Learning About Nature and Fossils at the Florida Museum of Natural History
Fun, hands-on field trips are an important part of any child’s education. Today school day consisted of a trip to the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida. It wasn’t our first visit to the museum itself, but it was the first time we visited the museum’s Butterfly Rainforest!
Kids Discovery Area
The Kids’ Discovery Area was a welcome addition to the museum, one we didn’t see when we visited last spring. The kids were instantly drawn in and played for a good 20 minutes of so. There were aquariums, science tools, puzzles, books, and even a dinosaur footprint. I love watching them learn!
Four Monkeys on a Learning Mission
Baby Bella puts together a puzzle
A Pretty Butterfly Kite Overhead
Little Girl Has Big Footsteps to Fill
Florida History
The kids learned all about Florida history and saw fossils of many giant and interesting creatures that once roamed where we walk today. Did you know that 99% of creatures that ever lived on earth are now extinct? That’s pretty wild. Derek found the fossils terrifying and wanted to get out of there ASAP. Alex loved them and wanted to examine each fossil closely. She loves learning about ancient life.
Whooly Mammoth Fossil
Learning all about fossils and rocks
Standing in the jaws of an ancient shark
Fossils!
Learning About Butterflies
The main point of today’s visit was to visit the butterfly exhibit and the Butterfly Rain Forest. The kids saw hundreds of butterflies from all around the world, learned about the insects, and viewed them under a microscope. We learned so much!
Examining Butterflies Under a Microscope
The Grand Butterfly Rainforest
The Butterfly rainforest was so amazing, I wrote a blog entry on it alone! The Butterfly Rainforest is an enclosed outdoor exhibit filled with beautiful flowers and plants and hundreds of live, flying butterflies. It was truly spectacular!
Today was an awesome adventure! We all had a great time and learned a lot about nature, fossils, and especially butterflies. It’d say it was a successful day. Field trips are awesome.
NAS Jacksonville’s Forgotten History… A Stroll Back in Time to Mulberry Grove Plantation
Alex Explores Captain's Housing on Historic Mustin Rd
We celebrated fall this morning with a stroll along historic Mustin Road, bordering the St. John’s River. The kids and I headed to one of my favorite spots in the world, the riverside park in Patriot’s Point Housing. We used to live along this road before we were moved into new housing and I would bring the kids here often. It’s a farther walk now, but this place still draws me like a magnet. I don’t know what it is about it, but it makes me feel totally at peace. It’s so quiet, yet so alive. The land rumbles with forgotten history, stories hidden beneath a sheath of time just waiting to be uncovered.
The land where NAS Jacksonville sits was once know as Mulberry Grove Plantation. People lived, loved, and died here. Yet today, all that remains of the past is a plaque and perhaps a ghost or two.
Mulberry Grove Plantation dates back several hundred years. The land was granted to an Englishman named Timothy Hollingsworth by the Spanish crown in 1787. He named his plantation after the numerous mulberry trees in the area. The land passed between many owners over the next hundred years. In the decades following the Civil War, Mulberry Grove Plantation was known for its oranges, cattle, and wide array of fruit and vegetable crops. The main plantation house was spectacular, with a shaded avenue leading to the sparkling St. Johns River. In the late 1800s, supplies were brought to the plantation by steamboats. The plantation was a bustling hub of commerce and life. Today, the magnificant plantation is gone. Not a trace of it survived. Still, the beautiful shaded avenue lives on and makes one wonder about the people who lived here so long ago. Who stood where I stand today, and what was their life like? What was life like for the slaves who once worked this land?
John Reese was an African American whose parents were slaves born on Mulberry Grove Plantation. A kind master, A.M. Reed sold John’s father a 20-acre homestead even before the Civil War granted slaves freedom. Once the Civil War ended, the slave-driven plantation became farm with hired black workers. As a child, John worked hard on the plantation (farm) and his family’s homestead, cutting firewood for the stoves. Crops were grown and harvested year round and oranges were created and shipped on steamboats on the St. Johns River. The River was the city’s lifeblood, offering easy transportation and plentiful fishing. John likely fished the St. Johns River with a little bamboo pole, providing his family with some fresh fish for dinner. Born after the Civil War, children like John worked for wages and loved trips to Jacksonville to buy things like shoes and coats. The St. Johns River was his gateway to the world and Jacksonville was a glittering, busy city full of promise and intriguing shops and sights. It wasn’t a bad life!
The US government purchased a portion of the plantation in 1939 and NAS Jacksonville was born. On April 26, 1939, President Roosevelt signed a bill providing for $66,800,000 for a naval air station program. $15,000,000 was earmarked for NAS Jacksonville. The first contract was issued for clearing, dredging, and filling the plantation in October 1939. On January 16, 1940, the first aircraft assigned to NAS Jacksonville, the Grumman J2F-3, arrived at the airbase. Roosevelt himself visited the bustling young airbase on March 20, 1941. The base continued to grow and expand over the next few decades. Today, it’s one of the largest in the Navy. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian personnel work on the base.
I can’t find a resource stating when Mustin Road’s historic officer’s houses were first constructed, but they are quite old and very magnificent. Housing touts them as being “historic.” Regardless of their age, they are marvelous pieces of history themselves. Scores of influential military leaders have lived within their walls. The commander of the Navy Region South East lived here until recently. This place lives and breathes history.
If one wasn’t informed that a Plantation once thrived on this land, you’d never know the difference. The park is quiet and peaceful, shaded by towering oaks and serenaded by the gentle lapping of the river upon the shore. Apart from an aging sign, there isn’t anything left of Mulberry Grove Plantation or the people who worked and died here. A largely forgotten cemetery (Yukon Cemetary), in a heavily wooded area at Avent Drive and Roosevelt Boulevard between Ortega Hills and Yukon (off base), may have originated as burial grounds for slaves serving the Mulberry Grove plantation. It’s overgrown with brush and in very poor shape. Soon it too may be forgotten to the tides of time. Jacksonville’s citizens have tried to get the cemetary recognized as a historic landmark more than once, but the area is becoming more heavily developed with each passing year.
