten-forts-series-fort-clinch.77816/#post-549999