Throughout the nineteenth century, many people seeking to improve their failing health came to St. Augustine; doctors prescribed the mild climate and coastal atmosphere as a cure for tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses. Some of these individuals included prominent authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was suffering from consumption. Writer Constance Fenimore Woolson also came to St. Augustine as a traveling companion for her sickly mother. Their times in this city inspired poems from both authors. Emerson composed his “St. Augustine” during his 1827 stay. Woolson published her poem, “Matanzas River,” in 1874, the first year she wintered in St. Augustine. It was included as part of her short story “The Ancient City,” published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine that December. Despite being written almost fifty years apart, the works of both authors discussed similar themes. They emphasized St. Augustine’s Spanish heritage and its hospitality for Northern visitors.
Portrait of Constance Fenimore Woolson via Wiki Commons
Both “St. Augustine” and “Matanzas River” open with a traveler approaching from the ocean, and both immediately address the city’s Spanish history. Emerson describes the Castillo de San Marcos, and the “thousand heavy histories” its walls represented. A different fort made an impression on Woolson. Through the character of Sara, a twenty-eight-year-old woman traveling to St. Augustine, Woolson chooses to outright reference the heavy history of Fort Matanzas, calling to mind the 16th century tensions between the French and the Spanish. She describes where “A watch was kept, day and night, for the evil foe—.” She identifies the enemy in the next line as the French Huguenots of Fort Caroline. This historic symbolism continues throughout the poem, with her ending stanza referring to the Castillo by its Spanish name instead of Fort Marion. Woolson discusses this name change earlier in “The Ancient City,” with one of the characters describing Marion as a “commonplace” name. Both poets treat St. Augustine’s former Spanish identity with an almost wistful, nostalgic dejection. Woolson describes the Castillo with a gorgeous sunset behind it as she leaves the city— a metaphoric depiction of its heritage fading into memory. Emerson, visiting the city only a few years after it became an American territory, also describes its “Dim vestiges of a romantic past.” Both poets found inspiration in St. Augustine’s Spanish roots and its Spanish era buildings.
Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson via SAHS
Emerson and Woolson, both Northern travelers themselves, recorded the city’s hospitable nature in their respective poems. Woolson spends several of her stanzas marveling at Floridian wildlife, including “sickle-bill curlews,” “pelicans,” “porpoises,” “fiddler-crabs,” and many others. While her depiction of the Minorcan population is generally negative, she does describe one group of Minorcan fishermen as friendly. In crossing paths with them, “they pause to salute us, and give us good-day.” She even personifies the Matanzas River as welcoming, specifically to people visiting from colder climates. It calls to the narrator of the poem “‘Stay! stay! stay!/Children of the Northland, why flee so soon away?’” Emerson remarks on the city’s appeal to ill Northerners as well, with “much… here/That can beguile the months of banishment/To the pale travellers whom disease has sent/Hither for genial air.”
The atmosphere, history, and natural environment charmed both Emerson and Woolson. Emerson’s last stanza praises the healing qualities of the air and the calmness of the small city. While his poem does remark on the desire to return to Massachusetts, it’s clear he holds a certain fondness for the “pleasant” town. Woolson shares the same sentiment. She concludes her “Matanzas River” with the lines “Though we go, dear river, /thou art ours forever.”
Sources:
“A Foothold in Florida,” Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Florida. National Parks Service, Revised March 14th, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/timu/learn/historyculture/foca_foothold.htm.
Dean, Sharon and Gary Woolson, “Chronology of Woolson’s Life and Works,” Constance Fenimore Woolson: Pioneering American Writer, 1840-1893. Constance Fenimore Woolson Society. Accessed November 25th, 2024. https://constancefenimorewoolson.org/chronology-of-woolsons-life-and-works/.
Griffin, Patricia. “Ralph Waldo Emerson in St. Augustine,” in El Escribano 32, (1995), 113-134.
Woolson, Constance Fenimore. “The Ancient City Part I,” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 50, no. 295, (1874), 1-26. Courtesy of Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52770/52770-h/52770-h.htm.
Zielenski, Paul. “Constance Fenimore Woolson and ‘The Ancient City.’” Constance Fenimore Woolson and ‘The Ancient City.’ St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. Published May 18th, 2016. https://www.staugustinelighthouse.org/2016/05/18/constance-fenimore-woolson-and-the-ancient-city/#:~:text=Constance%20Fenimore%20Woolson%2C%20an%20accomplished,and%20waterways%20of%20the%20town.
Written by: Sydney Livingston, Special Collections Assistant
Edited by: Robert Covert, Special Collections Manager & Editor – in – Chief