On Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the right when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
On Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road, 0.1 miles east of Herbert Street.
Emathla (1739-1839), also known as King Philip, was a respected Seminole leader of the Alachua region in the early 1800s. Known for his diplomacy, Emathla was firmly committed to keeping Seminoles in Florida and opposing President Andrew Jackson’s . . . — — Map (db m212168) HM
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
This trail leads through hammock land. The word hammock was an Indian term. This is the way the land looked when it was the free domain of the Indians, the home of wildlife and birds. The land had to be cleared to plant crops, build shelters and . . . — — Map (db m46554) HM
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Taylor Road (County Road 421) 0.2 miles south of Forest Preserve Boulevard, on the left when traveling south.
In 1898, James N. Gamble, of the Procter and Gamble Company and a longtime winter resident of Daytona Beach, bought this land on Spruce Creek for use as a rural retreat. In 1907, he built a small cracker cottage with an open front porch and a . . . — — Map (db m96191) HM
On South Ridgewood Avenue (U.S. 1) at Church Street, on the right when traveling south on South Ridgewood Avenue.
Originally part of a 1790 Spanish land grant, the settlement now known as Port Orange began in 1885. The 1888 Diocesan Journal listed the church as a mission church, and the Bishop of Missionaries, the Rt. Rev. William C. Gray, consecrated it in . . . — — Map (db m212166) HM
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
Animal powered rollers, used to crush sugar cane, came from the Samuel Williams Plantation. This Plantation was destroyed by the Indians and never rebuilt. — — Map (db m46552) HM
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Side 1
The Sands Fish & Oyster Company supplied oysters to markets and restaurants up and down the Atlantic seaboard from 1916 until 1955. Founded by William Sands, Sr., the company earned Port Orange, Florida, the title of “Oyster . . . — — Map (db m146221) HM
On Slow Flight Drive just west of Wright Drive, on the right when traveling west.
This cemetery is all that remains of a small community of pioneers who settled this area in the early 1880s. The name Spruce Creek showed up on maps as early as 1859 as the name for the creek that winds through the area, but Orange and Oriana were . . . — — Map (db m244818) HM
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
On Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
On South Ridgewood Avenue (U.S. 1) north of West Ocean Avenue, on the right when traveling north.
Founded soon after the U.S. Civil War, the settlement that would become “Freemanville” was established by Dr. John Milton Hawks, an abolitionist and Union Army surgeon, along with other Union Army officers and the Florida Land & Lumber . . . — — Map (db m45453) HM
On Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the right when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near Old Sugar Mill Road east of Herbert Street, on the left when traveling east.
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
