National Park After Dark - 2 Girls, 1 Fort: Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Looming over St. Augustine, Castillo de san Marcos, the oldest stone masonry fort in the country, has drawn paranormal enthusiasts from far and wide. With over three centuries of history, the fort has seen its fair share of tragedy. Spanish battles, sordid affairs, indigenous internment and more have led to a plethora of ghost stories - today’s episode delves into the truth behind the legends. For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! 3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1, get one 50% off deal, head to 3dayblinds.com/NPAD Mint Mobile: To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/npad IQ BAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. Quince: Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at quince.com/npad Ka’Chava: Go to Ka’Chava: The Premium All-in-One Nutrition Shake | Ka'Chava and use code NPAD for 15% off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2009, while I was buying black and pink sheet sets for my first ever college dorm and funneling bud light in some random person's basement, I am so sorry, Mom. Zach Bagan's was antagonizing ghosts in a national park. Well, more specifically, he was asking spirits to punch him while standing inside the walls of Castillo Day San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States, crowned a national monument in 1924. Earlier that evening, as the sun was setting, National Park Service ranger Marlin Smith heaved the heavy metal gates of the Castillo closed. With the large clang of a padlock and a wave goodbye, he locked the ghost hunters' team inside the impenetrable walls of the fort for the night. Washed in the green glow synonymous with night vision cameras,

Zach goes on to shout at the spirits, calling the disembodied entities names like murderer while he and his team wandered through the darkness of the fort, eager to capture evidence of the paranormal within the Castillo. For some, a guided ranger-led visit to the fort in the daylight to learn of the monument's three-century history is sufficient. For others, like Zach, who want a different perspective of the past, a ghost hunt in the dark is more their speed. So let's do a little of both. Today we will venture to America's oldest city, cross the fort's wooden bridge spanning a long, dried up moat and turn back the pages of time to reveal centuries worth of conflict, death, and imprisonment, and hopefully catch a glimpse of the entities that remain trapped within its walls.

Welcome to National Park After Dark. I've definitely never asked a ghost to punch me, but I was doing the exact same thing in 2009 as you. Pink and black? Cheats? I had pink and black, and then I also had pink, yellow, orange. They were striped. It was pink, yellow, orange, and green striped ones. With the pink and black is a choice.

Well, they were two separate. Oh. So like I would switch it out. Yeah. And then I had a white down comforter. I don't know what it was in the early 2000s, but pink and black was all the rage. Oh, yeah. Especially if you did zebra print.

Oh, don't even get me started. You don't even know what my, if you saw them. my prom dress. I think I've seen it. I think you showed it to me. It's crazy. It's like hot pink with inside the like there was like a cutout so you could see the inside and it was, was it that zebra print or maybe out of zebra print like sash or something. I don't know. I was wild now. I love that for you. I love your pink eras. Well, that one should stay in the dark. But yeah, welcome everyone to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle, the one that was funneling beer in basements, turn up.

And I'm Cassie, and I was definitely more of a fill of empty water bottle, fill of vodka all the way almost to the top and throw in a splash, a sprite kind of girl. And here we are. Talk about history. Here we are to educate you on history. Isn't that weird and crazy? You guys should believe us. I believe everything I'm about to tell you for the next hour. Yeah, we're role models.

Because it is true. Everything I'm about to tell you is true as far as I know. And this episode actually came about by way of our live stream a couple months ago. So for everyone who is not aware on our Patreon subscription, we do a live stream every month where we pick a different topic and do an hour of like. just shooting the shit about it. And for, I think it was March, for the month of March, we each had to pick a location and pitch each other a trip. And I picked this national monument. It did not win. That's okay. But it's a winner now because we're going to talk about it today. And maybe it'll be a winner in the future if we decide to visit it anyway.

Yeah, you tell me at the end of this if you're more or less interested in going. I guess it depends if the guy actually gets punched by a ghost because that will definitely sway my opinion if I want to go or not. Okay. I'm going to tell you right now. I don't think he did. Okay. Then I'm more open to it.

Okay. Well, we are going to St. Augustine today for our episode. And St. Augustine is one of the oldest towns in all of America built in 1565. It is a popular tourist destination today. but in the 1600s after it was founded by the Spanish, it was pretty miserable. Hurricanes and high tides destroyed houses and polluted the wells they dug for drinking water. Colonists struggled to grow food in the heat while waves of yellow fever, smallpox, and other illnesses killed colonists each year.

But for the Spanish crown, St. Augustine was an important outpost for their conquest of the new world. With forces in Florida, they could defend their trade routes from South and Central America. they could spread the Catholic faith, and they could prevent the English from getting a foot hold on the continent. So it was a strategic location. So they built fortifications out of pine logs and aimed cannons at the sea, ready to shoot the British if they approached. However, the biggest enemy to these wooden forts was the climate.

The logs rotted in the human heat and sank into the sea, rarely lasting more than a decade. During the town's first 100 years, they built and rebuilt this log fort, nine separate times. Wow, that's dedication. I've been like, no, I'm good. This fort is going to stand.

It's not. It's been built nine times. Let it be. Let it go. Finally, in 1668, a ship appeared in the distance. Townspeople believed it was a long overdue supply ship that was bringing them a few different things, but mainly flour, worth its weight and gold, since they were struggling to find food. And the harbor master rode out to greet them.

However, as he climbed aboard, he discovered it was not their supply ship. It was British pirates. But without the harbor master's return, the town didn't know that. Under the cover of night, a hundred pirates paddled to shore and surged into town, guns blazing. The mayor and some of his men barely managed to escape to the wooden fort and barricaded themselves inside throughout the siege. The pirates plundered every building in town, stealing silver, candles, and other valuables from the hospital and church. They also killed over 60 residents and took 70 as hostages for ransom and captured free, black, and indigenous men to be sold as slaves. And much to the concern of the Spanish

crown as the pirates left, they took measurements of the harbor, making it abundantly clear that they planned to return and seize the city permanently. The wooden forts that kept falling apart would not be enough to defend them. So the following year, they received permission from the queen to build a permanent structure out of stone. Digging into the ground on nearby Anastasia Island, they carved out blocks of Coquina, a unique limestone made of millions of jumbled shelf fragments. And fun fact, this island is, which is very close by, the fort, is also the location of another national monument called Fort Matanzas.

