Ponce De Leon
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ponce De Leon. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
pon'tha da la-on' (1460-1521), the discoverer of Florida. He was born in Aragon, Spain, and died in Cuba. As a youth he served in the wars of Granada, by which the Moors were expelled from Spain. He served under Columbus on the occasion of the latter's second visit to the New World. He took an active part in the establishment of colonies in the West Indies and held various prominent positions by appointment of King Ferdinand. He was at one time governor of Porto Rico . With other gallants of the age, he believed in the existence of a fountain of youth, that somewhere a fountain welled from the earth, the waters of which were capable of conferring perpetual youth on those who drank. Popular belief located this fountain on an island. In 1512 he obtained a patent for this supposed island, and in the next year he set out with three ships in search of it. March 27, 1513, he came in sight of the mainland of the United States and gave it the name of Florida. April 2d he landed a little northward of the present site of St. Augustine. He coasted southward and westward around the peninsula, still supposing it to be an island. In the autumn, he returned to Porto Rico. In 1521 he again visited Florida, with the purpose of colonization. He was poisoned by an Indian's arrow, on which his expedition returned to Cuba, where he died. The Spanish claim to Florida was based on Ponce de Leon's discoveries. See De Soto
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JUAN, the dis coverer of Florida; born in San Servas, Spain, in 1460, served against the Moors, and in 1502 sailed with Ovando to Hispaniola, and became governor of the E. part of the island. In 1510 he obtained the government of Porto Rico, and had conquered the whole island by 1512, when he was deprived of his post. He then, broken in health, set out on a quest for the fountain of perpetual youth, and on March 27, 1513, found Florida, landing a little to the N. of where St. Au gustine now stands. After staying on his way back to drive the Caribs out of Porto Rico, he returned in 1521 to conquer his new subjects; in this, however, he failed. He retired to Cuba, and died there in July from the wound of a poisoned arrow.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts make the fountain of youth the motive for the 1513 voyage, but modern historians treat that as legend: the surviving royal contract of 1512 authorizes Ponce de León to find and settle the island of Bimini and says nothing of magical waters, and the fountain story surfaces only in Spanish chronicles written after his death, notably Oviedo's of 1535, where it reads as a jab at his character. Other details have shifted too. Aiton's 1910 birthplace, Aragon, has given way to Collier's "San Servas" — Santervás de Campos in Castile — and the traditional birth year of 1460 is now often revised to about 1474, which would make him a young man rather than a veteran at Granada; his supposed service under Columbus on the 1493 voyage is undocumented. Historians also doubt he was the first European on the Florida coast, since earlier slaving voyages and pre-1513 maps hint at prior contact, and his 1513 landfall is placed by many well south of St. Augustine, near present-day Melbourne Beach.
Written for this edition, 2026.