A 17th-century priest and St. Augustine native, long ago linked
to the martyrdom of Franciscan priests and hundreds of native
Indians in 1705 in Tallahassee, has been rediscovered by a
Tallahassee organization striving to build a shrine to Florida
martyrs. In their research, the Tallahassee group learned of the
1951 book "Here They Once Stood," written about the tragic
ending of the Apalachee missions in the Tallahassee region. The
book's authors, Mark Boyd, Hale Smith and John W. Griffin,
conducted intense research for the book that included detailed
historical records and archaeology for the times. A passage
about Fray Augustin Ponce de Leon quotes Spanish records of the
time about how Ponce died on Sept. 3, 1705, in Tallahassee
defending the lives of native Indians who lived and worked in
the missions. In "Here They Once Stood," the details of the 1705
massacre indicate that Ponce had come to the region from St.
Augustine with Capt. Don Joseph Begambre, acting governor of the
presidio (of St. Augustine). T