Quaker merchant Jonathan Dickinson, after whom South Florida’s beloved Jonathan Dickinson State Park is named, was on a business trip from Jamaica to Philadelphia in 1669 when on September 23rd his ship foundered and ran ashore off of what is now Jupiter Island.

From there Dickinson and his family made a grueling and perilous two-month trek to St. Augustine. During the journey Dickinson recorded much of what they encountered in his journal which in-turn became the first detailed account of the Palm Beach region, it describes, among other things, several Florida’s now vanished early Indian tribes.

Here’s a short expert from Dickinson’s thoroughly interesting journal: