Elizabeth Taylor’s fabled jewel collection made the news recently as auctioneers at Christie’s kept rapping the hammer as bidders paid out nearly $116 million for her jewelry.

Among the treasures was La Peregrina Pearl, the 15th largest saltwater pearl in the world and one with Spanish connections and even a touch of St. Augustine. Known as “the Wanderer” or “the Pilgrim,” the pearl is depicted in one of three paintings at Government House here.

The discovery of the pearl is a bit of a mystery.

Marie Smith left a lot of news behind in her West Augustine home when she died in 2010. Scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings were enough to fill a shed in the backyard. She was a collector, her son Lloyd Smith said, and she lived to be 101.

“She collected everything. That was her hobby.” he said. “Anything that was news to her, she kept it.”

Amid the piles of scrapbooks, Marie Smith’s granddaughter Jeanette Hawkins found a special article while cleaning the home.

Writer came to St. Augustine in the 1820s for treatment of tuberculosis

The promise of a mild climate and sea airs brought Ralph Waldo Emerson to St. Augustine in the winter of 1827.

However, in those days he wasn’t a noted writer and religious philosopher, but a tired and very ill young man. He was suffering from tuberculosis and several related illnesses.

Emerson knew how deadly the disease could be; his father and one brother had already died from the contagious bacterial infection that strikes the lungs.

Know that song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"?

Well, the Sunnyside House had foundations made for moving, and move they did, ending up all around St. Augustine.

Even in the days before Henry M. Flagler made the town the place to be, other entrepreneurs built hotels for the tourists who began showing up shortly after the end of the Civil War.

Among those early arrivals was Capt. Thomas House, a former Union officer, who settled in St. Augustine and became a prominent builder and a one-time mayor.