Page 11 - Hotel Ormond

The Grand Hotel Ormond - On the Halifax River

Within 200 years after DePrado’s expedition, the Timucuans
entirely disappeared from the east coast of Florida. It is thought
their susceptibility to diseases brought by the Spaniards, raids
from the Yamassee Indians, and the British raids from North
Carolina sped their demise.

Farther south were other Indian villages along the Halifax. Two of
these, Caracoy and Cicale, were located along the west side of the
Halifax River in or near the present city limits of Ormond Beach.
One of these villages is believed to be associated with the Ormond
Indian Burial Mound, located just south of the Ormond Beach City
Hall, where the remains of 100 people are thought to be buried.

Captain James Ormond I

Damietta was the cotton and indigo
plantation of the Ormond family.
Captain James Ormond I received a
2,000-acre land grant for his Damietta
Plantation in 1804. Unfortunately,
Ormond I was killed in 1817, by a
runaway slave while living on a
second land grant near New Smyrna
and the family returned to Scotland.

James Ormond II returned to
Damietta with his wife and four children, including James Ormond
III in 1820. When James Ormond II died in 1829, his family
abandoned Damietta. He is buried about four miles north of
Tomoka State Park. James Ormond III would return many years
later when the New Britain colony was being settled and retrace
his family legacy.

Little did he or any other pioneers foresee the hostilities about to
come. The Second Seminole Indian War erupted in 1835. The
battle was about hunting and fishing grounds and the freedom of
movement of the Indians. There was a tremendous uprising
against the planters and a massive evacuation to St. Augustine
took place. The plantations along the Florida east coast fell victim
to fiery raids.

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