Field Trip to Kingsley Plantation

On Sunday we decided to take a family field trip to Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island. The plantation includes a barn, main house, garden, slaves quarters, and dock area. I went to the National Parks website and was able to print Bean out a kid's map of the area, which also provided some brief information on each of the stops at the plantation. Additionally, the park website also had some activity sheets the kids can fill out during and after the trip.

Kingsley Plantation is named after Zephaniah Kingsley who purchased the plantation in 1814. Zephaniah's wife Anna managed the plantation. An interesting tidbit about Anna, was that Zephaniah bought her as a slave in 1806 when she was thirteen years old, and by 1811 he had married her, freed her from slavery, and had three children with her. Anna managed the plantation until somewhere in the 1830's when her and the children moved to Haiti because of the American discriminatory laws that were enacted when the United States took control of Florida that would threaten their family. She eventually returned to Florida, where she died in 1870.

Our first stop was the gardens where we learned about the major crops grown on the plantation, which were: Cotton, indigo, sugar cane, potatoes, and several others. We also came across this cute little gopher turtle.

Our next stop was the barn, where they kept cows and chickens. Additionally, they stored tools and some slaves worked and slept in the barn.

The barn was made out of tabby, which is a concrete made from oyster shells, sand and water. The look of it was really neat.

After the barn we headed down to the kitchen, which along with the main house, were unfortunately closed to the public.

The kitchen was connected to the main house which is where Zephaniah Kingsley and previously other plantation owners and their families lived. The home was actually built in 1798, which makes it the oldest plantation house that is still standing in the state of Florida!

The plantation is situated along the St. Johns River. The grounds are so beautiful here, I could have stayed here all day!!

On our way back from the dock, we saw a park ranger and she told us that the activity sheet Bean was filling out would actually allow her to become a junior park ranger when she completed it! We sat down on a bench to finish her worksheet and the ranger came back and looked over her sheet, asked her some questions, and had her recite their pledge "explore, learn, protect". Then she pinned a junior park ranger badge on Bean. She was so excited!

To top off our day of fun when we were leaving Ft. George Island, it is a pretty long narrow road with tons of beautiful mossy oak, hickory, and palm trees. Up ahead in the road we saw some big birds and when we got closer we realized that it was a group of peacocks, which is apparently referred to as a "muster"-who'da thunk it? I was so excited to see them I nearly screamed, and then another car was coming down the road so we had to hurry and drive on, but not before I caught a couple not so great pictures!

We had a great day and I am excited to go back, and explore the rest of our state parks!