mostly—took spectacular exercise singly and in small packs. Ambling onto
the pier’s shoreline planks, they galloped southeastward, attaining high-
est speeds at the end, before flying into the York. One dog, I recollect, who
resembled my Uncle Forrest’s ‘‘Laddie,’’ would swim back, shake himself,
and repeat the dash and dive several times. Their sheer instinct and sheer
joy reminded me that back during the s a venerable preacher, the Rev-
erend Thomas P. Bagley, had declared of West Point, ‘‘Nature has provided
along the shores of these three rivers all the elements for happy homes.’’
And more indeed, so it seemed to me.
tWest Point is old even as a Euro-American settlement, although it
hardly looks so. Other southern town sites are older yet, from the Euro-
centric colonial perspective. Recently, for instance, the state archaeologist
of Florida wrote with unprovocative simplicity that ‘‘the first permanent
colony in North America’’ was ‘‘Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns
River,’’ established by the French in to pester Spanish fleets passing
by the coast. Caroline was lost to the French the next year—the year Pedro
Menéndez de Avilés slaughtered almost the entire surviving garrison, near
the aptly named Matanzas River. The Spanish took over Caroline, renamed
it, and maintained a slight presence there. Long after the Spanish had de-
parted for the last time, English speakers resettled the site and its lush
vicinity, including a little spot called Cowford (or Cow-ford). In , with
Andrew Jackson a candidate for reelection as president, Jacksonville was
incorporated on the site, with all of about citizens.^3
Caroline-Cowford-Jacksonville’s name changes and apparent gaps in
urban occupancy render any claim to ‘‘first’’ or ‘‘oldest’’ assailable by any-
one who cares about such status. Instead, the archaeologist seems to have
been utterly ignored by the state (his employer) and by the government and
chamber of commerce of St. Augustine, just thirty-seven miles to the south,
all of whom blithely persist in identifying and glorifying St. Augustine as
the ‘‘ancient city’’ and the oldest in the United States. Tourists’ money,
minivan-loads of it, is at stake in such contests. Tour guides, taxi compa-
nies (one is named Ancient City Cab), tourist-oriented publishers, owners
of what are called attractions, hoteliers, gift and curio sellers, barkeepers,
restaurateurs, real estate brokers, public officeholders, public employees,
and doubtlessly others all have life-and-death stakes in a uniquely august
urban identity. Such interests succeeded in defeating a similar, more seri-
ous claim to oldest by Santa Fe, New Mexico, the second-oldest by a narrow