Gamble Plantation Historic State Park

Gamble Plantation Historic State Park
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
Location	Ellenton, Florida, USA
Coordinates
Governing body	Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Robert Gamble House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Built	1845–1850
Architectural style	Greek Revival Vernacular
NRHP Reference #	70000189
Added to NRHP	August 12, 1970

Gamble Plantation Historic State Park, also known as the Gamble Mansion, is a Florida State Park located in Ellenton, Florida, on the Manatee River and US 301. It consists of the antebellum mansion developed by its first owner, Major Robert Gamble; a 40,000-gallon cistern to provide the household with fresh water; and 16 acres (65,000 m²) of the former sugar plantation. At its peak, the plantation included 3,500 acres, and Gamble likely held more than 200 slaves to work the property and process the sugar cane.

The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Robert Gamble House on August 12, 1970. Its columns and two-foot-thick walls are constructed of tabby, a regional material developed as a substitute for brick.

The park also includes the restored wood-frame, two-story, Victorian-style Patten House, built in 1872 for owner George Patten.

In 1925, the mansion and grounds were purchased by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and donated to the state as a memorial to Judah P. Benjamin, who served in three Cabinet positions under Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the American Civil War. He stayed at the plantation in May 1865, before escaping Union forces and sailing to England, where he had a second career.

In 1937, the UDC installed a memorial plaque to Benjamin at the mansion.

In 2002, the State of Florida acquired the property which holds the ruins of the plantation's sugar mill, one of the South's largest, and added it to the historic park complex.

On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter placed the Gamble Mansion on its list, Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.

History

The coastal area was inhabited for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous peoples, who left huge shell middens as evidence of their reliance on seafood. Historic tribes in this area included the Tocobaga, Creek, Yamasee, and Seminole. (The Creek and Seminole were relative latecomers, after their lands farther north were taken by white settlers.)

At the close of the Seminole War in 1842, the United States opened the Florida frontier to settlement by European Americans. Major Robert Gamble, Jr. (b. 1813 in Virginia), who had served in the war, received 160 acres for homesteading, and arrived at the Manatee River site in 1844. Other sugar planters from South Carolina and established slave states soon joined him along the rich Manatee River valley on the western coast of today's central Florida. The sugar planters used an extensive slave labor force to clear the lands; plant, harvest and process sugar cane; and build the plantation houses, mills, and outbuildings. By 1845 a dozen plantations along the riverfront were producing for the New Orleans market. The planters shipped their commodity crops downriver and across the Gulf of Mexico to the international port.

The Gamble Mansion was built principally by enslaved laborers and artisans using local materials over the course of five to six years. The mansion is an outstanding example of antebellum construction in the Doric Revivalist vernacular architectural style. The mansion's columns and two-foot-thick walls are made of tabby, a unique type of concrete first used by Spanish and English settlers on the Atlantic coast and Sea Islands as an alternative to clay bricks, which could not be produced due to a lack of clay in the coastal soil. Techniques for making tabby were brought to Florida by European-American planters and their African-American slaves. The workers created the material by mixing lime (extracted by burning crushed oyster shells), more crushed oyster shells, sand, and water. The mixture was poured into molds for hardening, and the finished product was used in the same manner as bricks. Ample supplies of oyster shells were found in middens present on the sites of former Native American coastal villages. Today, the mansion is considered a monument to the craftsmanship of the enslaved African-American artisans and laborers who constructed it.

Next to the house is a covered, 40,000-gallon cistern with a wood-shake roof, which Gamble had built to supply the household's fresh water needs. Fish were kept in the cistern to eat insects and help keep the water clean.

Gamble lived in the mansion and used it as the headquarters of his extensive sugar plantation. By 1850, he had hired an overseer, 30-year-old David Lanner from Georgia. That year on the US Census, Gamble declared his real estate to be worth $19,000. He held a total of 62 slaves. From starting with 160 acres, he rapidly acquired 3500 acres. In addition to the mansion, he directed the construction of numerous outbuildings and slave quarters (also constructed of tabby), and the wharf from which sugar and molasses were shipped by schooner and steamboat. Likely more than 200 slaves lived and worked at the plantation at its productive peak. However, due to a declining sugar market and debts, Gamble had to sell the property in 1856. The Gamble Mansion is the only surviving plantation house in peninsular Florida.

During the Civil War, the mansion was occupied by Captain Archibald McNeill, a famous Confederate blockade runner. Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, took refuge here during May 1865 while making his escape from Federal troops following defeat of the Confederacy. He had been accused of having arranged for U.S. President Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 and feared being unable to get a fair trial after the war. McNeill aided Benjamin in escaping to the Bahamas. From there, Judah Benjamin sailed to England, arriving with almost no resources. He went on to establish a distinguished second legal career in London, where in 1872 he was selected as Queen's Counsel.

The Gamble sugar mill, one of the antebellum era's largest, was destroyed by Union raiders in 1864. The brick ruins are located one-half mile to the north on State Road 683. The State of Florida acquired the mill property in 2002; it has cleared overgrown vegetation at the site to make the mill ruins visible, while protecting them with a fence.

Patten House, built 1872 (photo, 2010)

In 1872, the postbellum owner, George Patten, built a wooden, two-story vernacular Victorian style house for his living quarters. (Patten had found the mansion in a condition unfit for occupancy.) The state has restored the Patten House, which is also part of the plantation park complex.

Tabby is a less permanent construction material than brick; and by 1902, the house and columns were deteriorating badly. In 1923 the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) began to raise money to rescue the home from destruction. By 1925 they had bought the house and 16 acres; they donated the property to the state for preservation as a memorial to Judah Benjamin. The state completed restoration of the house in 1927. The UDC arranged in 1937 for the installation of a memorial plaque to honor the service of Judah Philip Benjamin to the Confederacy. He served as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State to President Jefferson Davis. Today, the mansion is furnished in the style of a successful mid-19th century plantation home.

In January 2010, Janet Snyder Matthews, an historian at the University of Florida and the former associate director of the National Park Service, led a working seminar at the plantation. Her goal was for students to develop scholarly documentation on the plantation and its occupants, with a goal of upgrading the plantation's historic designation to reflect its significance, perhaps to that of a National Historic Landmark.

Recreational activities

The park is open from 8am to sundown, 365 days per year, and guided tours of Gamble Mansion are available.

Gallery

• 

  Gamble Mansion, state historical plaque

• 

  Gamble Mansion, side view with 40,000-gal. covered cistern

• 

  Sugar rollers, Gamble Mansion

• 

  Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State

• 

  Judah P. Benjamin, UDC Memorial plaque

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Manatee County, Florida

External links

• Official website
• Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. FL-112, "Gamble Mansion, Manatee River Vicinity, Ellenton, Manatee County, FL", 2 photos, 11 measured drawings, 2 data pages, supplemental material