How do you think people obtained water during colonial times? They didn’t turn on the faucet! They collected rainwater in large earthen jars. (Point out example across the garden near the kitchen.) The Spanish word for such a jar was tinajón (tee-nah-HON).
They drew water from wells using a bucket on a rope. In St. Augustine, wells were shallow and the water was sometimes full of dirt and often smelled bad. A common way to clean the water was to use a lava rock. These porous (full of tiny holes, through which water can pass) rocks are volcanic and may have come to St. Augustine as ballast in the hulls of sailing ships. (Ballast—rocks carried in the bottoms of sailing ships to keep them from tipping over.)
The original house was small and one story. It was built sometime between 1702 and 1727, after the city had been burned during an attack by English colonists from South Carolina in 1702. The Oldest House was not the first house on this site. During the 1600s a wooden house stood here. The earlier house most likely had a roof made of palm thatch (palm tree leaves tied tightly together). There were many houses of palm thatch. Also, many houses were built of vertical boards (board placed up and down). Some were made of tabby (oyster-shell concrete) or coquina.
All but a few buildings were burned to the ground by English invaders from Carolina in 1702. By the time the Carolinians burned St. Augustine, the city was already 130 years old. But there are no buildings left from St. Augustine’s earliest days because of the city-wide 1702 fire, and earlier fires and storms and rot.
The first floor is made of tabby, a type of concrete composed of sand, seashells and lime. (Not the green fruit!) Lime is a white substance (calcium oxide) obtained by burning limestone or seashells. When made wet and then allowed to dry, lime becomes very hard, like a concrete sidewalk today. There are places in the wall where the plaster has been removed to reveal the stone beneath.
Coquina is a natural shellstone, a type of limestone, quarried (mined or dug up) on Anastasia Island. (Quarry—a place where building stone is taken out of the ground.) It was used to construct the fort, the Castillo de San Marcos. After 1689, the Spanish king said that the townspeople could use the stone to build houses, but at first, they used it mostly in government buildings, like the governor’s house. After the town was burned, a number of people rebuilt their homes with coquina stone.
The Spanish did not leave the coquina blocks exposed. They covered their walls with plaster (also made of lime) to seal the stone against moisture and to provide a smooth finish. They expected the plaster to wash off with rain and that they would have to plaster again.
Imagine the windows had no glass in them—that they were just “wind holes” (the origin of the word window). Ordinary Spanish families would have not used glass. Wealthier families, however, did have glass windows. Some windows along the street side were protected by up-and-down wooden or metal bars called rejas. Rejas can be seen on some of the houses today on St. Augustine’s old streets. In the 1700s people spent more time outside than we do today.
Note lack of furniture downstairs. Spanish military families would not have owned a lot of possessions. In fact, most ordinary people everywhere did not own many things. Space was limited, so many different activities, such as eating and sleeping, would have taken place in the same room. Note the roll-up beds with mosquito netting. They would be rolled out at night and rolled back against the wall during the day. The nets were necessary because the houses were open to the night air—and mosquitoes. People spent much more time outside than we do today.
The brazier, or brasero, was used to burn charcoal to provide heat in cold weather but also would have been lit in warmer months to keep mosquitoes away. The houses would have been smoky much of the time. Braseros use much less wood than fireplaces. (NOTE: There were fireplaces in St. Augustine houses in First Spanish period—they appear in appraisals and probate inventories.)
The board suspended over the table is called a “rat rack” and was meant to keep mice and crawling bugs away from food.
Where’s the kitchen? It is outside—that little stone building on the other side of the garden. (The kitchen is a reconstruction, not an original historic building.) Food was not prepared in the house. Kitchens were usually separate structures outside to keep odors, heat and the danger of fire away from the house.
In the 18th century the yard outside would not have had the nice carpet of green grass and flowers that we see today. There would have been vegetable and herb gardens, fruit trees, and pens for animals in the yard. The ground around the house would have been bare.
Roles of children: From an early age children worked to help their families. (Boys—fishing, crabbing, gathering oysters, carrying wood and water, tending cattle and horses. Girls—cooking, sewing, sweeping the house and yard, gardening, and babysitting). As early as age seven, some boys began learning trades like carpentry (woodworking) and blacksmithing (making hardware and tools).
Of course, children at that time played. Much of their play was imitating the activities of adults around them. Since St. Augustine was a military town, boys would have played at being soldiers, marching, fighting with wooden swords and muskets, and wrestling. Girls would have played with dolls and imitated their mothers’ childcare activities, such as dressing the dolls, changing their diapers, and singing to them. Girls would also play at baptizing their dolls.
Children also would have played physical games. Drawings of the period show children in Spain playing games such as jump rope, leap frog, blind man’s bluff, and hopscotch. Children here most likely did so as well.
Most children did not go to school, so most never learned to read and write. In 1740s. St. Augustine only eight out of every 100 men could read and write. Even fewer women could do so. Children of the wealthier and more prominent people in town sometimes were taught by private tutors. Also, the priests at the church taught a few boys three days a week. The boys learned to read and write, studied the Latin language, which was used in church services at that time, and learned songs to sing in church.
Many children and adults died from infectious disease. The González family had ten children, but only six lived to grow up. The first documented reference to the Oldest House comes in the burial record of one of the González children, an infant who died in 1727.
