Today, we are visiting one of the most unusual national parks in the United States. It is called Dry Tortugas National Park. It comprises seven tiny islands located around two hundred kilometres southwest of southern Florida. One of these islands was once used as a prison. Let’s begin our visit by imagining we’re travelling back in time almost 150 years.
It is the last few days of July in 1865. The United States Navy steamship ‘Florida’ moves slowly towards a small island. The crew tie the ship to the dock. Passengers begin to disembark. They move slowly in the extreme summer heat. In front of them stands a huge red brick building.
The passengers walk over a small wooden bridge. It crosses an area of water surrounding the huge building. They slowly approach the only door. They pass through it and stop in front of a group of soldiers.
One of the soldiers, an officer, comes forward and tells the passengers to stop. Looking at the passengers, he says, ‘You are now within the walls of Fort Jefferson Military Prison in the Dry Tortugas. You have been tried, convicted and sentenced to serve your punishment here.
No prisoner has ever successfully escaped from Fort Jefferson. No one will ever escape. The nearest occupied land is more than two hundred kilometres away across open ocean.’
Among the prisoners who arrived on that fateful day long ago were four men found guilty of taking part in the successful plot to murder President Abraham Lincoln.
One prisoner was sentenced for providing medical assistance to the man who assassinated President Lincoln. He was also found guilty of being an active member of the plot. That man was Samuel Mudd. He was a thirty-two-year-old doctor from the eastern state of Maryland. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life doing hard labour at Fort Jefferson.
The huge red-brick building facing Doctor Mudd and the other prisoners was hexagonal. It occupied most of the small island’s land area. Six wide walls surrounded a large open space in the centre.
Each wall was about fifteen metres tall. Inside the walls were hundreds of rooms. Most of these held large guns pointing out to sea. There were also many other buildings inside the huge fort. Soldiers slept in them. Some of the houses were used by officers.
Soldiers and prisoners worked and lived within the fort’s walls. The extreme heat affected everyone.
Hundreds of seabirds flew over the small island. Doctor Mudd must have believed that these birds would be the only creatures to ever escape Fort Jefferson. He must have thought that the distant island would be his home for a very long time. But he was wrong.
In 1867, Doctor Mudd helped the prison doctor treat victims of yellow fever. Many died. Soon, the prison doctor also lost his own battle with the disease. Doctor Mudd was the only one left to treat the increasing number of men who became ill with yellow fever.
Later, the sickness seemed to leave the island. Those who survived knew they owed their lives to Doctor Mudd. Almost every man in Fort Jefferson wrote to the President of the United States, asking for Doctor Mudd to be pardoned in recognition of his work treating patients with yellow fever. They said that Doctor Mudd was a hero.
In February 1869, President Andrew Johnson signed a presidential pardon. Doctor Mudd was a free man. He left Fort Jefferson and returned to his home in Maryland. He became a family doctor again.
The first European visitor to the small islands was the Spanish explorer Ponce de León. He arrived in 1513. An older man, Ponce de Leon was searching for a special water said to make him young again. This water was known as the ‘Fountain of Youth’.
Ponce de León named the small islands Tortugas. ‘Tortugas’ is the Spanish word for ‘turtle’. Thousands of turtles lived on the islands. Ponce de León was able to capture many of them to provide fresh meat for his crew. However, he never found the special water of the Fountain of Youth.
In fact, the islands had no water at all. The Tortugas were dry. Early maps of the area began to show the word ‘dry’ to warn ships that they could find no fresh water there.
President Thomas Jefferson was interested in the islands as a place that could protect ships travelling through the Florida Straits. He proposed that a military base be built there. In 1821, the United States took control of Florida and its islands. Construction of the military fort did not begin until 1848, long after Jefferson’s death.
The fort was designed to accommodate one thousand five hundred men and four hundred and fifty large cannons. It would become the largest brick fort in America.
However, Fort Jefferson was never fully completed. Work on it had to continue continually. The salt air, wind, water and sand quickly caused problems. The weight of the brick walls caused them to sink into the sand.
It was difficult to keep the fort in good repair. While some workers built new sections of the fort, others repaired damage caused by the environment.
Slaves and prisoners carried out the construction and maintenance work at the fort. Most of the prisoners were army troops. They had been convicted of a crime and sentenced to serve their time at Fort Jefferson.
In 1874, the US Army left Fort Jefferson. Modern artillery rendered the fort obsolete.
Today, thousands of visitors make the trip to Dry Tortugas National Park. Soldiers no longer greet them when they arrive at Fort Jefferson. Instead, they are greeted by friendly members of the National Park Service. They greet every boat filled with visitors. They smile and say, ‘Welcome to Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas National Park.’
The days when the small island was used as a prison are long gone. Yet almost every visitor to Dry Tortugas National Park asks about its most famous prisoner, Samuel Alexander Mudd. They ask to see his room. Most people know that Dr Mudd did not spend the rest of his life in Fort Jefferson prison.
Only a few of the huge cannons remain in the park. These have been preserved to give visitors an idea of what the old fort used to look like. The fort’s grounds and buildings continue to be affected by the weather. Workers are therefore continuing to fight against severe environmental damage.
Fortunately, a government programme called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is providing funding to help preserve Fort Jefferson. Workers are removing and rebuilding damaged sections of the walls.
The park covers an area of more than twenty-six thousand hectares. Almost all of this is ocean, home to living coral reefs that protect the small islands.
The waters near the islands are home to thousands of different species of fish. Many ships have sunk in these waters over the centuries. Many of these wrecks are located within the boundaries of the national park. These shipwrecks provide safe places for many of the fish.
Some visitors are lucky enough to see the huge sea turtles that gave the islands their name. The small islands are also home to many species of seabird. Some of the islands in Dry Tortugas National Park are off limits to visitors because their presence would frighten birds that are laying eggs.
When Fort Jefferson was a prison, a sign was placed on the wall for new prisoners to see. It read, ‘Those Who Enter Here Leave Hope Behind.’ Except for Doctor Mudd, few prisoners had any hope of ever leaving.
Today, the old fort and the surrounding small islands provide a safe haven for thousands of birds, fish and turtles. Visitors travel for hours on high-speed boats from Key West in Florida to reach them. They swim in the warm waters and enjoy the bright sunshine. Many explore the shipwrecks that lie beneath the waves. Others bring tents and spend a few days camping on the white sandy beaches.
The island’s striking natural beauty today seems to clash with its earlier history as an inescapable, lonely prison. Doctor Mudd would certainly approve of the change.