It is another fort constructed of Coquina, but a major tragedy occurred there. Matanzas, meaning slaini, slaughter reflects the 1565 massacre of 250 Frenchmen by the Spanish. The fort was built way after the massacre, likely right on top of the massacre site. But that's a story for another time. And I only mention it because it will come back in a little bit. Okay. Noted. Over the next 23 years, a massive stone fort rose from the coast, built by native laborers, enslaved and free Africans, artisans, tradesmen, and even convicts. Finally, in 1695, the Castillo de San Marcos was completed. It came in at 50,000 square feet, laying relatively low to the ground in a star shape. At each corner,

diamond-shaped bastions jut outward, giving the fort its geometric symmetrical outline when viewed from above. The thick fort walls enclosed a large open courtyard with grassy space, bordered by arched rooms and storage areas built into the inner walls. Cannons were lined at the top level, along with watchtowers that provided sweeping views of the nearby water. And now, more than 300 years later, it's still standing, the oldest fort in the United States. When visiting the Castillo, nearly every ghost hunter,

professional or amateur, asks the same question, out loud to a camera or quietly to themselves. What secrets do these walls hold? and what unfolded here that causes so many people to feel such a terrible sense of dread and sadness. Turns out a whole hell of a lot, so let's get into it. It's always cool to go into old buildings like this in the United States because I feel like, of course, there are really old places within the United States, but I feel like Europe gets to have all the fun with the forts and all of the really old battle. I don't know like we have it but just not as as much some of some places have that feeling and I

I really love that we're kind of exploring this area in regards to looking back into American history because I think everybody's minds kind of collectively goes to New England when you think of old America or colonial America I should say but here I mean it predates the constitution by what, 200 years. Yeah. And it's just, it's cool to go somewhere else and to have a different perspective on. And this place has a moat. Oh, yeah, it has a moat.

See, that's cool. Like, I feel like moats don't exist the way they should. I know. Show me another moat. Yeah. In the United States. Where are the moats in the United States? That's the question.

Where have they gone? Will they come back? I petition for more moats. Yeah. Does it have alligators? I'll sign it. No. Well, okay, I hate to tell you it's, it is dried up now. But it did function. Okay. That does defeat the purpose. No, we, this, there is a purpose for our petition to bring it back. Oh, yes. Imagine how much better this place would be with an alligator filled moat. Does it need alligators though? Like, I feel like, yes. That's a form of defense against the enemies. Okay. Well, you can take it up with the park service. It'll make it more authentic. Yeah, and more dangerous, more exciting. You want people to visit your national parks, this is what you got to do. Yeah, make it scary.

Today, the Castillo de San Marcos is a national monument managed by the Park Service. Since it was built over 300 years ago, it's been ruled by both the Spanish and the British, and briefly renamed by the United States. It witnessed the beginning and end of Spain's ambitions in North America, watched over an ocean patrolled by Nazi submarines and held hundreds of Native Americans captive prisoner within its walls. If you visit today, it sits in the smack dab center of St. Augustine's bustling tourism industry and some of its most famous ghost stories, including headless spirits and skeletons found in walls. In this episode, we'll explore the dark history of the fort and its role in three different chunks. and at the end of each little section,

we'll do some ghost stories along with it. So hang with me. It's history and it taunts. It's both it's the best of both worlds. You know? Well, the first war dates back to where we left off earlier in this ongoing fight for control between Spain and Britain. After having learned from the brutal pirate raid of 1616,

Spanish St. Augustine now had some real defenses. The Castillo was surrounded by a moat. Thank God. They knew. They needed a moat. It didn't say anything about animals patrolling the moat. But it did exist. And it had walls as thick as a car and stood about 25 feet tall.

Atop the fort, dozens of cannons could fire on any approaching ship. And thanks to Florida's long sandy shorelines, it was hard for enemy ships with heavy cannons. to make it within range without running a ground. And it wasn't long until they got to put it. And it wasn't long until they put the alligators in the moat. Yeah. It's like, and now it's done. There's the alligators.

Okay, sorry. It wasn't long before they got to put it to the test. James Moore was the governor of Carolina in 1702, which was still a British colony at the time, when he decided to capture St. Augustine. With eight ships and 800 men, he began bombarding the, fort with cannons as his soldiers marched into town. Fearing for their lives, nearly all the people in

town, which was about 1,500 people, fled for the safety of the Castillo, sheltering in safety amidst its walls. And the walls were holding strong. And because they were built from this coquina, like this material, it was a porous limestone that literally looks like millions of little tiny seashells all cemented together in these like cement like bricks. When the cannonballs hit the fort rather than shattering the rock walls, they kind of just embedded themselves and got absorbed into the walls. So much so. And of course, the walls stayed sturdy. But they kind of absorbed them in this way.

I just kind of picture someone just catching a dodge ball, like right in front of them. The Spanish just grabbed the cannon balls from the walls and fired them back. Oh, shit. They're like, oh, thanks. Reverse. Reverse, reverse. Ultimately, while Governor Moore had more men, he was outgunned, and after a 51-day siege, he was driven out by Spanish reinforcements.

Oh, 51 days is a long time to be shooting cannons back and forth at each other. And the people are all in there. All the town is just in there. Waiting it out, hoping. Yeah. And as a consolation prize on his way out, you know, he's forced out. He just burned the city to the ground. He's like, peace.

I have fun rebuilding this entire town. As the town rebuilt, much like last time, they decided they needed even more defenses, building additional defenses around not only the fort but the entire town, and they sought to bring in more soldiers. Moats. Moats everywhere. They're sticking with just one, I think. Rather than sending for reinforcements from other Spanish outposts, they tried something new, something that could meet their need for soldiers while undermining the

British. Spain promised that any person enslaved in the British colonies could be free in Florida. Anyone who reached St. Augustine and converted to Catholicism would be granted their freedom. Is it freedom if you have to switch to another religion? Is that freedom? I feel like the answer to that is no, but a lot of people, that's a sacrifice they were willing to make. They're like, if that's what we need to do to not be enslaved, sure. Okay. So, as word of this promise spread north, enslaved men, women, and children sought their freedom. Carpenters, laborers, and housekeepers risked everything to flee. Many snuck away under the cover of night. Some stole canoes. And as they arrived in St. Augustine, many eagerly asked to be baptized. Enough people made their way that the governor decided to start a free black militia and build a new fort. Two miles north of town, these newly free men and women, built and staffed Fort Mose. Made of logs, it was smaller than the Castillo, but nonetheless served as a very important

line of defense and early warning system. And it was also the first free black settlement in North America. Families who would have been broken apart by the slave trade now earned wages, built a community of their own and forged connections with the residents of St. Augustine, and they maintain a rigorous military regiment, vowing to defend the town from those who'd rob them of their freedom, and in 1740 they got their chance. A British general, outraged by Spain's sanctuary policy for enslaved people, attacked St. Augustine and captured Fort Mose, whose residents had been evacuated to the Castillo. And like the last British attack, ships fired cannons at the fort,

laying siege to the fort for almost a month. Food and water ran low for the people seeking shelter inside, but the black militia planned a counterattack. In a battle called, Bloody Mose, they retook their fort by force and robbed the Brits of their foothold on the land. Unable to break through the fort's walls and forced onto their ships in the harbor, the British retreated. And those are just a few of the many battles over control of St. Augustine. There's actually about 15 of them in total and a couple of different sieges. And in all of the years of the fighting, all of the different battles and all that, no one ever captured the Castillo by force.

