Kingsley Plantation

Florida's oldest surviving plantation house, dating to 1797. From 1814-1837, it was run by Zephaniah Kingsley and his wife Anna Madgigine Jai, an enslaved Wolof teen he married and freed. Contains 23 surviving slave dwellings.

Kingsley Plantation, dating to 1797 and featuring Florida's oldest standing plantation house with 23 slave residences, was run from 1814-1837 by Zephaniah Kingsley and his wife Anna Madgigine Jai—an enslaved Wolof teen captured at age 13 in Senegal, whom he married and later freed. Anna became one of the wealthiest women in East Florida and an advocate for women's and slave's rights. The most famous ghost is Old Red Eyes, spotted since 1978—legend claims he was a slave who raped and murdered girls, then was lynched by other slaves from an oak tree. However, no historical evidence supports this story, and the name matches South Carolina folklore for the devil. Anna Kingsley herself is reported as a woman in white in the plantation house, though she had not lived there for over 30 years before her death. Staff hear a ghostly child crying in the well and have encountered a turban-wearing African in the main house. Neighborhood children report seeing white peacocks that scream like a little girl—Fort George Island does have albino peacocks. Staff maintain a tradition of never saying Goodnight, Mr. Kingsley, as something bad may happen. The property became a national park in 1991.