The coastal area was inhabited for thousands of years by varying cultures of
indigenous peoples, who left huge shell
middens as evidence of their reliance on seafood. Historic tribes in this area included the prehistoric
Tocobaga, and during the colonial period
Yamasee,
Creek,
Seminole and
Miccosukee. At the close of the
Second Seminole War in 1842, the United States opened the central and southern Florida frontier to settlement by Americans. Major Robert E. Gamble III (b. 1813 in
Virginia, d. 1906 in
Tallahassee, FL), who had served as aide-de-camp to
Florida Territorial Governor
Richard Keith Call and led troops at the Battles of the
Withlacoochee and
Wahoo Swamp, received 160 acres for homesteading under the
Armed Occupation Act, and arrived at the Manatee River site in 1844. Other
sugar planters from
northern Florida and established
slave states soon joined him along the rich
Manatee River on the western coast of today's central Florida. The sugar planters enslaved many people to clear the lands; plant, harvest and process sugarcane; and build the plantation houses, mills, and outbuildings. By 1845, a dozen
plantations along the riverfront were producing for the
New Orleans market. The planters shipped their
commodity crops downriver and across the
Gulf of Mexico to the international
port. The
Gamble Mansion was built principally by enslaved people, both laborers and artisans, using local materials over the course of five to six years. Next to the house is a covered, 40,000-gallon
cistern with a
wood-shake roof, which Gamble had built to supply the household's fresh water needs. Fish were kept in the cistern to eat insects and help keep the water clean. Gamble lived in the mansion and used it as the headquarters of his extensive sugar plantation. By 1850, he had hired an overseer, 30-year-old David Lanner from
Georgia. That year on the US Census, Gamble declared his real estate to be worth $19,000. He enslaved a total of 62 people. From starting with 160 acres, In 1895, the
postbellum owner, George Patten's youngest son Dudley Patten, built a wooden, two-story vernacular
Victorian style house for his young family. (Patten's wife, Ada Melville Turner Patten is said to have demanded a modern home after the couple who were married in 1891, had been living for several years in the old mansion with Patten's widowed mother.) The state has restored the
Patten House, which is also part of the plantation park complex. Fortunately, the community outcry once more appears to have saved the home from this permanent solution to a temporary problem. The Patten House was nominated and has been selected as one of Florida's 11 to Save for 2018 by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. The announcement was made on May 17, 2018. The 11 to Save program is designed to increase the public's awareness of the urgent need to save Florida's historic resources, and to empower local preservationists and preservation groups in their efforts to preserve Florida's history. Tabby is a less permanent construction material than brick; and by 1902, the house and columns were deteriorating badly. In 1923 the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the
United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) began to raise money to rescue the home from destruction. By 1925 they had bought the house and 16 acres; they donated the property to the state for preservation as a memorial to Judah Benjamin. The state completed restoration of the house in 1927. The UDC arranged in 1937 for the installation of a memorial plaque to honor the service of Judah Philip Benjamin to the Confederacy. He served as
Attorney General,
Secretary of War, and
Secretary of State to President Jefferson Davis. Today, the mansion is furnished in the style of a successful mid-19th century plantation home. In January 2010,
Janet Snyder Matthews, a historian at the
University of Florida and the former associate director of the
National Park Service, led a working seminar at the plantation. Her goal was for students to develop scholarly documentation on the plantation and its occupants, with a goal of upgrading the plantation's historic designation to reflect its significance, perhaps to that of a
National Historic Landmark. ==Recreational activities==