It's strong a. It held strong. Yeah. But in the coming years, it would change hands three times through diplomacy. Spain granted Florida to the British in 1763 after losing a war. And for the people of St. Augustine and Fort Mose, British rule was a death sentence. They revoked the sanctuary slave policy and promised to eradicate Catholicism so more of the townspeople chose to leave. Over 3,000 residents fled for Cuba, leaving behind a pretty empty town.

It didn't matter much to the British who renamed the fort to Castle of St. Mark. Although as they started renovations, which included second floors and repairing defenses, they wound up in a new war, which is the American Revolution. The Castillo became a headquarters for British troops, a storehouse for weapons and ammo, and a prison for American Revolutionaries. In the damp walls of the fort and nearby buildings, they detained troublesome American patriots, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence. In the sweltering heat on July 4, 1781, the captives Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton,

and Thomas Hayward Jr., all from South Carolina, captured during the fall of Charleston, and held as prisoners of war in the Castillo celebrated Independence Day. This perhaps was a sign of things to come. Britain lost the Revolutionary War and returned Florida to Spain as part of their peace treaty. Many Spanish, free black and immigrant residents returned to St. Augustine, but the town did not feel as stable as it once did. The Spanish government was racked with war debts and funds to maintain and expand the town were regularly delayed, allowing things to fall and to disrepair. And on top of that, the new and restless nation to the north had set its sights on Florida. The United States began leading raids into Florida, attacking Seminole villages and free black settlements.

Some of this was driven by plantation owners who were outraged that Spain offered refuge to slaves, but many Americans were simply just hungry to expand the nation. All of this to say, Florida was proving to be a liability to the Spanish crown who ultimately chose to turn it over to the United States. So that was like a very quick speed through of how Florida became ours. Yeah. I hope everyone has made it through that. And now I can't imagine Florida not part of the United States.

I know. I know. Even though it's its own little world. For sure. It's nice that it's part of our world. It is interesting hearing that history, though, because whenever you hear about the enslavement of people in the South, you always hear of them heading north. And to hear about this part of history where they actually went south is really another cool part of it.

Yeah. And St. Augustine, I mean, it's been through it. We're not even in. Have you ever been there? No, I haven't. Me either. Yeah. And that's why I pitched it for our trip.

We should go. We should go. I'm cold. It seems to warm there. It snowed at my house today. I want to go to Florida. Okay, so St. Augustine has been through it, and by this point in time, Florida is now part of the United States, and that happened in 1821. The U.S. wasn't even 50 years old, but St. Augustine was already 256.

The fort standing watch above the town was 120 years old, so it's no surprise that some claim to have found ghosts within its walls quite literally. The most prominent ghost story from this time is often referred to as The Lovers, and it begins with an American engineer. At the time, Americans had given the fort a shiny new name, Fort Marion, but the fort itself was in disrepair. I mean, this is when everything is gone to crap, and the fort has seen better days. So engineers were brought in to fix it up, and one engineer was at work in the dungeons when he broke through a wall. As the stone crumbled away, darkness opened up in front of him. A hidden room. My dream. I want to find a hidden room behind a crumbling wall. So fucking bad. So bad. From the darkness poured the powerful sweet smell of perfume. The engineer crouched down and

inched his way into the cramped space and when he looked up to his horror, found two skeletons chained to the wall. One of the skeletons. as the story goes, belonged to Dolores Marti. Dolores was the wife of a Spanish colonel who was stationed at the fort in 1784, right after the British had returned Florida to Spain. Her husband, Colonel Garcia Marti, was sort of a guy that believed himself to be really important. He was always busy, came off to others.

It was kind of like a bummer. He didn't have a sense of humor. You know, he just was like boring. Too serious. Very serious. Dolores, meanwhile, while she was married to him, found a much younger, much nicer guy in town and grew quite close with him. Oh, scandalous. Even more scandalous.

That guy happened to be Captain Manuel, who was her husband's assistant. It's a reverse. Usually it's like the opposite. It's the husband with the assistant. and now it's the wife, the assistant. Well, her husband found out about their affair after smelling the scent of his wife's perfume on his assistant's uniform. Oh. Oh, no.

Oh, no. And what year is this? This is in the 1800s. Oh, yeah. So I feel like people were a little smelly back then. So I feel like you would recognize a perfume more. I really want to know when perfum. perfume hit the market.

I feel like it was a rich people thing for a while because soap wasn't even really a thing. Yeah, because is it an old wives tale that, or is this founded in truth, that the tradition of a bride and bridesmaids carrying flowers is to cover their body odor? Yes, there's something about that. I thought it was something worse than that, though. I thought it was like from some of the diseases that were going around. back then that were like decaying their flesh. Like I thought it was something rooted and something darker than that. But I feel like I have to look it up now.

I thought it was just like the floral scent was supposed to mask their body odor because they smelled. Okay, well first perfume originated over 4,000 years ago. Oh yeah, duh. We learned that in Egypt. Yeah, it says in Egypt where resins and woods were burnt to honor the gods. Oh, it was when the plague was happening. In the 1800s, people used strong floral scents, principally lavender, rose, rosemary, and carnation to cover the stench of illness used in both bouquets and as shown to mask the scent of death and disease.

Oh, was that where popery came about? Maybe. I remember my grandmother had popery all the time, and it made me, it gave me a headache. My grandmother had it too. I remember she had it in a little basket behind the toilet. Yes, it was always in the bathroom. You'd open it and be like the flower petals. But it wasn't natural.

There was something about it that was like artificial, right? I think so. I don't know. I have a vivid memory of grabbing them and throwing them all over the bathroom as a kid. Why would you make a good flower girl? I was like that. No one ever invited me, which was sad. Where am I?

Oh, yes. Okay. So. Oh, yeah. We're telling a story. I am telling you. I'm trying to tell a story. That may or may not be true.

So, yeah, she is, the whole thing is kind of the cat's out of the bag. The husband smells her perfume on his assistant. But instead of, sneaky, sneaky, instead of just kind of confronting them right away, about it, he decided to plot in silence. Soon, his wife and the young captain went missing, and Colonel Marti offered several different explanations

for their absence, a secret mission to Cuba, or that his wife had fallen ill and was sent to Mexico to recover. It sounded fishy to people, but nobody suspected the horrifying truth, that Colonel Marty had chained his wife and the young captain in a secret

dungeon and closed off the room with a false wall. And 40 years later, the engineer discovered them. Whoa. That is really... Disturbing. Callous. Yeah, to just throw them away behind a wall with nothing there and never turn back.

