Fort Frederica National Monument - 1945 Historic Site Report (U.S. National Park Service)

Albert Manucy's 1945 Historic Site Report of Fort Frederica National Monument

Albert Manucy (1910 - 1997)
Manucy was born and grew up in downtown St. Augustine, Florida where he developed a keen interest in colonial construction and architecture. "After graduating with a master’s degree from the University of Florida in 1934, Manucy went to work for the National Park Service, first on WPA projects and later on the permanent payroll. His career with the park service as one of its few, at the time, historians took him all over the United States, South American and Europe. He was in charge of researching the Castillo, including the edifice itself to the furniture and artillery inside to the Cubo Line outside."

In 1945 Albert Manucy researched and wrote a Historic Site Report for the newly established park unit Fort Frederica National Monument. While this report is over 50 years old, the historical research in it is still valid, a tribute to Manucy's work as a Historian. This report is also valuable for his architectural drawings, maps, and other artwork he created for it. The digital copy we have online doesn't do his work justice (difficulty with scanning colored pencil drawings on onion-skin paper) but is the only way to share this work with the public (only one original exists in archival storage).

He published his first book, The Houses of St. Augustine, 1566-1821, and, with a leave of absence, explored Spanish architecture on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1966 he became curator for the Southeast Regional Office of the Park Service. Following retirement, he continued his research on St. Augustine and, in 1997, published Sixteenth Century St. Augustine: The People and Their Homes.