First Signs of a Commercial Industry - 1763

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It is reported that a notorious merchant, shipmaster and realtor, Jesse Fish, established a ‘commercial’ citrus planting on Santa Anastasia Island located across Matanzas Bay from St. Augustine. Wikipedia states

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“Fish built the great house of his plantation, El Vergel (the Orchard), on the island in 1763, where its orchards and orange groves produced abundantly for decades. Tens of thousands of barrels of sweet oranges and hundreds of barrels of orange juice were eventually exported from the plantation, and before the end of the British Period, Jesse Fish was renowned for the quality of his citrus fruit.  In the 1770’s his oranges were popular in London.. In a letter dated August 10, 1830 and published in the Southern Agriculturist, George J. F. Clarke, a planter whose family had owned a plantation on the Matanzas River since 1770, described the careful picking and handling of the oranges grown by Jesse Fish  and shipped safely to London, where they had found favor for their sweetness.”

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The beginning of commercial citrus appears to have germinated in that area of Anastasia Island and the Matanzas river.  Jesse Fish was a man of many interests; the story of his life is fascinating.  He was engaged in many activities, one of which was most likely the first commercial citrus grower AND exporter of citrus to Europe!