And just know that they're... Looking back on the story of the lovers now, of course, historians are quick to poke holes in the tale. And I'm telling you, this is on like every ghost hunting. tour, every paranormal website, anything you Google about this monument, this story is perpetuated. But Dolores, Colonel Marti, and Captain Manuel do not appear in any surviving records of the fort. The supposed secret dungeon had been used to store ammunition and even trash, but there's no record of skeletons, no formal record of skeletal remains ever being found within there. And finally, the idea of people being sealed into false rooms was a very popular literary trope when the story first came about.

Edgar Allan Poe alone wrote multiple stories that used the premise. However, I would like to also offer a counter to that because, if you do remember, our visit to the Tower of London and the story of the princes that we heard while we were there, do you happen to recall that? No. I'll remind you. In 1674, workmen at the Tower of London discovered a wooden box containing two small skeletons buried under a staircase in the white tower, often associated with the 1483 disappearance of 12-year-old King Edward V and his nine-year-old brother, Richard Duke of York. The princes locked away by their uncle the third vanished from sight spawning a centuries-old murder mystery. So do you remember the uncle, Ken? those two kids, like locked away. I do vaguely remember this. And then all of a sudden they're like actually gone and no one knew what happened, even though they had suspicions that their uncle murdered them, but no one could ever find anything. And then their bodies, 200 years later, are found bricked up in a wall.

Yes, I do. And then I remember there were rumors of hauntings where they would hear children's footsteps like across. Yeah, I do remember that now that you're saying. So that's my counter. Like it does. It has happened. Yeah. So maybe it did have.

Who knows? Who am I to say? But maybe you can find out yourself because... Is there a record of how she died? There's no record of them. Existing. Existing. Oh, okay.

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If you visit the Castillo yourself, you can crawl into the space and decide on your own. So go in, check out the vibes, report back. And the next chapter of our story leaves the Spanish era behind and marks the end of open combat at the Castillo. Under American control, the fort's cannons were never fired and no assaults were launched upon its walls. But despite that, the fort played a surprising role in a long, painful conflict that stretched across the country, the so-called Indian wars. And this is another part, just kind of like you said, when you think of the history of slavery in the United States, you think one story is true. You know, people from the South fled to the north. And this is a portion of this episode that

I find particularly fascinating because when you think of the quote unquote Indian Wars, you think of everything happening on the Western plains. And this is very different, but it's connected. Interesting. So if you tour the fort today, one of the rooms that stands out is a space where indigenous men and women were held captive. After being shipped on trains all the way from Arizona, several prisoners carved art into the stone walls that you can still see today. In the first 50 years after the Revolutionary War, the U.S. population grew from roughly to 12 million people.

And the newly acquired Florida territory promised rich farmland and ample room to expand. Cotton planters and politicians were eager to get a foothold in the region, but there was just one problem. And that was the indigenous Seminole people. In 1800, the Seminole people were a large and successful indigenous culture in northern Florida. Numbering in the thousands, they built towns, raised cattle, and had stayed on good terms with both the Spanish and the British. But the Americans were a different story.

Much like the Spanish had, the Seminole people welcomed escaped slaves into their communities, and when slave catchers demanded their return, the Seminoles would refuse. Known as Black Seminoles, many free Black people married into the Seminole tribe and had children. This outraged Southern slaveholders. Future President Andrew Jackson,

then an Army General, led multiple attacks on the Seminoles as a result, and what he called a mission to recover stolen slaves. Ultimately, it was conflicts over treaties that led the Seminoles and United States into open war. The U.S. had attempted to settle things by promising the Seminoles a small reservation in Florida, opening the rest of the territory to settlement. But 10 years later, the U.S. put forth another treaty, which promised the Seminoles land in modern-day Oklahoma if they agreed to leave Florida.

What a shitty trade. No offense to Oklahoma, but I mean, you're in Florida living off the land there. You know this region. And then they're offering you a space somewhere that is absolutely nothing like that landscape. Well, and it's so typical of the story that unfolds of like, here's your initial treaty. You can move to this smaller space over here in your, in your home. homelands. Actually, just kidding, you got to go entirely. It's like we're going to send you way over here, actually, in a place that I'm sure they deemed

worthless. Just unfamiliar. You know, clearly there were other indigenous nations that lived and thrived in Oklahoma, but the point, I mean, the people who were sending them had deemed that land worthless. Oh, right. Yeah. Totally. And many of the seminal people did leave in what would become known as the Trail of Tears. Others stayed ready to fight, including the famous Seminole leader, Osceola. The army had 30,000 troops, while the Seminoles, by some counts, had just 3,000 warriors. But the Seminoles knew Florida. They could emerge from the sawgrass and cypress swamps to ambush U.S. forces, and just as soon as they appeared, would retreat again. The Seminole leader Osceola became a household name and a nationwide symbol of resistance.

Legends emerged of him driving a knife into the treaty, proclaiming he would never sign it, and he led warriors on several occasions that defeated U.S. forces, once even while wearing a U.S. Army coat. After several years of this expensive and embarrassing conflict, the U.S. Army had begun to worry that they wouldn't win a traditional war, and came up with a different plan. They had successfully captured an elderly seminal chief named King Philip. The son of that chief, named Wildcat, served with Osceola. Under a banner of truce, Osceola and Wildcat met with the army to negotiate the release of the chief when the army commander had them surrounded, chained, and marched to St. Augustine.

In what was widely seen as a treacherous act, the U.S. government hoped to take down the seminal leadership and imprisoned Osceola, Wildcat, and numerous others in the Castillo de San Marcos. By then, the fort was seen as a historic relic, and it was in an extraordinary state of disrepair. But the army believed that if it was built to keep people out, it would be just as effective at keeping people in. The Seminole warriors were thrown into a damp cell and left alone. Wildcat was outraged at the betrayal, but as the days were on, he grew convinced that the walls were not as impenetrable as they seemed. The only source of light in the room was through a small hole in the wall, about eight inches wide, 18 feet off the ground, and covered by iron bars. And he hatched a plan.

