The Menorcan Cultural Society gathered this afternoon to commemorate the arrival of Father Pedro Camps on November 9, 1777. Historic City News reporters were there when the descendants of some of the city’s oldest families celebrated their heritage in St Augustine.
Mayor Nancy Shaver participated in the procession that began in the Courtyard of the Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine and made its way to the Tolomato Cemetery on Cordova Street.
“Father Camps and many of those original Menorcans who survived their servitude on the indigo plantation at New Smyrna are buried here in St Augustine,” Mayor Shaver told local Historic City News reporters.
Cultural Society President Carol Lopez-Bradshaw was joined by her grandsons who were holding their family crests. Signs bearing the Menorcan family names were carried during the procession.
“The Menorcan culture thrives in St Augustine, and our local Menorcan families enjoy continuing to practice generations-old trades handed down from their ancestors,” Shaver said. “I learned from Mike Usina that there are 75,000 knots in a typical 7-foot mullet net.”
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