Original Town of Fernandina Historic Site - History

History

The original town of Fernandina was established on a bluff over the Amelia River at the northwest end of Amelia Island in northernmost Florida on the east coast of the United States. Native Americans had camped on this land above the Amelia River from 2000–1000 BC. The St. Johns People dwelt here from as early as 1000 B.C. and their Timucua descendants encamped in the same area.

The naturally deep and protected harbor was known to the early European explorers of Florida. The island was called Napoyca by the Timucua and was associated with the name "Santa María" from the early First Spanish Period (1500–1763). Spanish Franciscan friars established the fortified mission compound of Santa María de Sena by 1602 near this place, which was only a league (3 miles) away from the mission of San Pedro de Mocama on present-day Cumberland Island. A Spanish sentinel house was built here in 1696. In later colonial times the site gained military importance because of its deep harbor and its strategic location near the northern boundary of Spanish Florida. During his invasion of north Florida, 1736–1742, the governor of the British colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, stationed a military guard of Scottish Highlanders on the site and named the island Amelia, after the daughter of King George II of Great Britain.