These are the ruins of people's dreams, left by successive landowners, free workers, and slaves. Hoping to make sugar in the nineteenth century, they faced isolation, hurricanes, and dispossessed Seminoles. Some lost money in their ventures, and . . . — — Map (db m46537) HM
In the early nineteenth century, many of this region's large agricultural ventures focused on sugar - coarse, brown, and valuable. To get the most from their sugar cane, some planters had their own crushing and cooking operations. At plantations . . . — — Map (db m46541) HM
The ruins here include chimneys and other structures made of coquina, Spanish for "tiny shell." Quarried locally (and elsewhere in the Southeast), this native stone contains mollusk shell fragments and quartz sand, bound together by . . . — — Map (db m46539) HM
Welcome to Dunlawton's boardwalk - a modern structure offering views of the former sugar factory while reducing foot traffic inside. (More on the nineteenth-century floorplan can be found in an interpretive panel near the ruins' south side.) Today's . . . — — Map (db m46543) HM
During the 2nd Seminole War, 1836, the Mosquito Roarers, a company of Florida militia under Major Benjamin Putnam, engaged a large band of Seminoles pillaging Dunlawton, a sugar plantation on the Halifax River. Heavy fighting ensued, but the . . . — — Map (db m34346) HM
When Sarah Anderson and her sons owned Dunlawton, Mosquito County settlers formed a militia unit called the Mosquito Roarers. Even with its fine name, this group reportedly lacked anyone who had ever "seen a gun fired in anger." By the mid-1830's, . . . — — Map (db m46547) HM
In January 1836, during the second Indian War, the Indians burned Dunlawton Plantation. Only the brick walls, the chimneys and the heavy iron machinery were left. The Plantation was not rebuilt until the 1840's. The war cost the United States 19 . . . — — Map (db m46553) HM
Dunlawton's new metal roof is meant to protect stonework and machinery. But it also makes an important point. Though not an exact replica of the wooden roof that protected it, this shelter reminds us that a large, enclosed factory once stood here. . . . — — Map (db m46544) HM
The Dunlawton Plantation was no leisure spot. As a frontier agricultural and processing site, it demanded hard, physical, un-glamorous work. Without the labor of African-American slaves and hired free workers, this nineteenth-century venture would . . . — — Map (db m46545) HM
How do we know what we know about Dunlawton? The information sources range from period documents to objects in the ground. Questions remain, but researchers have made a start at uncovering the plantation's key stories. Among the written sources, . . . — — Map (db m46549) HM
One reality of this sugar plantation was its isolation. When owner John Marshall asked for help against the Seminoles, an army commander in St. Augustine offered muskets and a lecture: "I need scarcely add," he warned, "that the best reliance of the . . . — — Map (db m46550) HM
After the 1850s, Dunlawton's days as a serious sugar venture were through. John Marshall moved away, tried to rid himself of the Florida plantation, and finally snared a buyer in 1871. His successors included Charles Dougherty (a noted . . . — — Map (db m46551) HM
Several attempts were made to operate Dunlawton Plantation as a tourist attraction in the the 1950's Dr. Perry Sperber leased the premises from J. Saxon Lloyd for a park to display prehistoric monsters and had a number of replicas, molded in . . . — — Map (db m34878) HM
