Three Declaration of Independence signers were once imprisoned in St. Augustine

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By Chandler Morgan

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Three men who signed the Declaration of Independence were once prisoners in St. Augustine, inside the Castillo de San Marcos.

“There’s an English name to it, and it’s Fort Saint Mark,” according to Adlib Tours guide Gary Sass. “That was the name the British gave to it when St. Augustine was the capital of British East Florida.”

After the fall of Charleston in 1780, dozens of American patriots were sent into exile in St. Augustine. Among them were three men whose names were etched into American history because they signed the Declaration of Independence: Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Hayward, Jr.

Edward Rutlidge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Hayard Jr.

There was a fourth man held by the British in St. Augustine, South Carolina’s Lt. Governor Christopher Gadsden. He was the one the British considered most dangerous, according to Sass, and he spend his whole exile inside the fort in the dungeon. Sass said it’s a part of American history many never learn.

“People don’t think about Florida as being part of the Revolutionary War era because they think of the original thirteen colonies,” Sass said. “But the British had fifteen colonies. There was East Florida and there was West Florida.”

The three men stayed in St. Augustine for roughly ten months before they were exchanged. Before they were released, they staged one final act of patriotism. Sass said, “After they knew they were going to be exchanged, they had a reception, they had a banquet, a secret reception that was here, and during that reception, they had written a song to the tune of ‘God Save the King,’ but their song was ‘God Save the Thirteen States,’ the thirteen United States.”

The Ancient City offers a reminder – the footsteps of history are still hiding in plain sight.

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