- December 25, 2024
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OBHS president Philip Shapiro points to a display map at Three Chimneys site that shows the original location of the five settlements on Mount Oswald Plantation. Photo by Michele Meyers
The entrance to the Three Chimneys historical site is located in a wooded area a quarter mile west of the Loyal Order of Moose lodge on Granada Boulevard. Photo by Michele Meyers
The chainlink gate entrance to the Three Chimneys is set back off of Granada Boulevard. Photo by Michele Meyers
Alisa Rogers with 1st Florida Realty sponsored the event. Photo by Michele Meyers
Ormond Beach Historical Society president Dr, Philip Shapiro, Rick Schmidt, Bill Denny, Charles DuToit, Joyce Benedict and Alisa Rogers. Photo by Michele Meyers
President of the Ormond Beach Historical Society and preservation committee chair, Dr. Philip Shapiro spoke about the Three Chimneys site. Second vice president Bobbi Coleman (right). Photo by Michele Meyers
The sugar boiling facility at Three Chimneys. Photo by Michele Meyers
The sugar boiling facility at Three Chimneys. Photo by Michele Meyers
Event attendees take guided tours of the Three Chimneys sugar mill and rum distillery. Photo by Michele Meyers
Mary Ann Radler listens to tour guide Charles DuToit talk about the lone standing chimney at Three Chimneys. Photo by Michele Meyers
Mary Ann Radler gets a history lesson from Three Chimneys tour guide Charles DuToit. Photo by Michele Meyers
Mary Ann Radler gets a history lesson from Three Chimneys tour guide Charles DuToit. Photo by Michele Meyers
The last standing chimney at Three Chimneys historical, archaeological site in Ormond Beach. Photo by Michele Meyers
The last standing chimney at Three Chimneys historical, archaeological site in Ormond Beach. Photo by Michele Meyers
Three Chimneys is the oldest successful British sugar plantation, sugar mill and rum distillery in the United States. Photo by Michele Meyers
Ormond Beach Historical Society board member Patti Surguine shows a picture of her grandfather Wang who built the tree stand for her mother and uncle to climb and look east to see the ocean. Photo by Michele Meyers
The Three Chimneys historical site is located on the north side of Granada Boulevard across the street from the Kings Crossing neighborhood. Photo by Michele Meyers
Volunteers stood a quarter mile west of the Loyal Order of Moose site on Granada Boulevard, waving and pointing toward a wooded area. There, a dirt pathway led visitors through an open chainlink gate toward the Three Chimneys Family Day Open House organized and hosted by the Ormond Beach Historical Society on Sunday, Oct. 16, and sponsored by Alisa Rogers of 1st Florida Realty.
Rogers was raised in Volusia County and has lived most of her life in the Ormond Beach area.
“The Ormond Beach Historical Society is my passion,” she said. “This event is a great way for people in our community to learn about the Three Chimneys and its history. A lot of people do not know it’s here.”
The Three Chimneys is an archaeological site located on the north side of Granada Boulevard, across the street from the Kings Crossing neighborhood. According to the Ormond Beach Historical Society preservation committee, the site is considered “one of the first colonial-era industrial sites in Florida.” It is where the ruins of the “oldest successful British sugar plantation, sugar mill and rum distillery in the United States” are located.
The OBHS had a reopening dedication ceremony at the event after 18 volunteers labored to clean the site following Hurricane Ian. Skeeter Surguine and his wife, Patti Surguine, have been volunteering with the OBHS and the preservation committee for about two years. Skeeter Surguine and the couple’s dog, Whisky, were making themselves at home by some fallen ruins.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Skeeter Surguine said. “The history here is amazing. Absolutely incredible. The people are just great. It’s not my first time here. I’m a Florida Cracker. Born and raised.”
“The mission of the Ormond Beach Historical Society is education and preservation. That which you saw today is a combination of educating the public as to an educational resource that we are preserving on behalf of the state of Florida which owns the site.”
DR. PHILIP SHAPIRO, Ormond Beach Historical Society president
OBHS education chair Erlene Turner believes the history needs to come to life.
“From my view of the people who attended, they enjoyed it and made comments about how much they learned,” she said. “They didn’t know it was there. It was both an enjoyable as well as an educational event.”
The land was originally part of a 20,000-acre land grant given to Scottish merchant and slave trader Richard Oswald by King George III in 1764.
The land was divided into five settlements. One was the Swamp Settlement, now called Three Chimneys, where sugarcane was grown, harvested and processed into its final product— rum.
“As I’m often fond of saying, every community adds to the American experience,” Shapiro said. “The Three Chimneys was among the earliest industrial sites in colonial America. This property has a multinational, multicultural history that spans four centuries of colonial, state and national history. The history of Ormond Beach and of our state and country is an amazing story. Our tour guides today have provided you with an insight of what colonial era pioneering days at this site entailed.”
Throughout its history, the land has changed hands, been abandoned and fallen into disrepair. In 1914, developer John Anderson’s half brother, Billy Fagen, built his house on the site and started a business to capitalize on Hotel Ormond’s tourists. He had a museum, a few alligators and took people up into the “Fagen Tree” to give tourists a bird’s-eye view of the area.
Board member Patti Surguine’s grandfather, Theodore Wang, built the “Fagen Tree” staircase for her mother and uncle so that they could see the ocean. Wang was a mechanical engineer from Norway who moved to the area and was part of the Tomoka Settlement of the late 1800s. Surguine still has the patents and drawings of the structure.
Shapiro started volunteering as a board member with the preservation committee in 2004. He has chaired the preservation committee for 11 years, was president of the OBHS in 2018 and recently became the president in July of this year. This is the fifth time he has organized an open house at the Three Chimneys site.
“The mission of the Ormond Beach Historical Society is education and preservation,” he said. “That which you saw today is a combination of educating the public as to an educational resource that we are preserving on behalf of the state of Florida , which owns the site.”