Over the course of five days, he and around 20 others went without food and took medicinal roots to lose as much weight as possible. They shredded blankets and bags in the room and tied them into makeshift ropes, and under the light of a new moon, they pried the iron bars off of the small opening. and wiggled through. One by one, almost 20 of them squeezed through the small opening, repelled down the fort wall, and into the surrounding moat and escaped into the wilds of Florida, heading back to their people. It would be another 12 hours before the Americans discovered the jailbreak, although the cell was not completely empty. As Wildcat put his escape plan into motion, Osceola refused to leave, stating that he had done nothing to be ashamed of. He believed, believed that the U.S. government would be forced to negotiate fairly after they betrayed a flag of

truce, which is just like, it just breaks my heart. You know, it's just believing that they're going to act in good conscience. Even after everything they've already done. Right. So while Wildcats slipped through the window, Osceola stayed. And in fact, he was the one that eventually informed the army of the escape. I think he waited, you know, the 12 hours. So he knew that they were. He was like, yeah, by the way, you stupid idiots. Like, you didn't even know. Yeah. Embarrassed by the jailbreak, the army moved Osceola and the remaining seminal captors out of Florida and into South Carolina. But after three months in captivity, Osceola fell gravely ill. Faced with malaria and a throat infection, Osceola died before the army attempted

negotiation like he had hoped. In newspapers around the world, he died a martyr to the cause of indigenous resistance, and his death did not put an end to the Seminole Wars, which lasted another four years. And this is messed up. I mean, that was messed up, but this next part is messed up. But it has, like, there's a ghost story that is attached to what happens next. Oh, okay. In a sinister twist of the story, perhaps the greatest,

betrayal Osceola suffered at the hands of the United States was not by an army general, but by an army doctor. Dr. Frederick Whedon was a physician at Fort Marion, aka the Castillo. He tended to Osceola's declining health during his captivity, and the seminal leader viewed Weiden as his best friend amongst the white people. Before he died, he even gifted Weed in several of his belongings, including an intricate brass pipe. But after Weiden pronounced Osceola dead, he cut off his head and took it home. Years later, Weedon's children told stories about his father and Osceola's head. If they ever misbehaved, their dad would hang Osceola's head from their bedposts while they

slept as punishment. Ew, what a sick freak. None of his children or his grandchildren claimed to know why exactly Whedon took Osceola's head, But doctors at the time did have a habit of preserving the heads of indigenous people around the world arguing with total BS science that skull shapes explained why some races were smarter than others. Okay, but why would you need to take that home? And why would you need to be in a laboratory if that's what you were studying? Right. Yeah.

Well, whatever his reasoning was, a letter reveals that he actually gave the head to a fellow doctor in New York. after five years. And the recipient wrote that he would keep it in his private library, basically saying that if it was in a museum somewhere, it would probably be stolen because of everyone knew who Osceola was and it would have been highly sought after. But 20 years later, that doctor's personal collection burned down in a fire and Osceola's head was lost to time and probably was engulfed in the flames. Good. It shouldn't be on display. somewhere either. That's horrific. Isn't that just fucked up? Yeah,

that's so fucked up. That's so dehumanizing to be able to do that and not see a person. And the ghost... Right. And the ghost story that is attached to this is a lot of people

claim that they see the, like this disembodied like this head, this floating head. Oh, interesting. Around the premises kind of like, you know, sometimes people see an apparition that doesn't have legs or something. Where he died in South Carolina or in Florida? No, in Florida.

Okay. Not where he died in the Castillo itself. Okay. But going, so going back to the Castillo, it makes sense to some degree that the fort in St. Augustine would be used to house prisoners of the Seminole War. After all, it did happen in Florida. But over the next 50 years, the fort would continue to be used as a prison for native people. even as the Indian wars marched westward across the western frontier. After the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Army found themselves fighting with tribes across the Great Plains,

including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Cato, and Comanche people, different tribes from the plains who shared cultural connections to bison who were a key source of food. The conflict between them and the U.S. government later called the Buffalo Wars, emerged from a familiar pattern of violence, treaties, and broken problems. promises, and most people from those tribes were coerced onto reservations in Oklahoma. But for the purpose of our story, the Army singled out 74 Plainspeople as threats, individuals, warriors, leaders, and alleged criminals that the Army argued would inspire future resistance. So their solution was to ship them all to St. Augustine to be imprisoned in the Castillo.

Suddenly, these men who had spent their entire lives on the northern plains were taken from their families, packed onto a train in shackles, and shipped a thousand miles away to hot muggy Florida at the very start of summer. The change was bewildering and traumatizing, and several men attempted suicide. Admits the damp and decaying fort illness spread quickly, prisoners came down with stomach ailments and heat exhaustion, and many more died of tuberculosis. But despite the losses, Army Lieutenant Henry Pratt was optimistic. Pratt was in charge of the captives, and he believed he could transform the prisoners into civilized men, launching an experiment that would guide how the entire American government treated Native people for the next 100 years. To get started, Pratt released the captives from their shackles, had them cut their hair, and started training them as Army soldiers. Everyone was issued a uniform, participated in daily drills,

maintained their barracks, cooked, performed guard duty, repaired the fort, and went to church on Sunday. A Cheyenne warrior named Making Medicine was appointed as sergeant, and a young Kiowa man named boy hunting was made quartermaster. Over the next three years, the surviving captors made the most of their lives in prison, and by adhering to Pratt's military training, they were granted freedom to leave the fort and move about town. Nicknamed the Florida boys, the warriors became local celebrities, entrepreneurship. and performers. They made bows, canes, and various souvenirs that they sold in town for a profit and sent much of that money back to their families on reservations in Oklahoma. They performed traditional dances, horseback riding, mock buffalo hunts, and even bullfighting,

drawing audiences of thousands to watch them perform. Pratt was normally against that type of thing because his goal of all of this with the military training was essentially to turn the Kiowa and Cheyenne warriors into Americans. But they helped bring in money, something that Pratt's bosses were reluctant to send him for his experiment. And he hoped that by making money and going into the community, they would be more interested in his next goal. English language, education. Pratt recruited local volunteer teachers to provide daily instruction in English, math, and Christianity. And many of the prisoners embraced the lessons.

