03/14/2025
🎉In honor of Women’s History Month, here’s some of the fascinating WOMEN OF ST. AUGUSTINE who over the centuries helped shape our beautiful, historic city into what it is today!
*Special thanks to our team member Courtney for researching & compiling this! 👏🏼
🌟Doña Maria Melendez
In 1565, Pedro Menendez landed at the site of the Native American Timucuan village of Nombre de Dios and established the city of St. Augustine, which would become the nation’s oldest continually occupied city. In the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Cacica, or Cheiftainess of Nombre de Dios was Doña Maria Melendez.
Doña Maria was an ally of the Spanish. She and her tribe protected the Spanish from attacks by other Native American tribes and shared their food to prevent the Spanish settlers from dying of starvation.
During the 1586 attack by English pirate Sir Francis Drake, in which the city of St. Augustine was burned to the ground, Doña Maria and her tribe provided shelter for many Spanish settlers. The efforts of her and her tribe on behalf of the Spanish earned her praise from King Felipe III of Spain himself.
🌟Mary Evans
Upon the completion of the French and Indian War in 1763, the Treaty of Paris ceded Florida to Britain after two hundred years of Spanish rule. Mary Evans arrived in St. Augustine in the city’s first year under British rule. Mary’s expertise as a midwife quickly earned her the respect of her new community.
Mary’s first husband died shortly after their arrival in St. Augustine, and shortly thereafter Mary married a captain in the British army. Together they purchased property across from St. Francis Barracks, where they opened a tavern which became a popular spot for the soldiers to come and drink. The González-Alvarez House, also known as the Oldest House, was their home on that property.
Following the death of her second husband, Mary married a man half of her age. Her third husband squandered all of Mary’s substantial assets and accumulated large debts, which together with his disrespect of authority, caused them to be exiled from St. Augustine. Mary’s life has been dramatized in the popular historical fiction novel Maria by Eugenia Price, one of a trilogy of books set in St. Augustine.
🌟The Women of the Ximenez-Fatio House
The Ximenez-Fatio House has been owned and operated by strong, independent women for almost two hundred years. The house earned its name through two owners who made a significant impact on the property. The Ximenez portion of the house’s name comes from the family who built the original buildings of the house in 1798, Juana Pellicer and Andres Ximenez. The Fatio portion of the house’s name refers to Louisa Fatio, who ran the building as a boarding house from 1855 until her death in 1875.
In the period between these two owners, the buildings were owned, enlarged and improved upon, by three other independent women, widowed sisters Margaret Rowland Cook and Elizabeth Rowland Whitehurst, and the widow Sarah Petty Anderson.
In 1939, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America took ownership of the property. They have transformed the Ximenez-Fatio House into a museum depicting life in the pre-Civil War era, the 1830s and 1840s. Under the Colonial Dames ownership, the Ximenez-Fatio has been the site of more than fifteen archaeological digs. The digs have led to some interesting discoveries, included the Caravaca Cross and thousands of pre-Columbian artifacts. The women of the Ximenez-Fatio House represent the strong women who, often widowed through war or disease, helped St. Augustine keep going through the Civil War, and to establish itself as a vacation destination.
🌟Maria Andreu
The first lighthouse in Florida was erected nearly 450 years ago when Don Pedro Menendez claimed Florida for Spain in 1565. In 1859, St. Augustine’s Lighthouse was not in its current location. At that time the lighthouse was located on an eighteen mile strip of land that was not easily accessible. It was operated by the lighthouse keeper Joseph Andreu and his wife Maria. Due to the inaccessibility of the lighthouse, Joseph and his wife Maria were responsible for growing, hunting and catching their own food, as well as educating their twelve children, all for only four hundred dollars per year.
On Monday, December 10, 1859, Maria witnessed her husband fall sixty feet and die almost instantly while white-washing the lighthouse. Following Joseph’s death, the residents of the city of St. Augustine pushed for his wife Maria to be appointed as the lighthouse keeper. At the time, lighthouses were under the domain of the Coast Guard, so once named lighthouse keeper Maria became the first female member of the Coast Guard. Maria maintained the St. Augustine Lighthouse until the light was extinguished in 1862. The light was extinguished out of fear that the light would provide aid to the Union Navy during the Civil War.
Following the Civil War, the lighthouse was not used again and fell into ruins. Tourists staying at Henry Flagler’s hotel during the late 1800s and early 1900s would visit the site, making it a popular visitor attraction.
🌟Sisters of St. Joseph
Upon the completion of the Civil War, Augustin Verot, Bishop of Savannah, traveled to his hometown of Le Puy, France to request volunteers from the Sisters of St. Joseph to come to St. Augustine for the purpose of teaching the newly freed black children. The Sisters of St. Joseph arrived in St. Augustine in 1866 and taught many generations of St. Augustine’s blacks in the Benedict the Moor Catholic School building until 1964, when the school was closed after integration.
At the end of the 1800s continuing into the early 1900s, Southern state legislatures began passing laws enforcing racial segregation. These were known as the Jim Crow laws. It was during this period, in 1913, that a law was passed in Florida making it illegal for white persons to teach black students.
On Easter Sunday 1916, which happened to be the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Augustine, three of the Sisters were arrested for teaching black students in their school. Following the trial, the judge ruled that the law prohibiting the education of black students would only apply to public schools and that the state had no right to regulate private schools, including the Benedict the Moor Catholic School.
🌟Dr. Luella Day McConnell
Known as Diamond Lil due to the diamond set in one of her front teeth, Dr. Luella Day McConnell and her husband moved to St. Augustine in 1900, fresh from the Yukon Gold Rush. They purchased a large parcel of land at the northern end of the city before disappearing.
Two years later, Luella returned to St. Augustine alone, and soon began making surprising claims regarding her land. Included in the discoveries she claimed to have been found on her land were a fourteen by ten foot cross created from coquina stones, and enclosed within a small silver container, a piece of parchment. Luella claimed that the parchment was inscribed with the Spanish writings of a member of Ponce De Leon’s party, testifying to laying the stone cross in 1513. Claiming these items as proof that the well on her land was the Fountain of Youth, Luella began selling glasses of water for 10 cents each.
In 1927, Walter B. Fraser purchased the land, and his family still owns it to this day. Archaeological research conducted on the site in the decades since have uncovered evidence of the long standing Timucuan village, Seloy, whose artifacts are now on display within the park. Luella Day McConnell was responsible for providing St. Augustine with one of its first tourist attractions, which is still a top attraction today thanks to its history and the archaeological finds discovered at the site.
🌟Delores Miller Parks
An African-American teenager during the turbulent early 1960s, Delores was a civil rights activist who participated in non-violent protests in St. Augustine. She was arrested four times, once for taking part in a sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, which is now the location of Wells Fargo.
Delores also participated in a wade-in, an attempt to integrate St. Augustine Beach. As the protestors entered the water, members of the Ku Klux Klan began pulling protestors under the water in an attempt to drown them.
One afternoon, while visiting Civil Rights activist Dr. Robert Hayling’s dentist office, she was introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke of love and non-violence, dispelling any anger she felt against her oppressors. Remembering the events over forty years later, Delores said, “My contribution was not unique; it was not an act of bravery, it was something I believe we all did because we were compelled to do it.”
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