Sometimes people, especially girls, married young in those days. The first daughter of Tomás and Francisca González married at the age of 14.
Across the street from the Gonzalez’s home was the Spanish Franciscan friary (a place where men who were dedicated to religious work lived). The St. Francis Friary (convento de San Francisco) was the headquarters of the Spanish mission system in Florida.
British Period (1763 – 1784)
In 1763, Florida came under rule of Great Britain. The British captured Havana, Cuba, in war, and Spain transferred Florida to Great Britain in order to get Havana back according to the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War, also called the French and Indian War. The short-lived British Period lasted from 1763-1784 [21 years]. The British divided Florida into two colonies: East Florida and West Florida.
Most of the men in the town were soldiers and thus received orders to relocate to another Spanish area. The evacuation of the Spanish from St. Augustine took place over six months—from June 1763 to January 1764. The Spanish residents had not expected the changes required by the treaty. Spanish residents left Florida to relocate in Cuba, with a few people going from St. Augustine to Mexico.
The second half of the first floor is the tavern room. Joseph Peavett and his wife Mary Evans Peavett. Bought the house in 1775. Joseph was the paymaster for the British troops. Mary was a widow from South Carolina whose first husband had died. They had more money than many people in St. Augustine.
The Spanish house did not suit the English residents, so they made changes. They put glass in the windows like houses had in England. They built a fireplace and chimney, opened a door to the street (Spanish houses usually opened into a patio or courtyard off the street.
The Peavetts turned the house into a tavern, a place where men (usually) would gather to drink, socialize and have a good time. The tavern served British soldiers who were living in the barracks (housing for soldiers) across the street. The British had converted the friary into a barracks for troops stationed in East Florida.
Mary and Joseph Peavett enjoyed a more comfortable life than the González family before them. The Peavetts were not an ordinary couple. They were a two-income family. As previously mentioned, Joseph was the paymaster for the British troops, and a businessman. Mary earned money as a skilled midwife. A midwife is a woman who helps women in childbirth deliver their babies. In the 1700s midwives, not physicians, attended most births. Midwives also offered help to people who were sick in addition to women giving birth. By the time the Peavetts lived in the house, there were many more machine-made items to buy than during the Gonzalez’s' years. That meant that there were many more things to buy and the things cost less.
Mary and Joseph added this second floor to the old González house. The ledge that runs around the wall covers the small raised wall, or parapet, that surrounded the roof of the Spanish house. The second story of the house is built of wood, not coquina stone. The lumber at that time was sawed by hand, and boards were not cut to the same sizes. The unusual ceiling is called a “tray ceiling” because it is shaped like an upside-down tray.
The large room is set up as a sitting room. This room also could have been used as a place for entertaining guests. The pair of glasses on display has extendable earpieces so the frame could be secured to a wig (a head covering that looks like hair). Both men and women often wore wigs when they went out in public. It was considered being well dressed. Wigs also kept people from having to fix their hair. Many people cut their hair quite short because it was easier to keep it clean and free from lice (little insects that live in people’s hair and make them itch).
The furniture reminds of what we think of as furniture from the Revolutionary War era U.S. Furniture styles were similar from nation to nation, with decorative differences and used different woods.
Second Spanish Period (1784-1821)
She remarried quickly. As there were a lot more men in St. Augustine at that time than women, many women found younger husbands. The 56-year-old Mary married a 28-year-old Irishman named John Hudson. Unfortunately for Mary, John Hudson loved to gamble, and he soon lost Mary’s money. The house had to be sold to pay his debts. In 1790 the house was purchased by a Spaniard, Geronimo Alvarez. He married a local woman named Antonia Vens.
Gerónimo was a baker from northern Spain. He and his son Antonio Alvarez both became prosperous and important men in St. Augustine. They served in the local militia. Gerónimo became the first elected mayor of St. Augustine, and Antonio became secretary to the governor. Gerónimo Alvarez and his family were living in this house at the time Spain sold Florida to the United States. The American flag was raised over St. Augustine in 1821, and Florida became a territory of the United States. Antonio owned the house when Florida was admitted to the Union as the 27th state in 1845.
Territorial Period (1821-1845)
See the bed warmer. It would be filled with hot coals and run over the sheets to warm the bed before someone crawled in.
Note foot warmer. It would be filled with hot coals from the fireplace to keep one’s feet warm on cold winter evenings or while riding in a carriage.
See the chamber pot. In the 1700s and 1800s people in St. Augustine did not have bathrooms inside the house. Instead people used a chamber pot. It usually was kept under the bed for use during the night. Houses at that time did not have running water or flush toilets. Many houses had outhouses on the property, but using a chamber pot was more convenient than going outside to an outhouse in the dark or in bad weather.
Tableware was one of a family’s prized possessions. Many houses lacked storage cabinets for the dishes, so once they were washed, they would be put back on the table until the next meal. Kitchens were usually built apart from the living quarters of the house, for reasons already mentioned.
Statehood (1845 – Today)
Members of the Alvarez family owned the house until the 1880s—for 90 years.
In 1884 Dr. C. P. Carver, a local dentist, and his wife Mary acquired the house. They made a lot of changes. So many people started coming to see the house that the Carvers began asking people to pay admission—to keep them from coming! But they kept coming. And the Carvers eventually decided to make money by opening the house to visitors. The Gonzalez-Alvarez House has been operated as a museum since 1892.