Florida was the First to Celebrate
In 1562, under the leadership of Jean Ribault, Frenchmen successfully landed upon the shores of northeast Florida near the mouth of what today is known as the St. Johns River.
Upon arrival, Ribault and company knelt in prayer and gave thanks for their safe arrival, making it possibly the first protestant prayer by an organized religion in Florida.
The next day, after selecting a spot where it might be easily seen entering the port, along the south side of the river, Ribault and his men erected a stone column with the French King’s coat of arms carved into it, thereby claiming the area for France.
In 1924, the Florida Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution wanted to commemorate the 1562 landing of Jean Ribault and highlight the influence of European Protestants in the colonization of Florida. A replica column was designed. After moving it several times, the column is now located on St. Johns Bluff as a part of the Fort Caroline National Memorial at the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.
In 1565 Pedro Menéndez founded Saint Augustine and named it in honor of the saint whose feast day it was when he first sighted land. This happened 42 years before Jamestown was settled in 1607, and over 50 years before the Plymouth landing in 1620, making it the oldest European settlement in America. Father Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, a Spanish diocesan priest, created an altar, and when Menendez came ashore, Father Lopez held a high cross and celebrated the nation’s first parish Mass at the landing spot. Today the historic marker in the area reads: “On this site, September 8, 1565, Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed with a band of settlers to found St. Augustine and established the first permanent Christian settlement in the United States.”
Menéndez is responsible for the first permanent settlement of Saint Augustine and, possibly, the first Thanksgiving dinner with the Timucua. The Sunshine State’s first Thanksgiving dish might have been a Spanish stew with pork, garbanzo beans, sausage, fresh local vegetables, garlic and olive oil. Timucuans likely contributed local game and fish such as mullet, catfish, tortoise, oysters or clams. Eminent Florida historian Michael V. Gannon wrote, in his book The Cross in the Sand, “the feast day observed...after Mass, the Adelantado (Spanish governor to the area) had the Indians fed and dined himself. It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land.”
It was here that Spanish pioneers founded the first mission in the United States for North American Indians.
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