When they were granted their freedom, African Americans planted oak trees along the banks of the St. Johns River to celebrate their newfound rights. Today, Mustin Road is lined with towering oak trees. If you stay here a while, you might just hear whisperings of the past. And if not… it’s still a spectacularly beautiful, warm, and inviting place to be.
Dear Navy.... I'd really, really like to live in one of these houses someday 
The St. John's River
Derek and Bella relax and bond
Alex and Derek in Captain's Housing
Beautiful Sunday Morning Sky Over the St. Johns River
An Ancient Oak Stands Guard Along the Street. Could It Have Been Planted By the Freedmen?
Alex, Age 6
For more information about Mulberry Grove Plantation, visit:
Florida Division of Historical Resources: Historic Markers: http://www.flheritage.com/preservation/markers/markers.cfm?ID=duval
Jacksonville history: http://www.jaxhistory.com/Jacksonville%20Story/Picture%20of%20Iceman%27s%20Helper.htm
Jacksonville Times Union: Times Have Surely Changed in Clay: http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/012799/nec_c4Memoir.html
Jacksonville Times Union: Residents Look to History: http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/063001/ner_6551548.shtml
Naval Air Station Jacksonville History: https://www.cnic.navy.mil/Jacksonville/AboutCNIC/GeneralInformation/index.htm
Tallahassee’s Princess?
Belleview-- The Home of Princess Catherine Murat
Have you ever heard about Tallahassee’s Princess? I hadn’t… until Monday. Evidentially she’s quite the historic celebrity in North Central Florida. Princess Catherine Murat was the great grand-niece of George Washington. She married Prince Archille Murat of France, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. When Bonaparte declared himself an Emperor in France, Catherine was recognized as royalty and her union with Archille wed American and French royalty. While not traveling, the Murats lived on a cotton plantation near Tallahassee. Their home, Belleview, was later relocated to the Tallahassee Museum and is open to the public. We had the opportunity to get up close and personal with this unique piece of American history.
This week, our family ventured on one last RV adventure to end the summer. We headed out to Madison, Florida, and spend a day in Tallahassee taking advantage of the last few days of the Blue Star Initiative. If you haven’t heard about it, the Blue Star Initiative provides free museum entrance to military families all summer long (Memorial Day through Labor Day). 1500 museums participated in the program this year and we visited 5 of them. If you are a military family, this is a phenomenal opportunity! If you missed it this year, be sure to take part next summer. This week’s gem was the Tallahassee Museum, located at 3945 Museum Drive in Tallahassee, Florida.
The Tallahassee Museum is an outdoor museum, so don’t forget your walking shoes and perhaps some bug spray and suns screen! If you go in the summer, go early to avoid the intense Florida heat. We got there right when they opened and were practically the only visitors. First, we toured Big Bend Farm, a 1880′s farm with live farm animals and historic buildings. The furnished 1880s farmhouse was really neat and we loved how up close and personal we could get to everything. It was interesting to see exactly what was inside the farmhouse and learn about all the different jobs and chores there were to do on a farm. The kids loved the cows, goats, and sheep. That’s something we don’t see much of in Jacksonville.
While not a traditional zoo, the trek through “Wildlife Florida” was an interesting hike through Florida ‘s swamps. Along the way, we saw red wolves, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and lots of birds. The scenery was peaceful and breathtaking. We were there right at feeding time, so the kids got to watch the deer eating their breakfast. It’s not too often we get to be that close to deer! For the more adventurous visitors, there’s an extensive nature trail as well. Our kids were too hot, tired, and grumpy to venture that deep into the wilderness. If you go, let me know how it is!
In “Old Florida,” we walked through the Concorde Schoolhouse, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1897 for the children of former slaves. The kids enjoyed sitting in the log-hewn benches and touching the old fireplace and blackboard. There was an interesting timeline tracing the history of African-American students too. This made a great lesson for our oldest, Alex. She had a million questions about what school was like back then and how things have changed over time. Next we visited Bethlehem Ministry Baptist Church, an African-American church built in 1937 by a congregation founded in 1850. It was a great experience!
The definite highlight of our visit was the Belleview Plantation. Unlike most historic houses, you can actually enter and explore every room of this small manor. This put a lot of perspective on things! Everything was so much smaller than I imagined. As a history lover, it was a real treat to visit Belleview. It was an awesome history lesson for the kids as well. Catherine Murat owned this home from 1854 until her death in 1867. The exhibit also includes a small formal garden, a reconstructed plantation kitchen, and a replica slave cabin. The house has been beautifully restored to look just like it did in Murat’s time. If you’re ever in the area, this is a unique opportunity to experience history!
To top off the visit, the Tallahassee Museum has an awesome playpark. The kids could have stayed there for hours if it hadn’t been so hot. If we lived closer, we’d buy a membership and visit frequently.
Our day in Tallahassee was a nice reprieve from everyday life and a fun way to add a little homeschool time into our vacation away from home. The kids didn’t even realize they were learning, and I think I learned as much as they did.
Tallahassee Museum: http://tallahasseemuseum.org/
Belleview, The Home of Princess Murat: http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/belleview.html
For more info on the Blue Star Initiative, check out: http://www.arts.gov/national/bluestarmuseums/index2011.php. Princes
The kids view the sitting room in Belleview
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Alex in the Old-Room Schoolhouse
The Kids Learned Lots About Wild Florida on the Nature Walk
1880's Farmhouse
The Kids Fully Enjoyed the Farm
