OldestHouse.com
Title
Oldest House - St. Augustine Historical Society
Description
Excerpted from the website:
- The St. Augustine Historical Society is the oldest continuously operating museum and historical society in Florida. Beginning in 1881 as an informal group that met in private homes to discuss topics of historical and scientific interest, the society formally organized on New Year's Day 1883. The earliest programs were varied: historical, literary, and scientific. In 1899 the society purchased a colonial house and its contents, known as the Vedder Museum, but these holdings were lost in a disastrous fire in 1914. Undaunted, the society struck a deal with the U.S. War Department to manage the abandoned Fort Marion, a tenure which lasted until 1935, when the fort became the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, and lobbied successfully for federal restoration of the 18th-century blockhouse Fort Matanzas.
