One Tank Trips: Gamble Plantation Historic State Park

On Good Friday, me, all 6 kids, and James Daniel (my nephew) took a trip to visit to the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park. Despite the heat, we managed to stay cool enough and had a wonderful visit.

All of todays photos except this one were taken by Britt.

We started out with a picnic lunch under a pavilion, with a slight breeze and some fans it was quite pleasant. The kids then ran around the open fields a bit and played with a neighbor's dog who came lopping up for a game of fetch. After they burned off some energy we looked at the various pieces of machinery for processing sugar. I have pointed these out over the last year every where I could. And then at Christmas time we went to the Varnum family Cane Grinding where they got to watch the process for themselves. So they are very familiar with this portion of Florida's history.

We bought tickets and wondered around the visitor's center for a bit before our tour was to start. Robert Gamble set out to claim land in Florida, the law was that you could get 160 acres from the government for free if you stayed on the land for 5 years and developed it. His father was a famous, and rich, statesman in Tallahassee, so he travelled down the Little Manatee River until his ship hit a sandbar, and decided this was as good a spot as any, and began his sugar plantation. The house took 6 years to build, it was constructed of tabby an early form of concrete made from burned oyster shells to release lime. However the real reason that it took so long to build was that the walls are all 2 feet thick in order to stand through hurricanes. After 12 years Robert Gamble had 3500 acres, 160 slaves, and the largest sugar mill in the South. However, he also had accumulated several millions of dollars in debt in our money, due to the declining sugar market and a number of natural disasters including hurricanes. In 1959 he sold the entire plantation off to his creditors, travelled back to Tallahassee and opened another sugar plantation and mill, and was far more successful.

Our tour guide was great and very knowledgeable. He shared several neat facts about the Gamble Plantation Home. For example driving a nail into the tabby walls would just crack or chip a portion of the wall off, so they mounted picture railings along the top of the wall on which you could hang a hook and then suspend photos from the wire. There was an adjustable candle stick which enabled you to raise a candle to provide more light throughout the room, or lower a candle to provide more specific light in a smaller area. It worked much like a dimmer switch. He even showed us a coffee roaster and grinder in the kitchen area. The roaster would sit in the fire and as long as you kept it rotating the beans wouldn't burn. After that it would be dumped into a hand grinder and they would be ground over a small felt lined box to preserve the flavor and freshness of the roasted beans.

After Robert Gamble sold the sugar plantation and mill and the Civil War broke out, the plantation became a place to host blockade runners. They would make the run out of the Little Manatee River around various islands and take good to England to trade for needed supplies for the Confederacy. At the end of the war, it would serve one other significant purpose. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War the US government order the Confederate Cabinet to be arrested. Fearing a trial for treason and the death penalty, the Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin fled. He stayed at the Gamble Plantation for a few weeks until he escaped to England on a ship leaving out from the Little Manatee River. In England he became a barrister (lawyer) and a councilor to Queen Victoria.

We had a great time and think it's worth visiting. However, one afternoon gave us time to see and explore everything on the grounds and the tour of the inside of the house, so I don't foresee us returning in the future. The tour cost $6 for adults, $4 for kids between six and twelve, and free for anyone five and under. If you'd like to make a trip the address to Gamble Plantation Historic State Park is 3708 Patten Ave, Ellenton, Florida. Of course, you can always call for more information at 941-723-4536.