Marin-Hassett House

Hassett was an Irish priest who served the Minorcan community of St. Augustine and established the first free school in what would become the United States.

[2] Senator George Smathers was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Latin American Affairs of John F. Kennedy's President’s Quadricentennial Commission.

On behalf of that President’s Commission, he invited the Pan American Union to take part in the restoration project occurring in downtown St. Augustine in the 1960s.

The goal was to have representatives from Latin American countries arrange cultural exchanges, exhibits, and musical performances for the St. Augustine’s quadricentennial in 1965.

This can be a most important new symbolic bond with our Latin-American neighbors to the south (as well as to Spain across the ocean.”[3] St. Augustine Restoration Inc. bought the property (formerly housing the Manufacturer's Outlet Store and St. George Tavern) and reconstructed the Marin-Hassett House using funds donated by American corporations that had done business in Latin America, such as Ford, General Motors, Texaco, and Gulf.

Representatives included those from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Panama, Honduras, and the United States.

[8] In January 1968, the Pan American Center displayed a replica of a mummy found along the south coast of Peru in a Paracas Tomb as part of its Pre-Columbian exhibit.