Douglas Dummett

Douglas Dummett (1806–1873) was an American planter, plantation owner, and politician. He served as a member of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida representing St. Johns County in 1843, and a member of the Florida House of Representatives representing Mosquito County in 1845. He was instrumental in developing the Indian River Citrus industry in Florida.

Early life

Douglas Dummett's father, Col. Thomas Henry Dummett (1775–1839), had served in the British Royal Marines and became a planter in Barbados. He and his wife Mary, with their eleven children, left the island in 1817 after a slave uprising and lived in New Haven, Connecticut for several years before moving to Florida in 1821.

Col. Dummett bought John Addison's plantation of 1,404 acres, "Carrickfergus", on the west side of the Tomoka River, a mile west of present-day Tomoka State Park. The purchase included 67 enslaved Africans, horses, and cattle. He sold the Carrickfergus property to Duncan and Kenneth MacRae, then bought John Bunch's plantation of about 2,000 acres, including houses and outbuildings, as well about 90 slaves. Col. Dummett apparently shipped his steam boiler engine from Barbados to use in processing the sugarcane produced at his plantation, and commissioned Reuben Loring to build a sugar mill and rum distillery.

After a succession of financial setbacks, Col. Dummett moved to St. Augustine and conveyed the plantation to his son, Douglas,

Move to New Smyrna Failing to adapt to city life in Tallahassee, Dummett returned to his home on the north end of Mosquito Lagoon. In 1843 he filed for a new homestead under the Armed Occupation Act and built his home near New Smyrna. He then became deputy collector for the nearby port and began a new romance with a young mulatto girl named Leandra Fernandez; contravening an 1832 Territorial Act, Dummett started a family with her.

Family Douglas Dummett had a son and three daughters. After his favorite child, Charles, died from a hunting mishap in 1860, Dummett moved his family to the remote southern end of the Mosquito Lagoon in present-day Brevard County. It is uncertain when Dummett became aware of the orange trees in this area near the old haulover used to transit small boats over a narrow strip of land between Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River. It has been reported that his first shipment of oranges, 500 barrels, was in 1828. These may have been taken from the wild sour trees found along the lagoon. It is widely asserted, though, that Dummett discovered some sweet orange trees on the old Turnbull lands and began grafting sweet buds to the root stock of the common sour orange trees of the haulover area before 1835.

Indian River oranges Dummett's quest for seclusion led him to devote much of his time to this well-protected grove lodged between two large temperate lagoons. It is thought that Dummett's experiments with grafting, as well as the mild lagoon climate, helped his grove survive the record-setting freeze of 1835 that killed groves throughout the territory.

Dummett's oranges were known for their flavor, and commanded a premium of one dollar per box in New York. He shared his knowledge of the grafting and cultivation of citrus with many of the new settlers in the north Indian River area, and lived near his grove until his death in 1873. During the late 1800s his techniques spread south along the Indian River Lagoon, and were eventually adopted by other growers around Florida.

In 1930 the Federal Trade Commission was forced to issue an order to stop growers in other areas of the state from labeling their oranges "Indian River Citrus".