Making medicine, the Cheyenne sergeant, spoke with pride about their educations, writing that he had a strong. desire to learn about Christianity, which he called the Great Spirit's Road, and saying in a letter that he sent back home, quote, we feel happy to have learned so much that we can teach our children. In a letter he received back from his wife, who communicated with only drawings, he learned that his oldest child had taken their first steps. Pratt viewed this as progress towards his ultimate goal of assimilating native people, which he described in a now infamous phrase, kill the Indian, save the man. But while the plains Indian captives at the Castillo accepted the terms of their imprisonment, they kept their own cultures alive too. Even if it was quietly, when they prayed to Jesus

on Sunday service, it was in their own language, not in English. They wore moccasins when they were off duty and they made art. A Kiowa man named Woja or Wolfrobe became a prolific colored pencil artist, drawing intricate and insightful scenes that spoke to his life at the crossroads between two cultures. In one famous self-portrait, he stands between a buffalo and a spotted cow, a teepee and a farm, his old life, and the new. He holds his arms wide open to each of them. Above his head, he wrote his name in English, Woja. After three years in St. Augustine, the captives were given a choice. Continue their Western education or return to Oakland. Many went home, but several opted to continue in school. Some, like making medicine, even went on to become deacons of the Episcopal Church. As for Lieutenant Pratt, he used his experiment with the Florida boys to start the Carlisle Indian School, which removed native children from their families, took them to Pennsylvania and taught them in ways of English, math, and Christianity, a model that spread through hundreds of similar boarding schools in the following century.

carrying his motto, kill the Indian, save the man. So all those indigenous schools have roots here. Starting here. I never knew a mention of this before. Me either. So sad and so interesting. Yeah. And if you want to know more about this particular chapter of the Castillo's history,

there's an awesome book. called War Dance at Fort Marion by Brad Looking Bill. And it tells this obviously in much greater detail. And it actually uses a lot of primary resource material like the accounts of many indigenous peoples that were held captive here during this time. Gotcha. So yeah, if you want to know more about the Florida boys and that entire thing, turn there. And the Florida boys were not the last native people held prisoner.

in Fort Marion. Ten years later, over 500 Chiracawa Apache men, women, and children were brought to St. Augustine from Arizona, crammed into a fort that was meant to house no more than 150. They were made to perform labor at a nearby lighthouse and to take lessons in English math and Christianity. However, outsiders noticed and began to protest the horrible conditions that the Apache prisoners faced, and after a year, they were relocated to Oklahoma. But before, they left, one prisoner carved art into its walls, the image of an Apache fire dancer. And today, the faint outlines of this proud figure in a sash and a headdress can still be seen on the walls.

It's really faint, but it's one of the only visible reminders of the fort's role in the Indian Wars. And I'll post a picture of it. And you can go see that now? Yeah. It is super faint, but it's side by side with the drawing of what it did look like. So it kind of, you know, you can make it out. So you can envision what it once was. And again, I didn't know, like, I didn't know anything about the fort's role in this.

I just, for some reason, my brain just always goes to the Spanish here and military operations. Yeah, fighting wars and not that this is kind of in its own, but I see what you mean. Forks and this you don't really think about as much. The history of the Indian Wars is long and painful, but to end with the ghosts, of course, many in St. Augustine claim to have witnessed tall spectral figures pacing the courtyard where the Florida boys and the Apache were held captive. Like I said, a headless seminal warrior dressed in buckskin clothing drifting by prison cells or just the head on its own. On the anniversary of Osceola's capture, some have claimed to hear rattling chains and the disembodied voices speaking. in Muskogee. There are popular and provocative ghost stories,

yet for the descendants of the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Amanchi, Seminole, Cato, and Cheyenne people, it is not enough to keep these spirits such as they are in the dark. In recent years, the National Park Service has invited descendants of each affected tribe to come to the monument and share how this part of history and this chapter at the Castillo has affected their people and affected their lives. And they have talks discussing how we can best honor their memory in the present

and not just make them like a spooky ghost story or forget about it altogether. And I'll link just one example of them in the show notes if you want to watch. It's just a recording of one of, I want to say he was Cheyenne and he was speaking. about it's like a presentation that you can watch. Oh wow, that's super cool. Yeah. When you've been talking about this, I don't know if there's any connection at all, but I just keep thinking of the mountains in northern New Hampshire that are Mount Ossiola

and there's like north and south. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if there's any connection here to this particular person that you're talking about or maybe another person. It's got to be. But that's all I could think about was the 4,000 footers that are named. I have a really cute picture blue on top of Mount Osceola.

Oh, really? Yeah. Because there's two, right? There's north and south. I don't know. I think is what they're called. I've done one of them. Uh-huh.

It is. In the same. One in the same. Wow. That's really cool. Yeah, the mountain honors the seminal leader Osceola known for his leadership in Florida. Cool. Are there two of them?

Or am I? I think, I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking. of, I think it's only one. There's like north and south or little and big or something. Oh, Mount Osceola and its neighboring peak East Osceola. Okay. I'm like, I know there's two of them because I remember specifically being up there and being like, I got to hit the other one while I'm up here to get the two. Cool. Yeah, good call. I didn't even connect that. Interesting. There's a lot of indigenous names. That would be something that would be interesting to maybe do later down the line would be a new

England indigenous name. Well, it's just so interesting because I know he was, his story spread far and wide. Everyone in the country knew who Osceola was at one point in time. So maybe that's why he's named that. But I mean, it's a Florida. The Seminoles were in Florida. So to have a peak in New Hampshire where there are many other different indigenous nations and leaders, you know what I mean?

it's like why is he yeah i'd be curious to know there's just there's so many and there's so many things that are named um after indigenous people or groups or whatever and throughout new england that i've kind of seen my whole life i mean you look at new hampshire lake winopasaki is definitely indigenous you know there's so many and well even Nashua Nashua yeah yeah and i remember and i cannot say the name for my life so i'm not even going to try but in In Massachusetts, near where my dad is, there is a lake, and it's called Lake Chugga something. And it's literally like a 25-letter word. Okay.

And it takes up, I remember seeing it, because the name takes up in an entire bridge. And it's definitely indigenous. You know, so there's names all over New England that have indigenous roots. And of course, there's indigenous roots all over the United States and New England. But I'd be so curious to learn more about. you're, I would love for you to tell me. I just, it's hard to link it to a national park, but they are outdoor base, so. People are going to be like, we, I don't know how many times I have to tell you.

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and the forts transition from being a military installation into a tourist destination. And if the first two stories have been very history-coded, this one is more like spy, international spy. By the 20th century,

the Castillo had outlived its usefulness as a military outpost. Cannons would no longer be effective against modern battleships and the aging structure needed constant upkeep. A local oil tycoon named Henry Flagler had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the town of St. Augustine, building new railroad lines and lavish hotels to turn the town into a premier tourist destination. The War Department began offering guided tours of the old fort to visitors, and it proved popular

enough that after the National Park Service was established in 1916, the War Department transferred the fort into its care. Under the National Park Service, it would become a National Park Service, it would become a National Monument and preserve the history of an early Spanish colony in America. Yet despite the fort's new designation as a place of tourism, war found its way once again to Florida's shores. In 1939, Hitler's Germany invaded Poland and World War II erupted across Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the allies from a distance, but was at least publicly intent on keeping America out of the war. In St. Augustine, people were partying, Dancing to Swift music on the radio, lounging on beaches.

Taylor Swift? What? You said dancing to Swift music. Oh, I meant to say swing music. You said Swift. I'm like, T Swift? Why are you doing back here? Dancing to swim music.

