CAPT ADOLPHUS PACETTY

Amelia Monson

PACETTY & MONSON
2g grandparents • born c.1833

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Amelia Monson was twenty-two years old.  She lived with her mother, grandmother, and several young children at 56 Marine Street throughout the Union occupation of Saint Augustine that began in 1862.  Her 20-year old brother William F Monson enlisted in the 1st Florida Battalion of the Confederate States Army at Fernandina in September 1861.  He was shot in the arm at the Battle of Olustee, the largest battle of the war fought in Florida.  He eventually served as far north as Virginia, and was paroled at Appomattox Court House, when General Robert E Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.  William returned to Saint Augustine in May 1865.  He settled in Mandarin Florida and lived until 1932.
 
Amelia's second cousin, Adolphus Pacetty, returned from the Battle of Mobile Bay Alabama the same year, after serving his war years in the Confederate Navy.  Though raised in Saint Marys Georgia, Pacetty had lived in Saint Augustine from around the time Amelia was born and they likely knew each other.  He had significant contact with his great aunt (Antonia Paula Bonelly) who was Amelia's grandmother, and in 1855 he had helped their common Leonardy relatives make a pioneering journey to the frontier outpost known as Tampa.  Whether Adolphus befriended Amelia as a teenager is uncertain—she was ten years his junior, and by the time she was 16, Adolphus (26) had begun a period where he was rarely in Saint Augustine for substantial amounts of time—chasing adventures with the US military and others from Tampa to the Everglades to Key West.  By the time the war was over, Adolphus was 36 years old and ready to settle down in the city of his youth.  He married Amelia in 1867 and they had three daughters between 1868-73.  This entire family group lived and died in the house William and Laureanna bought and fought for at 56 Marine.
 
Pacetty lived a vibrant and somewhat eccentric second life in Saint Augustine after the war. He continued his civic commitment by serving as Sheriff of Saint Johns County from 1877-1881. He was the proprietor of A N Pacetty Soda Water, Fruits, Etc on Saint George Street, which was a flourishing confectionery business he shared with his wife. Advertisements claimed the Pacettys made a "specialty of milk punch, which is most invigorating without being intoxicating." Milk punch was a milk-based brandy or bourbon beverage, which included sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg sprinkled on top. Served cold, it was not unlike eggnog and was common in this period in New Orleans, or on holidays throughout the deep South.

In the 1880s, Amelia's youngest brother, Vincent (Bossy) Monson, established the Monson House, a tourist hotel at 24 Bay Street. This was at or near property owned by his grandmother, Antonia Paula Bonelly, and previously by her father, the Minorcan settler Josef Bonelly. During the first decades of Monson House's existence, Adolphus Pacetty served as proprietor of Capo's Bath House at the end of a pier directly aligned with Baya Street across from the hotel.

Adolphus died in 1913 (84), but Amelia lived almost a quarter century longer. When she passed at age 96 in 1936, she was the oldest woman to have ever lived in Saint Augustine.

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MONSON HOUSE

The first Monson House was opened in the 1880s by Vincent (Bossy) Monson at 24 Bay Street. The structure was replaced twice in the 20th century after devastating fires and was eventually renamed the Monson Hotel and then the Monson Motor Lodge. In addition to the rented rooms, Monson offered tourists a chance to sail to the lighthouse on one of four yachts anchored near the club house. Monson was the grandson of Antonia Paula Bonelly and brother of Ameila Monson and grew up at 56 Marine Street. Long after the family sold its interest in the business, the Monson became a landmark of the American Civil Rights Movement. Dr Martin Luther King Jr was arrested on the steps of the Monson motel restaurant, June 11, 1964. Days later, black and white activists jumped into the Monson swimming pool in violation of segregation ordinances, leading the manager of the hotel to pour muriatic acid into the water to burn them. Photographs of this action, and of a police officer jumping into the pool to arrest the young activists, were broadcast around the world and became some of the most famous images of the Movement. The Monson was demolished in 2003 and is now the site of the Hilton Bayfront Hotel.

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CAPO'S BATH HOUSE

Capo's Bath House occupied an octagonal-shaped building located on a bay pier near 20 Bay Street across from Baya Lane as early as 1885 and throughout the Flagler Era. The facility provided hot and cold sea water, sulfur water baths, and shower baths "in the season." The proprietor was Philip V Capo, who was a Saint Augustine native born in 1844, and was descended from a Minorcan family. Capo's Bath House was destroyed in the 1914 fire that consumed Genovar Opera House, Hotel Clairmont, Monson House, and the County Court House. Adolphus Pacetty indicated in the City Directories that he was manager of Capo's Boat House in 1904 and proprietor of Capo's Bath House  in 1907—the differences possibly suggesting divisions in management (boats vs baths), or a transcription error. Proprietor at Capo's was the last profession in Pacetty's eclectic career, and he passed away in 1913 before the fire.

A note on spelling and proper names