Sugar Mill Ruins, Florida
During the 1830s, the entire Florida area was an undeveloped US Territory, only accessible through its Indian paths and rivers. Eyeing a strip of land along the coastal peninsula, William dePeyster and Henry Cruger came up with a plan for a new business venture.
They purchased 600 acres to grow and process sugarcane. This unsettling task was given to enslaved African-Аmericans, and they were used to clear the land, plant the cane and build a stone processing building.
The enslaved people were kept on the plantation to process the cane, using heavy crushing machinery from New York.
And just like any untried 19th-century venture, the pair of owners soon discovered that converting sugarcane into refined sugar took up a lot of time and had no chance of a speedy profit.
Before any real gain from the operation was realized, warring Seminole Indians, aided by the plantation’s slaves, chased away the overseer, John Sheldon. The revolters managed to destroy the plantation buildings, burn the cane fields and ravage the nearby town.
Almost 60 years later, a New York stockbroker, Washington E. Connor purchased 10 acres of property which included the ruins of this historic American mill.
Conner’s wife, historian Jeanette Thurber Connor, was deeply interested in the sugar mill and its short-lived history. By 1929, the New Smyrna property was conveyed to the Florida State Park Service.
Nowadays, the park offers a picnic area, a playground, and a nature trail.
