Our Distinguished Neighbors

The apartment overlooks the lush garden of the Segui-Kirby Smith house, home to the library of the St. Augustine Historical Society.  The garden holds a sculpture of two of the most famous men who lived in the house, Dr. A. H. Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith.  Dr. Darnes was born a slave in the house and lived a remarkable life ending up a highly respected doctor in Jacksonville and as a prominent mason was the Florida Deputy Grand Master and High Priest of the Royal Arch chapter of Washington, D.C.  Kirby Smith was a general in the Confederate army and a professor of mathematics at the University of the South at Sewanee.

One evening we were walking hand-in-hand and as we rounded the corner of Aviles Street and Artillery Lane, I felt Cristan give a start.  She admitted that she was scared by the two guys standing quietly in the garden even though she knew they were statues and that this was not the first time they had startled her.  I didn't admit at the time that they had the same effect on me the first time I came across them in the dark.

The sculptor, Mariah J. Kirby-Smith is the great granddaughter of Edmund Kirby Smith.  A list of her works shows several in Columbia and I intend to find them while I'm still up here.  Edmund Kirby Smith was so respected that the state of Florida chose a statue of him as one of the two allowed representative statues in the Capitol building in Washington and there are many other monuments and memorials to him across the south.  Dr. Darnes was the only servant in either of the Civil War armies to have kept a journal and I can't wait for a chance to read through it.  The sculpture of these two men will certainly be a part of the walking tour and I hope to have enough information about both men to give the listener an idea of what sort of men they were as well as enough information to help him or her recognize the meaning behind the medical bag, Masonic watch fob and professorial robe.  This is exactly the point of the project - to add more depth and meaning in the surroundings of the curious traveler.