Aerial photograph of the Dummett Sugar Mill Ruins - Ormond Beach, FL
In 1825, Colonel Thomas H.Dummett, planter and officer in the British Marines, acquired the plantations of John Bunch and John Addison, part of which had originally been John Moultrie’s Rosetta plantation on the west side of the Tomoka basin, a mile west of present-day Tomoka State Park. His total plantation was about 2,000 acres.
He had a sugar mill and rum distillery built using the first steam-powered cane crushing mill in the area. Only the sugar mill was built by Dummett; the houses and buildings were from John Bunch’s plantation.
Using about 100 slaves and 40 local Indians during grinding season, sugar cane juices were heated and processed into molasses, stored in three cisterns, and then passed on to the plantation’s rum distillery. The Indians would trade fresh-caught game for the sugar works’ products.
