NSB: Old Fort Park wall repairs under way; What do we know about site's mysterious past?

NEW SMYRNA BEACH — So what's new about the Old Fort Park ruins in New Smyrna Beach?

Although much of this historic site has been preserved for centuries, part of the wall surrounding the ruins is currently undergoing some repair work.

The ruins, located at the corner of Julia Street and Riverside Drive, consist of several stone walls without a roof.

$900,000 preservation grant

The 1933 coquina wall protecting the ruins has shown some cracking due to water damage, planner Robert Mathen said during a Historic Preservation Commission meeting last year.

In 2021, the city received a $900,000 State Historic Preservation Grant, with an $80,000 contribution from the city.

The repairs were anticipated to be completed by mid-summer of 2023, but now the city said the estimated date of completion is "early next year."

"The project’s scope involves inserting a concrete retaining wall behind the historic stone wall for enhanced stabilization and support," the city said in an email.

"Skilled masons will repair cracks caused by settling soil using mortar that replicates the mixture of materials used in the wall’s original construction to help maintain its historic appearance and character," the email continues.

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Ruins shrouded in mystery

As the city continues to work to maintain one of its most iconic spots, the questions and mystery surrounding the Old Fort Park ruins remain.

Was it a Spanish or an English Fort? Was it the foundation of a house being built by Dr. Andrew Turnbull, New Smyrna's founder?

These questions are hundreds of years old and they remain unanswered.

“No one is really sure,” says the Florida Historical Society.

The structure was built around the 1770s and was part of the Smyrnea settlement established by Turnbull, a Scottish physician, in 1767.

One theory is that it was the foundation of a house that Turnbull wanted to give to a business partner, Sir William Duncan, but was never finished.

According to the New Smyrna Beach Museum of History, “a 1770 letter in the Farrar-Duncan papers in the Dundee City (Scotland) Archives from Turnbull to Sir William Duncan says that he planned to build him a house at a ‘venture.’”

Archaeological work at the site is “relatively recent,” according to the museum, since the foundation underwent restoration by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

“More than 50 years passed before archaeologists paid serious attention to New Smyrna when John Griffin, in 1990, performed an archaeological survey on the foundation at Old Fort Park,” the museum says.

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Could the ruins have been a fort?

“Some believe it was an English fort, some believe it was a Spanish fort,” according to Dorothy Moore, a Florida Historical Society historian and archaeologist.

Landowners of the site, who came after Turnbull, “not knowing its history, fancied that it was a Spanish fort,” according to the museum.

After the 1930s restoration, the windows revealed in the structure walls have often been misinterpreted as cannon embrasures and may have led to the earlier notions that it was a fort.

There is also a theory that says that Turnbull had nothing to do with the site at all, but rather it was built by Ambrose Hull, who owned the land after Turnbull left in 1777. Hull came in 1801, “and does record building a large stone house on a mound,” according to Moore.

Another theory, proposed by Griffin, claims that the ruins were the foundation of the settlement’s church during the time.

“However, both maps in the Dundee City Archives show the location of the settlement church as being north of what is now Old Fort Park,” according to the museum. “This new data negates Griffin’s conclusion.”

The Old Fort Park ruins historical site is located at 115 Julia St. in New Smyrna Beach and is open all day.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Work on mysterious Old Fort Park in NSB to be done early next year