JessButtery
The Gamble Plantation and Mansion is now a State Park in Ellenton (near Palmetto), Florida. It is the last of the original Plantations in peninsular Florida. It had 3500 acres at its peak and probably about 200 slaves to run it. It finished operations with Robert Gamble before the Civil War but was used by the Confederates during the war and then as a hiding place for Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, who took refuge here in 1865 while making his escape from United States Federal troops after the defeat of the Confederacy. He had been accused of arranging the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. In 1927 a reunion of the Confederate Veterans met at the Gamble Mansion with their extended families.
