May 31st 2 Markers at the Guana- Tolomato- Matanzas Preserve- Governor's Grant and the 30 8' Marker

The GTM Preserve is a fair sized oceanfront/marsh front preserve between St Augustine and Jacksonville on A1A, just near Ponte Vedra Beach.  

There were two markers in the Preserve, one at the main entrance, and one at the North Parking Lot.  

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In 1768, James Grant (1720-1806), Governor of British East Florida from 1763 to 1773, established Grant´s Villa Plantation at the juncture of the Guana and North Rivers. Enslaved Africans cleared the 1,450-acre tract of land, planted indigo seeds, and processed the plants into blue indigo dye. Indigo dye became East Florida´s main export, and Grant´s Villa was its most profitable plantation. By 1780, due to declining soil fertility and the disruption of transportation routes during the American Revolution, indigo cultivation was no longer profitable. Ordered to develop a new estate 12 miles north at the headwaters of Guana River, overseer William Brockie and the slaves completed Mount Pleasant Plantation in 1781. Just south of today´s Mickler Road, between SR A1A and Neck Road, the slaves built two earthen dams which enclosed a 220-acre rice field. The dam on the south blocked the flow of salty tidal water. The barricade to the north created a fresh water reservoir. In 1784, following the return of East Florida to Spain, both plantations were abandoned and the enslaved Africans were transported to The Bahamas, from where they were sold to rice planters in South Carolina.

Sponsors: St. Johns County and the Florida Department of State

A few miles down at the North Entrance parking lot is this marker, 

 30° 8’ NORTH LATITUDE

Location:SR A1A in North Beach Access Parking Lot of GTM Research Reserve County: St. Johns City: Ponte Vedra Beach

Description: This site is believed by some historians to correspond with the offshore location where Juan Ponce de León calculated his fleet’s position when he first sighted Florida. Ponce’s fleet of three vessels set sail from Puerto Rico in early March 1513. On Sunday, March 27, the day of the Festival of the Resurrection, they sighted what they thought was an island. After sailing northwest along the coast, the fleet moved close to shore, and at noon on April 2 a sighting of the sun was taken, probably with either a quadrant or mariner’s astrolabe. In his work, "Historia General de los Hechos de Los Castellanos en las Islas Y Tierra Firme del Mar Océan", published in 1601, Spanish historian Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas recorded that the location was 30° 8’ [north latitude]. Herrera’s appointment by Phillip II of Spain as the major chronicler of the Indies gave him access to authentic sources, including documents made during Ponce’s voyage that would not have been available to other writers. This site has been preserved in its natural condition by the State of Florida and is likely what Ponce de León would have seen as he approached Florida for the first time in 1513.
Sponsors: Guana Tolomato Matanzas Research Reserve and the Florida Department of State