Sugar Making

Sugar Making (HMVBV)

Location: Port Orange, FL 32129 Volusia County
Buy Florida State flags at Flagstore.com!
Country: United States of America
Buy United States of America flags at Flagstore.com!

N 29° 8.473', W 81° 0.35'

  • 0 likes
  • 0 check ins
  • 0 favorites
  • 571 views
Inscription

Original workers drawings courtesy of Florida State Parks.

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 like Dunlawton, African-American slaves cleared the land, raised the crop, then cut and processed the cane each winter - unless freezes or tropical storms had beaten down the plants.

By the 1830s, uncertain sugar prices posed another challenge to Florida planters. Yet despite a range of setbacks - from shipping woes to Seminole raids - Dunlawton did produce some sugar at times. Today, we can still see outlines of the factory and how it worked:

1 - Engine Room: A steam-powered cane crusher extracted the juice.

2 - Boiling Room: The liquid was clarified to remove impurities, heated in trains of kettles (where it gradually thickened), then ladled into wooden cooling troughs.

3 - Purgery: The crystallized sugar was packed in barrels and stored in a drying room for several weeks. This purgery (a low area beyond the modern roof) had vats for catching molasses drippings.

Making sugar was a long, hot, dangerous job - especially near the powerful cane crusher that could snare and smash a tired worker before anyone could shut down the mill. After the sugar had drained, the Marshall's laborers moved heavy barrels to the Halifax River, then shipped them through Mosquito Inlet to Charleston, South Carolina.

[ Image ]
Catalog drawing of a steam-powered cane crusher - built later than Dunlawton's mill but resembling it in many ways. Some of this site's cast-iron equipment is thought to have come from the Cruger-dePeyster plantation after Seminoles sacked the New Smyrna sugar factory in 1835.

Detail from an 1885 James Beggs & Co. catalog, courtesy of Tom Baskett, Jr.

[ Illustrations ]
Details
HM NumberHMVBV
Tags
Placed ByVolusia County and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, assisted by the Florida Historical Commission
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Monday, October 6th, 2014 at 6:34pm PDT -07:00
Pictures
Sorry, but we don't have a picture of this historical marker yet. If you have a picture, please share it with us. It's simple to do. 1) Become a member. 2) Adopt this historical marker listing. 3) Upload the picture.
Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)17R E 499432 N 3223631
Decimal Degrees29.14121667, -81.00583333
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 29° 8.473', W 81° 0.35'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds29° 8' 28.38" N, 81° 0' 21.00" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)386
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 852-898 Old Sugar Mill Rd, Port Orange FL 32129, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

Is this marker missing? Are the coordinates wrong? Do you have additional information that you would like to share with us? If so, check in.

Nearby Markersshow on map
Check Ins  check in   |    all

Have you seen this marker? If so, check in and tell us about it.

Comments 0 comments

Maintenance Issues
  1. Is this marker part of a series?
  2. What historical period does the marker represent?
  3. What historical place does the marker represent?
  4. What type of marker is it?
  5. What class is the marker?
  6. What style is the marker?
  7. Does the marker have a number?
  8. What year was the marker erected?
  9. This marker needs at least one picture.
  10. Can this marker be seen from the road?
  11. Is the marker in the median?