It's just kind of like, I don't know, again, people in Florida are always kind of, I remember visiting, I was in Florida in the early days of the pandemic. Mm-hmm. People did not give a fuck about the pandemic. I've ever seen it all over like TV too. It's like hunker down in Florida is like, we're out here. What are you talking about? Not only where people in public, people were in clubs.

Grinding like it was 2006 with not a, I didn't see a mask in sight. L-I-V-N. They were like, if we die, we die. And it was a crazy energy. That was crazy. So kind of like that, back at this time, they're kind of like in this bubble almost. Like the war is brewing. Things are getting really serious and they're just tanning on the beach and L-I-B-I-N.

But trouble was brewing offshore. Months before Pearl Harbor, German submarines were patrolling the Atlantic and in 1941, they sank an American freighter and exchanged fire with a U.S. destroyer. In a radio address, President Roosevelt called U-Boats the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic and announced a shoot-on-site defense policy. And after Pearl Harbor, the military sent service members to St. Augustine to monitor the sea for these German U-boats. The Coast Guard operated the lighthouse in St. Augustine and led regular patrols on the beaches called sand-pounders. Volunteer civilian pilots flew continuous air patrols to monitor the ocean and teams of volunteer shrimp. and boat captains patrolled the coast in their private boats. One coast guardsman stationed there was a Kiowa and Apache man named James Oshai.

Oshai was a celebrated indigenous artists, and 60 years prior, his grandfather had been one of the individuals held prisoner in St. Augustine. In his free time between Coast Guard shifts, he would volunteer at the fort to help decipher markings that the prisoners had left on the walls and identify people in surviving photos. But in 1941, German submarines began sinking ships all over the American coast, left and right. In a two-week span in January, they sunk 12 Navy ships. The attacks happened with no warning and were coordinated across great distances, one after the other, from New York to Cape Cod to Nova Scotia to Virginia and North Carolina.

Then two months later, the onslaught would resume. Some described the East Coast at this time as the most dangerous. area for shipping in the entire world. Nevertheless, to power its wartime industry, the U.S. still needed to ship things. And on the night of April 10th, a brand new fuel tanker named the SS Gulf America was passing by St. Augustine. Carrying 90,000 gallons of fuel to New York, the brand new tanking ship was traveling in the dark to avoid being spotted.

You know, sneaky snake, like trying to just slip on by. But, and obviously, yeah, I used to. see your line of thinking. But unbeknownst to the people of Florida, German U-boats were able to see ships at night if they were silhouetted by the lights on land, as in lights from people, L-I-V-I-N on tourist resorts. Oh, yeah. Or like the lighthouse or just different things like that. And we know this because in the 1980s, author Michael Gannon interviewed the German U-boat pilot who was also off of the coast of Florida that evening. His name was Reinhard Hardigan, one of the many submarine pilots in what the Germans called Operation Drumbeat.

In these interviews, he recalled navigating by the light of St. Augustine Lighthouse and spotting the Gulf America's shadow offshore before racing up to catch up with it outside of Jacksonville. At 10.30 p.m., the tanker vessel was struck by a German torpedo and erupted in flames. A thunderous shock ignited the fuel on board, shining a light like the midday sun for miles around. People in Jacksonville and St. Augustine saw the horrifying glow of the 150-foot mushroom cloud, and some people raced for a closer look. Eight other ships were destroyed during this wave of attacks, but the Gulf America burned the brightest. The government immediately ordered coastal lights to be shut off at night to prevent further attacks and halted all oil shipments. because they couldn't afford to lose anymore.

Four days after the attack, the Cathedral of St. Augustine held a requiem mass for the 19 sailors who died in the explosion. But Operation Drumbeat was not the end of the Nazis' plan to sabotage the United States. The next time, rather than targeting ships off the coast, they wanted to infiltrate American factories on land. If they could cripple America's aluminum plants,

power plants, and rail transportation, the engines of industry that were keeping the allies alive would screech to a halt. So the Nazis recruited German Americans who had previously lived in the United States and sent them to receive three weeks of intense training at a sabotage school, a spy academy, if you will. So each morning they would exercise and over lunch they'd study current issues of the New York Times and Life magazines to brush up on the current U.S. culture. They were instructed in how to place and use explosives,

many of which were disguised as lumps of coal. They were issued American brand fountain pens that would burst into flames when they were opened. Oh, that's kind of cool. It's scary. They ran training exercises, visited factories, and learned the critical points to target for maximum damage. They rehearsed and stressed tested their cover stories,

learned to write an invisible ink, and just did all of the stuff that sounds like a spy would do in a movie. Invisible Ink, I thought was from Harry Potter. What do you mean? It's real. Harry Potter got the idea from these guys. Finally, by the end of training, eight men were selected for the mission and divided into two different teams. One group of four would land in New York and the other would land in Florida just north of St. Augustine.

On June 17, 1942, what appeared to be four, four casual vacationers emerged from a German U-boat and buried their explosives in the sand before lounging for a while in swimsuits and swimming at the beach before catching a bus to Jacksonville. There's no telling the damage these spies could have done, but luckily their plan didn't get very far. The leader of the group who landed in New York, George John Dash, never planned to go through with it. And after convincing one other agent to defect with him, he called the FBI, and revealed the entire plot to the Americans, turned over the other names and addresses written an invisible ink on a handkerchief.

Like, I'm going to use this invisible ink one more time. And then to give everyone away. It's like, I have an idea. All of the saboteurs were caught. The two that confessed served a prison sentence and the other six that did not were put to death. That was the last of the Nazi drama in St. Augustine. And when the war came to an end at 1945, the town was allowed to turn its lights back on.

Fort Marion, as the Americans had always called it, was formally renamed by an act of Congress who restored the original Spanish name, the Castillo de San Marcos. Renovations and renewed interest in the fort helped it remain a popular tourist destination, and for once, the Castillo did not attract any ghost stories from World War II. In fact, there aren't many ghost stories from the World War II era at all. However, there is a compelling one from the St. Augustine Lighthouse nearby, which was the same lighthouse that a German U-boat captain spotted on the night of August 10th, 1941, when the explosion happened. So we're going to...

Real quick. Over to the lighthouse haunting. Really quick. In the years following World War II, lighthouse caretakers have reported phantom footsteps following them up the metal stairs. One night, as a worker was descending from the top of the lighthouse, he heard children laughing from above him. Worried he had locked someone up there on the walkway, he climbed back up to find nobody present. So as he goes back down, he then hears the same exact giggling, but this time coming from below him. Once again, he reached the bottom and no one was there.

