The History of Northeast Florida

As an author, people often ask me about the books that I read myself.  This list contains short reviews of some of the books that I have recently enjoyed.  I started this list for myself, to remind me of what I have already read, but decided to share it with you.   All are available for free through your local library, where I get most of my books and where I encourage you to get yours.   But, if you would rather have your own copy, or if you simply want to learn more, each review contains a link to its Amazon listing. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission for purchases through my links at no extra cost to you. This helps support my writing and keeps my free website going.  I only recommend books that I truly enjoy.  If I didn't like it, I'll tell you that, too! Make sure that you bookmark this page, as I update the list often. No Way Home by T.C. Boyle builds up incredible, high-stakes tension with the author's dark humor and super vivid ...

In the late 1800s Northeast Florida was a major winter destination for visitors from the northern states.  Henry Flagler’s railroad was pushing southward and with it came hotels and tourists.  The folks from “up north” wanted to experience Florida ’s warm climate and exotic environs.  All of these people needed to be entertained.  Of course, they wanted to see those strange prehistoric creatures that they had heard about – alligators.  Local entrepreneurs were happy to oblige by establishing amusement parks and alligator attractions.  For good measure, ostrich shows – featuring a species not native to Florida – were added to the mix.  After all, exotic animals are exotic animals. It all began on Anastasia Island , just outside of St. Augustine , in the 1890s.  A tram had recently been installed to ferry people from the City of St. Augustine to the beaches of Anastasia Island .  A St . Augustine resident set up a small exhibit at the...

The salt air off Cumberland Sound has a way of swallowing sound, but if you stand on the brick ramparts of Fort Clinch at twilight, the silence feels deliberate. Located on the northernmost tip of Amelia Island, Florida, the fortress is a sprawling masterpiece of nineteenth century military engineering. Its massive walls, composed of more than five million locally fired bricks, look out over the shifting sands where the Amelia River meets the Atlantic Ocean. Fort Clinch never saw a major battle. No walls were breached by cannon fire. No bloody siege defined its place in the history books. Yet, for nearly a century, visitors, park rangers, and living history re-enactors have insisted that the fort is far from empty. Of all the legends woven into the masonry of this coastal outpost, none is more enduring than the tale of "The Faithful Soldier", a phantom sentry trapped in a tragic loop, bound to the ramparts by a promise he died trying to keep. In 1847, the United States govern...

On the night of December 19, 1827, the waters off Key Largo, Florida, fractured with the sounds of wood splintering, heavy artillery firing, and the screams of hundreds of captive people. The Spanish brig Guerrero, a heavily armed vessel carrying 561 enslaved West Africans, crashed at full speed into Carysfort Reef. The impact was a catastrophic groan of oak tearing open against a jagged thicket of razor sharp coral. Below decks, the captives were plunged into absolute blackness, broken only by flashes of lightning through the deck as the foul bilge water began to rise rapidly around their shackled ankles. Pursued through a blinding storm by a British Royal Navy anti-slavery schooner, the outlaw vessel tore its hull open, snapped its masts, and began to sink. The wreck of the Guerrero was not an isolated maritime accident, but a geopolitical clash, an act of piracy, and a human tragedy. It remains one of the most significant, yet overlooked, events in the twilight years of the transatl...