New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins

Historic site in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, U.S.

29°00′32″N 80°56′28″W / 29.00889°N 80.94111°W / 29.00889; -80.94111EstablishedAugust 12, 1970Governing bodyFlorida Department of Environmental Protection

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The New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins (also known as the Cruger and DePeyster Sugar Mill) is a historic site in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, at 600 Old Mission Road, one mile west of the Intracoastal Waterway. On August 12, 1970, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.^[1]

In 1830, a steam-operated sugarcane mill and a sawmill were erected at this site. The mills' masonry buildings were constructed of coquina, a sedimentary rock composed of fossilized tiny mollusc shells, quarried nearby. The structures included a crushing house, with a chimney and large arched doors and window openings, which contained the steam-driven grinding machinery that extracted the juice from the sugarcane. The entire process was carried out using slave labor and draft animals, under the management of the plantation overseer, John Dwight Sheldon.^[2]

On Christmas Day in 1835, the mills and other buildings were destroyed by Native Americans during the Second Seminole War; only the walls were left standing, with the machinery inside them, made by the West Point Foundry of Cold Spring, New York, mostly undamaged. The site was further altered by soldiers who were garrisoned there to keep the Seminoles under surveillance.^[3]

History

In 1830, William Kemble contracted to build a steam-operated sugarcane mill and a saw mill here for William DePeyster and Henry Cruger, merchant speculators from New York. Eliza Cruger, Henry Cruger's wife, and outside investors financed the construction of the mills^[4] on six hundred acres of land near New Smyrna that Cruger bought from an Episcopal minister, Ambrose Hull, who had received it as a grant from the Spanish crown during the Second Spanish period.^[5]^[6] The land had been part of the original grant made to Andrew Turnbull by the British during their twenty-year occupation of Florida.

On December 25, 1835, a band of Seminole Indians pillaged the plantation, after the overseer John Dwight Sheldon, his family, and resident slaves fled to the mainland across the Halifax River. That night the Indians set the sugar mill and other buildings afire.^[2]^[7] Afterwards, the machinery from the sugar mill was removed and installed at the Dunlawton Sugar Mill. Before coming under the administration of the Florida Park Service as a historic site, the property was commonly believed to be the (non-existent) ruins of the Mission of Atocuimi, a Spanish mission for the Timucua Indians;^[8] this false assertion is still propagated by misinformed persons.^[9]

References

^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
^ ^a ^b Zelia Wilson Sweett; J. C. Marsden (1925). "New Smyrna, Florida, its History and Antiquities". ufdc.ufl.edu. pp. 37, 39. Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
^ Randy F. Nimnicht (February 19, 1971). "New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins" (PDF). National Park Service. p. 2. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
^ Patricia C. Griffin (September 2003). "Life on the Plantations of East Florida: 1763–1848". The Florida Anthropologist. 56 (3). Florida Anthropological Society: 171. Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
^ Wilbur H Siebert. "The Early Sugar Industry in Florida". The Florida Historical Quarterly. Florida Historical Society.
^ Lawrence J. Sweett (2006). New Smyrna Beach. Arcadia Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-7385-4323-9. Archived from the original on 2021-05-03. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
^ Alice Strickland (1980). Ormond-on-the-Halifax: A Centennial History of Ormond Beach, Florida (3 ed.). Ormond Beach Historical Trust. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9780972651325.
^ Lucy B. Wayne (July 2010). Sweet Cane: The Architecture of the Sugar Works of East Florida. University of Alabama Press. pp. 122–123. ISBN 978-0-8173-5592-0. Archived from the original on 2021-05-03. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
^ Robert Redd (7 December 2015). Historic Sites & Landmarks of New Smyrna Beach. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1-62585-298-4. Archived from the original on 3 May 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2018.

External links

Volusia County listings at Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs
U.S. Territorial Period 1821-1845 at Volusia County History
Images of the Black Seminole slave rebellion at John Horse and the Black Seminoles
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. FL-15-4, "New Smyrna Sugar Mill (ruins), New Smyrna vicinity, Volusia County, FL", 5 photos, 4 measured drawings, 5 data pages, supplemental material

Protected areas of Florida

Federal level

National parks	Biscayne Dry Tortugas Everglades
National memorials	De Soto Fort Caroline
National monuments	Castillo de San Marcos Fort Matanzas
National seashores	Canaveral Gulf Islands
National forests	Apalachicola Choctawhatchee Ocala Osceola
National wildlife refuges	Archie Carr Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee Caloosahatchee Cedar Keys Chassahowitzka Crocodile Lake Crystal River Egmont Key Florida Panther Great White Heron Hobe Sound Island Bay J.N. 'Ding' Darling Key West Lake Wales Ridge Lake Woodruff Lower Suwannee Matlacha Pass Merritt Island National Key Deer Okefenokee Passage Key Pelican Island Pine Island Pinellas St. Johns St. Marks St. Vincent Ten Thousand Islands
Other national protected areas	Big Cypress National Preserve Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
National Estuarine Research Reserves and National Marine Sanctuaries	Apalachicola NERR Florida Keys NMS Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR Rookery Bay NERR
National Wild and Scenic Rivers	Loxahatchee River Wekiva River

