Columbus’s Chapel?

Columbus’s Chapel?. The Cruger-dePester Sugar Mill. , Over the years, this one-time sugar factory became a source of local building materials and myths. Salvagers carried off coquina blocks, and the massive machinery went to the Dunlawton mill, in present-day Port Orange., Even so, enough remained to keep the New Smyrna landmark romantic and popular with visitors. In 1894, the Atlantic Monthly magazine published a story about the ruins by a well-known travel writer. Bradford Torrey liked the mill’s dreamy setting and wildlife, he also noted a curious claim, that the structure had been built as a chapel, perhaps “by Columbus himself.” , Torrey could laugh, but the Spanish story took root. Early postcards labeled this site as a “mission” or “convent,” and the ruins’ owner, Mrs. Jeannette Connor, promoted the Franciscan fathers story., By 1941, journalist Charles H. Coe had seen enough. In a scathing critique of the "so-called Spanish mission," Coe rejected the origin and argued for a nineteenth-century sugar factory. Modern students of the ruins agree, but also credit Mrs. Connor with helping to preserve this special place.