Major Robert Gamble began a 3,500-acre sugar plantation on this site in 1844, and constructed the Gamble Mansion and a sugar mill of brick and tabby between 1845 and 1856. The Gamble family sold the plantation in 1858, and in the spring of 1862 the

Confederate government expropriated the plantation from its new Louisiana-based owners.

Blockade runner Captain Archibald McNeill became the caretaker of the plantation, and lived in the mansion until 1873. In August 1864, a Union navy raiding force destroyed the Gamble Plantation sugar mill but left the mansion untouched. With the collapse of the Confederacy, Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin fled to Manatee County in May 1865 during his eventual escape to England.

Captain McNeill assisted Benjamin in eluding the Federal troops, and Benjamin was hidden briefly at the Gamble Mansion before escaping Florida by boat. In 1925, the United Daughters of the Confederacy purchased the Gamble Mansion, which had fallen into a state of neglect and disrepair, along with 16 acres. In 1926, they donated the Gamble Mansion to the State of Florida for use as the Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial, but continued to manage it until 1949.

Twenty additional acres including the sugar mill ruins were purchased by the state in 2002. The only surviving antebellum plantation house in South Florida, the Gamble Mansion is decorated with period furnishings. A separate visitor center museum contains exhibit materials on the history of the plantation.

The park also contains a United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) records and archives building, a small granite monument to Confederate veterans erected by the UDC in 1937, and the c.1885 Patten House operated by the UDC.

Photo Courtesy William Lees, Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN)

www.floridastateparks.org/gambleplantation

Information Provided by the Florida Department of State.