Discovering America

One way to know what America is, is to see where it's been. History can be absorbed, and appreciated, in places such as Mystic Seaport, a 37-acre museum dedicated to celebrating our nation's maritime history, or in the California gold country, where a chance discovery by James Marshall caused so many Americans to join the rush to the West. These and other historic places tell a priceless bit of our history.

Mystic Seaport’s Maritime Legacy
Mystic, Conn.

Ships have been built along the Mystic River since the 1600s, and America’s maritime legacy is captured in Mystic Seaport, a 37-acre museum which holds the world’s largest collection of historic boats and ships.

The seaside village of Mystic was a small fishing and whaling port until about 1840 when it evolved into a prominent shipbuilding center. More than 600 vessels were constructed there between 1784 and 1919.

But as wooden shipbuilding declined after the Civil War and the great boats were reduced to firewood, three Mystic residents founded Mystic Seaport to preserve America’s maritime golden age. Now, Mystic Seaport holds nearly 500 watercraft, more than a million images of maritime photography, a fully equipped shipyard, and a village with more than 30 buildings, resembling 19th-century Mystic.

“Mystic Seaport is really the world-recognized best place to experience the history of the sea, especially as it relates to the development of our country,” says Bill Topkin, a Mystic native who plays the role of an 1876 schoolmaster at Mystic Seaport.

It’s no surprise that Mystic attracts visitors from landlocked regions. “I think people have always been interested in the sea. You need only look at the literary traditions, poetry, and literary history to recognize the importance of the sea,” Topkin says. “The sea and rivers … were instrumental to the founding and expansion of the country.”

For information, call (860) 572-0711 or log on to www.mysticseaport.org.

Gen. Sam Houston’s Historic Victory
San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site
LaPorte, Texas

A decisive, 18-minute battle, fueled by the cry, “Remember the Alamo!” established independence for Texas and, ultimately, America’s westward expansion.

On the grounds of that historic April 1836 battle now stands a 570-foot monument. But no less awe-inspiring are the grounds around the monument, where Gen. Sam Houston, commanding an army of about 800 Texans, defeated a much larger army of about 1,300 led by Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

The battle was the final event of the Texas Revolution in which American colonists (known as “Texians”), who settled the area and far outnumbered the Mexicans, wanted separate statehood within the Mexican Republic. The Mexican government refused.

That short, furious battle that won Texas’ freedom from Mexico, also would lead to U.S. acquisition of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Indeed, almost one-third of America’s present area—nearly a million square miles of territory—changed sovereignty after the Battle of San Jacinto.

At San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, granite markers designate the spots of the Texian camps, the Mexican camp, and the site of the advance by Texian forces on the 1,200-acre grounds.

The San Jacinto Museum of History, at the base of the monument, houses a collection of more than 350,000 objects, documents, and photographs that span more than 400 years of early Texas history.

Visitors also can ride to the monument’s observation floor near its top and view the battlefield and Houston Ship Channel.

For information, call (281) 479-2431 or log onto www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/battlesh/battlesh.htm.

America’s Oldest European Settlement
St. Augustine, Fla.

Jamestown, Va., may be America’s first permanent English colony, but St. Augustine, Fla., was founded 42 years earlier, in 1565, making it the oldest permanent European settlement in North America.

Don Juan Ponce de Leon, Spanish explorer and treasure hunter, first sighted the area on Easter, March 27, 1513. He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, meaning “Land of Flowers.” But not until 1565 did Spain colonize the territory, when Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Florida’s governor, named the first settlement St. Augustine.

At the heart of St. Augustine was Castillo de San Marcos, which now is the oldest remaining European fortification in the continental United States. Construction of the massive masonry fort began in 1672 and took 25 years to build. The fort and surrounding grounds comprise 25 acres in downtown St. Augustine.

Other St. Augustine historical sites include:

• The fabled Fountain of Youth, a prehistoric spring that Ponce de Leon hoped would offer eternal youth. He was wrong, but an archeological park there contains artifacts of the first St. Augustine colony.

• The Ximenez-Fatio House, built about 1798 by Andres Ximenez, a Spanish storekeeper. It is the only original structure in St. Augustine dating from the last quarter of the 18th century.

• The Gonzalez-Alvarez House, better known as “The Oldest House.” It’s not, but it’s one of America’s most-studied and best-documented structures. The Oldest House was constructed of coquina stone, a native shell stone, around 1702, and the original walls form part of the current building. The site has been inhabited since the early 1600s.

For more information, call (800) 653-2489 or log onto www.visitoldcity.com.

The Rush for California’s Gold
Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park
Coloma, Calif.

John Sutter was hunting for timber, not gold, for his flour mill when a shiny discovery in the waters of the American River triggered the California Gold Rush of 1849.

But it was Sutter’s business partner, James W. Marshall, not Sutter, who made the startling discovery. Marshall was building a sawmill for Sutter when, in January 1848, he noticed gold flakes in the mill’s tailrace—the channel below a water wheel through which spent water flows. The discovery would touch off a stampede to the region around what is now Sacramento.

The gold discovery site, and the still-visible tailrace of Sutter’s sawmill, is in present-day Coloma (pop. 175) at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where the name alone sets the record straight about who found the gold.

“Often you can read dozens of books and articles without them mentioning Marshall’s name, or they refer to him as an employee, but actually he was a full partner in the lumber mill with Sutter,” says John Hutchinson, senior park aide.

Visitors can pan for gold, see a replica of Sutter’s Mill, learn the gold rush story from a museum filled with exhibits, and see the gravesite of James Marshall, who died in 1885. The monument and statue placed above Marshall’s gravesite is California’s first historic landmark.

For more information, call (530) 622-3470 or log onto www.windjammer.net/coloma or www.parks.ca.gov.

The Law of the Land
Homestead National Monument of America
Beatrice, Neb.

Daniel Freeman (1826-1908) became America’s first homesteader because of a sympathetic registrar at the land office who opened his office in the middle of the night to file the paperwork.

Anticipating the Homestead Act, which became law on Jan. 1, 1863, Freeman, who was in the military at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., had chosen a piece of land near Beatrice, Neb., and planned to file a claim the day the act went into effect.

The Homestead Act encouraged westward migration, allowing nearly anyone over age 21 to file for 160 acres of free land. Homesteaders became owners if, after five years, they built a house on it, dug a well, cultivated and fenced a part of the property, and actually lived there.

But Dec. 31, 1862, while Freeman was on a military detail in Brownville, Neb., en route to St. Louis, he learned the local land office would not be open Jan. 1 in observance of New Year’s Day. Because he would not be in Brownville when the land office opened Jan. 2, he persuaded the registrar to open the office shortly after midnight and allow him to file. He received application No. 1 and certificate No. 1 in that district—and in the 1930s, the U.S. Congress recognized Freeman’s homestead site as the first in the United States, designating it the Homestead National Monument of America.

The site, about 50 miles south of Lincoln, Neb., honors all homesteaders, and includes 195 acres, a visitors center, an authentic homesteader’s log cabin, the Freeman family graves, a restored one-room schoolhouse, and a self-guided trail.

For information, call (402) 223-3514 or log onto www.nps.gov.

Writer Carol Davis is fascinated by Colorado’s old mining towns.

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