Tag Archives: Lauren Fincham

It was 462 years ago (1562) that  Captain  and a group of French explorers sailed west on the Atlantic Ocean and into the mouth of the St. Johns River. Ribault named this river that runs north the River of May (thus, ), and he and his men met and exchanged gifts with the indigenous Timucua Indian tribes, who had lived here for thousands of years. According to maritime journals, Ribault and the French explorers set a large stone pillar carved toward the top with three fleur-de-lis firmly into the ground by the water’s edge and claimed this beautiful, pristine land …