NAS Jacksonville’s Forgotten History… A Stroll Back in Time to Mulberry Grove Plantation

Alex Explores Captain's Housing on Historic Mustin Rd

We celebrated fall this morning with a stroll along historic Mustin Road, bordering the St. John’s River. The kids and I headed to one of my favorite spots in the world, the riverside park in Patriot’s Point Housing. We used to live along this road before we were moved into new housing and I would bring the kids here often. It’s a farther walk now, but this place still draws me like a magnet. I don’t know what it is about it, but it makes me feel totally at peace. It’s so quiet, yet so alive. The land rumbles with forgotten history, stories hidden beneath a sheath of time just waiting to be uncovered.

The land where NAS Jacksonville sits was once know as Mulberry Grove Plantation. People lived, loved, and died here. Yet today, all that remains of the past is a plaque and perhaps a ghost or two.

Mulberry Grove Plantation dates back several hundred years. The land was granted to an Englishman named Timothy Hollingsworth by the Spanish crown in 1787. He named his plantation after the numerous mulberry trees in the area. The land passed between many owners over the next hundred years. In the decades following the Civil War, Mulberry Grove Plantation was known for its oranges, cattle, and wide array of fruit and vegetable crops. The main plantation house was spectacular, with a shaded avenue leading to the sparkling St. Johns River. In the late 1800s, supplies were brought to the plantation by steamboats. The plantation was a bustling hub of commerce and life. Today, the magnificant plantation is gone. Not a trace of it survived. Still, the beautiful shaded avenue lives on and makes one wonder about the people who lived here so long ago. Who stood where I stand today, and what was their life like? What was life like for the slaves who once worked this land?

John Reese was an African American whose parents were slaves born on Mulberry Grove Plantation. A kind master, A.M. Reed sold John’s father a 20-acre homestead even before the Civil War granted slaves freedom. Once the Civil War ended, the slave-driven plantation became farm with hired black workers. As a child, John worked hard on the plantation (farm) and his family’s homestead, cutting firewood for the stoves. Crops were grown and harvested year round and oranges were created and shipped on steamboats on the St. Johns River. The River was the city’s lifeblood, offering easy transportation and plentiful fishing. John likely fished the St. Johns River with a little bamboo pole, providing his family with some fresh fish for dinner. Born after the Civil War, children like John worked for wages and loved trips to Jacksonville to buy things like shoes and coats. The St. Johns River was his gateway to the world and Jacksonville was a glittering, busy city full of promise and intriguing shops and sights. It wasn’t a bad life!

The US government purchased a portion of the plantation in 1939 and NAS Jacksonville was born. On April 26, 1939, President Roosevelt signed a bill providing for $66,800,000 for a naval air station program. $15,000,000 was earmarked for NAS Jacksonville. The first contract was issued for clearing, dredging, and filling the plantation in October 1939. On January 16, 1940, the first aircraft assigned to NAS Jacksonville, the Grumman J2F-3, arrived at the airbase. Roosevelt himself visited the bustling young airbase on March 20, 1941. The base continued to grow and expand over the next few decades. Today, it’s one of the largest in the Navy. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian personnel work on the base.

I can’t find a resource stating when Mustin Road’s historic officer’s houses were first constructed, but they are quite old and very magnificent. Housing touts them as being “historic.” Regardless of their age, they are marvelous pieces of history themselves. Scores of influential military leaders have lived within their walls. The commander of the Navy Region South East lived here until recently. This place lives and breathes history.

If one wasn’t informed that a Plantation once thrived on this land, you’d never know the difference. The park is quiet and peaceful, shaded by towering oaks and serenaded by the gentle lapping of the river upon the shore. Apart from an aging sign, there isn’t anything left of Mulberry Grove Plantation or the people who worked and died here. A largely forgotten cemetery (Yukon Cemetary), in a heavily wooded area at Avent Drive and Roosevelt Boulevard between Ortega Hills and Yukon (off base), may have originated as burial grounds for slaves serving the Mulberry Grove plantation. It’s overgrown with brush and in very poor shape. Soon it too may be forgotten to the tides of time. Jacksonville’s citizens have tried to get the cemetary recognized as a historic landmark more than once, but the area is becoming more heavily developed with each passing year.

When they were granted their freedom, African Americans planted oak trees along the banks of the St. Johns River to celebrate their newfound rights. Today, Mustin Road is lined with towering oak trees. If you stay here a while, you might just hear whisperings of the past. And if not… it’s still a spectacularly beautiful, warm, and inviting place to be.