In the nearby house, where the lighthouse keepers once lived, one guest tells the story of waking up in the night to see a little girl standing by his bedside, but after he blinked his eyes, she disappeared. The explanation given for these types of sightings are the pity girls, three young kids who moved to St. Augustine in the 1870s with their dad, who is overseeing construction on the lighthouse. And for fun, the girls often rode the railway carts that moved supplies from supply ships to the construction site of the lighthouse. But one day, tragedy struck. Joined by another girl their age whose father may have worked on the site,

the three sisters climbed into a rail cart like normal, but the wooden barrier that usually stopped the cart was not in place, and the cart careened off the edge and plunged into the water below. A worker on site witnessed the accident and raced to the cart, managed to flip the heavy wooden cart over off of the kids, who ranged from age 15 to 4 years old, but by that time three of the girls had drowned. Only the 4-year-old girl named Carrie survived.

Oh my God, that's awful. The Lighthouse, which is now a maritime museum, has hosted descendants of the Pity family for visits. And like many attractions in St. Augustine offers ghost tours so you can explore the dark history for yourself and see if you can hear kids laughing if you want, yes. Truth be told, that is barely the beginning of what there is to uncover about St. Augustine as a whole. and of course the Castillo. Of course, we don't have time to cover all of it. But I did want to just make mention that the Castillo was controlled by the Confederacy during the Civil War.

It had a surprising role during the civil rights movement as a non-segregated meeting place. And there's about a million different ghost stories and eyewitness accounts from the Castillo over time. For years, tourists and residents of. St. Augustine have reported seeing apparitions of soldiers walking the grounds or pacing the walls. Heavy bootsteps are heard echoing throughout the Kokina lined halls. And reports of being touched or shoved happen way more often than you may be comfortable with. While most people hope for a ghostly sighting, some people demand it.

So going back to the beginning and back to Zach Baggins in the beginning of the episode, Ghost Hunters did visit the Castillo. It was Season 2, Episode 2, I believe. It premiered in June of 2009. And in this episode, which is, have you watched Ghost Hunters? A long time ago. Okay. But it's dramatic.

It's very dramatic. It's always dark and they're walking through a creepy hallway and they have their little readers on them. Well, and Zach and particular. is all for the drama and he's very evocative and bordering on insensitive, if not going all the way into insensitive territory. And he's just there for the best clips and reaction and doesn't really care for stepping on anybody's toes or anything like that. So I don't know. Anyway, the drama. But I did want to mention that. I watched that episode for this today. Is that what you were watching earlier when you were like, can we record this a little later?

You're like, I'm watching Ghost Hunters. Yeah. I'm working. I'm working. This is work. This is important. Well, as part of this drama in this episode, like I said, the Fort Matanzas that I said would come back later. So he visits this nearby.

He paddles out, puts a little life jacket on, gets in a boat, and paddles over to this island where this massacre took place. And he collects sand into a water bottle, empty water bottle, and says, this will be like throwing holy water from a demon and brings it back to the Castillo. And in an effort to taunt and garner some sort of interaction with the ghosts, he sprinkles the sand onto the floors of the soldiers' quarters and proceeds to taunt them saying, you like that? You like that soil? What? And because he's like, you murdered, like, because he's basically saying like, you slaughtered 300 people over there.

You never thought this soil would come into the fort. And he's just like, and then he's like, punch me. He's like, punch me. And then he starts trying to speak in Spanish and in French. Just like, do something. Like, come at me, essentially. And I mean, he freaks the fuck out. everyone freaks out.

They're like, oh my God. I just felt something. Yeah. So I don't know. But he also, for a little bit there, drag chains around, like the chains of the alleged lovers that were pinned to the wall. Yeah. To try and be like, you were chained. If I was a ghost, I intentionally would not haunt this person.

I'd be like, you're weirdo. Yeah, so for about the 45 minutes of footage in this episode, him and his team proceed to run around all night throughout the fort and freak out, feeling touched or feeling cold spots or hearing disembodied footsteps. They catch a couple EVPs of weird like whispers and groans and things like that, which are kind of compelling, but neither here nor there. So you can watch the episode for yourself if you want to. I'll link it in the show notes. And while the National Park Service clearly was involved in this episode because they truly do lock him in. Yeah. They remained pretty tight-lipped about any personal experiences they may or may not have it had themselves because he straight up asked them.

He interviews a bunch of people in the episode. And he interviews to park staff. And they're just like, you can see. They're like, um, I don't know, no. And then he has this audio overlay. He's like, the government has lines of what they can and cannot say. So I don't want to speak for the Rangers. But if any of you listeners work at the fort or have worked at the fort, I would love to hear you.

You can stay anonymous, but we would love to hear your experiences there. For sure. them. And on the National Park Service's website for the Castillo de San Marcos, it says some history hurts and some history heals, but all of it can surprise and inspire us. So this is your sign to visit the Castillo for the history, for the haunts, and if you're lucky, a whole lot of both. Wow. Tada. It is added to your list. So do you want to go more or less than before? More for sure. There's a lot of really cool history there. I wasn't into the ghost punching me in the stomach thing. I'm good on that. I don't even want to be touched by a ghost, never mind physically assaulted. But now that that seems extremely far-fetched, I'm much more interested. Yeah. I think that it definitely has heavy vibes. It doesn't seem like a lot of great things happen there. But at the same time, knowing.

that it had a part in such pivotal times in history. It's not just like doom and gloom and terror and torment type of thing. It's more rounded than that. There's more to it. So I think it's more reason to go and visit other than just like, hey, some really dark things happened here and nothing really else. Do you want to go ghost hunt? It's like it's not even the ghosts for this story that have made me.

the most interested. It's been more the things that have taken place in. And the fact, because you mentioned, it was built in the 1500s that it's been around for so long and it's seen so many things and it's been used for so many things. I think that that's way more interesting than, of course, if I'm visiting, I'll be seen if I catch any weird vibes while I'm walking around. But for the most part, I think it's the history that's more intriguing to visit. Great. Glad to hear it. And when We did our live stream. Was it during or maybe after? I don't know, but I remember because we had this conversation at the time of, oh, we've never been to St. Augustine.

Yeah. Type of thing. And people are like, if you hated Gatlinburg, you're in for it in St. Augustine. But I don't know. Like, I guess we'll have to find out for ourselves. It's more expected there than outside of Great Smoky Mountain. Yeah. So.

All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening. I know that one was super history dense, but we are history webby winners. So what do you expect? It's like we want to weather you for history. So we're just trying to live up to the honor. Right. So next time I'll do something later.

You guys voted for this. Yeah, you did. So it's your fault. Yeah. And we hope you enjoyed it. And we'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you back.

Bye. Bye. Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more MPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark. For more stories just like this one, with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform.

platform. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.