State level

Parks	Amelia Island Anastasia Avalon Bahia Honda Bald Point Big Lagoon Big Shoals Big Talbot Island Bill Baggs Cape Florida Bulow Creek Caladesi Island Camp Helen Cayo Costa Collier–Seminole Colt Creek Curry Hammock Delnor-Wiggins Pass Devil's Millhopper Don Pedro Island Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson Eden Gardens Egmont Key Falling Waters Faver-Dykes Florida Caverns Fort Clinch Fort Cooper Fort George Island Fort Pierce Inlet Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou Gasparilla Island George Crady Bridge Fishing Pier Grayton Beach Henderson Beach Highlands Hammock Honeymoon Island Hontoon Island Hugh Taylor Birch John D. MacArthur Beach John Pennekamp Coral Reef Jonathan Dickinson Little Talbot Island Long Key Lovers Key Mike Roess Gold Head Branch North Peninsula O'Leno Oscar Scherer Perdido Key Price's Scrub Sebastian Inlet Skyway Fishing Pier St. Andrews St. George Island St. Marks River St. Joseph Peninsula Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center Stump Pass Beach Tomoka Torreya Windley Key Fossil Reef
Botanical garden parks	Alfred B. Maclay Gardens Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Lignumvitae Key Ravine Gardens Washington Oaks
Lakes, rivers and springs parks	Deer Lake Lake Griffin Lake June in Winter Scrub Lake Kissimmee Lake Louisa Lake Manatee Lake Talquin Alafia River Blackwater River Dunns Creek Econfina River Hillsborough River Little Manatee River Myakka River Ochlockonee River Oleta River Suwannee River Three Rivers Blue Spring De Leon Springs Edward Ball Wakulla Springs Fanning Springs Homosassa Springs Wildlife Ichetucknee Springs Lafayette Blue Springs Madison Blue Spring Manatee Springs Ponce de Leon Springs Rainbow Springs Silver Springs Troy Spring Weeki Wachee Springs Wekiwa Springs Werner-Boyce Salt Springs Wes Skiles Peacock Springs
Recreation areas	Dead Lakes Gamble Rogers Memorial
Museums, historic sites, and archaeological sites	Addison Blockhouse Cedar Key Museum Constitution Convention Museum Forest Capital Museum John Gorrie Museum Ybor City Museum The Barnacle Bulow Plantation Ruins Dade Battlefield DeSoto Site Dudley Farm Fort Foster Fort Mose Fort Zachary Taylor Gamble Plantation Indian Key Koreshan Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Homestead Natural Bridge Battlefield Olustee Battlefield Orman House Paynes Creek San Marcos de Apalache Yellow Bluff Fort Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Crystal River Lake Jackson Mounds Letchworth-Love Mounds Madira Bickel Mound Mound Key San Pedro Underwater
Preserves and reserves	Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Anclote Key Cedar Key Scrub Charlotte Harbor Crystal River Disney Wilderness Estero Bay Green Cay Wetlands Fakahatchee Strand Hal Scott Kissimmee Prairie Lower Wekiva River Paynes Prairie Pumpkin Hill Creek River Rise Rock Springs Run San Felasco Hammock Savannas Seabranch St. Lucie Inlet St. Sebastian River Tarkiln Bayou Topsail Hill Tosohatchee Waccasassa Bay Yellow River Marsh
State trails	Blackwater Heritage Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Gainesville-Hawthorne General James A. Van Fleet Jacksonville-Baldwin Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway Nature Coast Palatka-Lake Butler Palatka-to-St. Augustine Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad Withlacoochee
State forests	Belmore Big Shoals Blackwater River Carl Duval Moore Cary Charles H. Bronson Cottage Hill Deep Creek Etoniah Creek Four Creeks Goethe Holopaw Indian Lake Jennings John M. Bethea Lake George Lake Talquin Lake Wales Ridge Little Big Econ Matanzas Myakka Okaloacoochee Slough Picayune Strand Pine Log Point Washington Ralph E. Simmons Memorial Ross Prairie Seminole Tate's Hell Tiger Bay Twin Rivers Wakulla Watson Island Welaka Withlacoochee

Local level

Preserves and reserves	Boyd Hill Moccasin Lake

Category
Commons

v t e U.S. National Register of Historic Places in Florida
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Lists by city	Miami Tampa
Other lists	Black Public Schools Bridges Multiple Property Submissions National Historic Landmarks Woman's clubhouses
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