However, that would come to an end in December. This allowed greater volumes and faster production.īy 1835, the plantation was beginning to pay for itself and profits were starting to come in.
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While most plantations relied on manual cane crushers, Cruger and dePeyster’s was powered by a steam engine housed in a smaller building beside the main structure.
The arch windows and rough stone structure gave a much older appearance to the factory. A warehouse building was constructed of cut coquina to process and store the sugar. The two borrowed heavily to purchase machinery, equipment and slaves to work the press and fields. Henry Cruger and William dePeyster acquired the land in 1830 and set out to establish a large commercial sugar factory. One of the plantations destroyed during the raids at New Smyrna was the 600 acre Cruger-dePeyster plantation and sugar factory just west of present day New Smyrna. These acts brought an open declaration of war by the United States and would be the beginning of years of bloody conflict. More than 100 of his 108 man command were killed. This raid was only a prelude, a couple of weeks later, December 28th, 1835, Chief Osceola killed Indian Agent Wiley Thompson at Fort King (Ocala) and Major Francis Dade and his company were ambushed between Fort Brooke(Tampa) and Fort King. The main targets were the lucrative sugar plantations that were a major source of revenue for the locals. Aided by slaves, the natives burned crops, homes and buildings in the area. In mid-December of 1835, Seminoles raided plantations near New Smyrna Beach. The government’s decision to remove the natives from Florida by force pushed those tensions over the edge.
Tensions had been growing between the Seminoles, settlers and the U.S. The remains of the Cruger-dePeyster sugar mill which was destroyed in the 1830s.
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