This year's premiere living history event, the Saint Augustine Colonial Night Watch, will be held Friday, December 1, and Saturday, December 2, 2023.
Friday evening, in conjunction with the National Park Service, the Saint Augustine Garrison will be participating in the "Enemy at the Gates” program at the Castillo de San Marcos. This special presentation with a very limited amount of tickets to be sold, takes visitors in small groups through various vignettes portraying historical events during the siege of 1740 in St. Augustine. As you walk ... view more »
This year’s premiere living history event, the Saint Augustine Colonial Night Watch, will be held Friday, December 1, and Saturday, December 2, 2023.
Friday evening, in conjunction with the National Park Service, the Saint Augustine Garrison will be participating in the “Enemy at the Gates” program at the Castillo de San Marcos. This special presentation with a very limited amount of tickets to be sold, takes visitors in small groups through various vignettes portraying historical events during the siege of 1740 in St. Augustine. As you walk around a lantern- and torch-lit Castillo, you may see Oglethorpe and his commanders discussing the siege, soldiers in the ravelin (fortified entrance area) discussing rumors for the impending attack, reports from the Indian allies of the Spanish on the conditions at Fort Mose, discussions on the dwindling supply situation at Castillo, reports from the Engineering Officer, a medical station, and troops preparing for a surprise attack on Fort Mose. National Park Service admission applies for this event.
Saturday, December 2nd. This day-long event, starting at 10 AM, will feature Spanish, British, and Native American historians portraying events from the years 1739 through 1784. Join hundreds of costumed re-enactors from St. Augustine’s Colonial past at the Colonial Quarter on Saint George Street and the lawn of the Castillo de San Marcos. Soldiers will perform military drills and cannon and musket firing on the grounds of the Castillo and the Colonial Quarter.
See a working blacksmith, a leather worker, and a pewter smith at the Colonial Quarter. The kids will enjoy making corn husk dolls, just as the Native Americans would have done hundreds of years ago. Chat with re-enactors, ask questions about Saint Augustine’s storied past, and take photographs that will be treasured for years to come.
The day’s activities will end with a torchlight parade at 7 PM. The parade will start from the grounds of the Castillo and proceed through the City Gates and down St. George Street. The public is encouraged to follow the march to the Plaza de Constitution and the Governor’s House Museum. From the balcony, the Vice Consul of Spain will greet and address the crowd in a brief ceremony, followed by a musket volley, then Christmas carols to ring in the holiday season.
Saturday’s events at the Colonial Quarter and on the Castillo lawns are free of charge and open to the public.
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