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Kingsley Plantation

Jacksonville, United States of America

Kingsley Plantation

Kingsley Plantation (also known as the Zephaniah Kingsley Plantation Home and Buildings) is the site of a former estate on Fort George Island, in Duval County, Florida, that was named for its developer and most famous owner, Zephaniah Kingsley, who spent 25 years there. It is located at the northern

tip of Fort George Island at Fort George Inlet, and is part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve managed by the U.S. National Park Service. Kingsley's house is the oldest plantation house still standing in Florida, and the solidly-built village of slave cabins is one of the best preserved in the United States. It is also "the oldest surviving antebellum Spanish Colonial plantation in the United States." The plantation originally occupied the entirety of Fort George Island, described variously as occupying 713, 720, or "750 acres [300 ha] more or less". According to park literature, most of it has been taken back over by forest; the structures and grounds of the park now comprise approximately 60 acres (24 ha). Evidence of pre-Columbian Timucua life is on the island, as are the remains of a Spanish mission named San Juan del Puerto. Under British rule in 1765, a plantation was...

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