Where did Ponce de Leon die?

Juan Ponce de León (1474 – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to the area in 1513. Though in popular culture, he was supposedly searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which is likely a myth.

In early 1521, Ponce de León organized a colonizing expedition consisting of some 200 men, including priests, farmers and artisans, 50 horses and other domestic animals, and farming implements carried on two ships. The expedition landed somewhere on the coast of southwest Florida, likely in the vicinity of Charlotte Harbor or the Caloosahatchee River. Before the settlement could be established, the colonists were attacked by a large party of native Calusa warriors. Ponce de León was mortally wounded in the skirmish when, historians believe, an arrow poisoned with the sap of the manchineel tree struck his thigh. The expedition immediately abandoned the colonization attempt and returned to Havana, Cuba, where Ponce de León soon died of his wounds. He was buried in Puerto Rico, in the crypt of San José Church from 1559 to 1836, when his remains were exhumed and transferred to the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.