Thomson Tabby House Ruins

This is the foundation of a home that was Charles R. Thomson began on Fort George Island in Jacksonville but was never completed. The home was to be for his daughter and her husband, but Charles Thomson died a year later and the building was not finished. Made of tabby, a mixture of sand, oyster shells, and lime, that originated in Africa but was popular in the area at the time, the building was originally thought to have been constructed by Zephaniah Kingsley. The ruins have also been referred to as the Munsilna McGundo House, due to speculation that when Kingsley passed the land to his son in 1831, he did so on the condition that the house was willed to McGundo and her daughter, Fatima. However, the building did not appear on a map until 1854, leading people to believe Thomson was the actual builder. The ruins are accessible to the public on the Saturiwa Trail on the island.

In 1854, Charles R. Thomson built a house structure on the southern portion of Fort George Island in Jacksonville, Florida, but it was never completed. The ruins are 45 by 30 feet, with walls eight feet high, and it is made of tabby. It has two rooms, separated by a fireplace, with remaining foundations of a front and back porch. The method of creating tabby is thought to have originated in Africa. Oyster shells were gathered and burned at a high temperature, allowing them to be easily ground into a powder. That was then mixed with sand and lime before whole oyster shells were added to the mixture. It was poured into wooden frames and left to dry for several days. Because of the origin of this method, the house was originally thought to have been constructed by someone other than Thomson.

Zephaniah Kingsley owned Fort George Island before passing it to his son, George, in 1831. During the time Kingsley owned the land, he purchased 13-year-old Anna Madgigine Jai in Havana, Cuba, who was sold into slavery there from West Africa, and married her. Although the tabby mixture was popularly used in the area by other planters before Kingsley, it was alleged that when he transferred the island to his son, he made a condition of the sale. It was that a woman named Munsilna McGundo and her daughter, Fatima, would possess the house and four acres of land, and also be given rations during their life. Due to this, the Thomson Tabby House has also been called the Munsilna McGundo House, beginning in 1926 when Mrs. James Latimer requested a title search for Fort George Island and the reference was rediscovered.

However, by 1853, a map of the area had not shown a construction of a building at the southern tip of the island. In 1877, Julia Dodge learned that the purpose of house was intended for a planter’s daughter and her husband, but he died suddenly during its construction. In 1986, Terence Webb deduced that, although Fort George Island had passed to many people over time, Thomson was the only planter who died while owning the land. While there is speculation as to whether Thomson ever lived on the island, he had bought the land in 1854 and died in 1855, with 60 of the people he enslaved living on the property at the time of his death.

Additionally, some building methods suggest the structure was created later than the 1830s, which would have been the time of Kingsley ownership. The building rises over the road, indicating a higher degree of precision and engineering than the other tabby structures on the island from the time Kingsley was building there. It was also made using the Spalding Method, meaning successive layers of tabby were poured into short molds held together by pegs, a method used at a later date than during the construction of structures such as the tabby slave cabins. Wood grain is also visible in present day in the holes made by wooden ties used in construction, meaning the openings were never filled with mortar, and the house was likely never completed or used. The ruins are now visible to the public on the Saturiwa Trail as part of the Talbot Islands State Parks in the vicinity of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in Florida.

1. Stowell, Daniel W.. Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, National Park Service. October 1996. Accessed October 7th 2020. https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/492966.
2. Text for Saturiwa Trail MP3, National Park Service. April 14th 2015. Accessed October 7th 2020. https://www.nps.gov/timu/learn/photosmultimedia/timu_talbot_text_mp3_saturiwa.htm.
3. Boucher, Jack E.. Historic American Building Survey, Library of Congress. 1933. Accessed October 7th 2020. https://www.loc.gov/item/fl0590/.
4. A Walk Through the History of Fort George Island, National Park Service. February 1st 2018. Accessed October 7th 2020. https://www.nps.gov/timu/learn/historyculture/fgitimeline.htm.
5. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, Florida Department of State. Accessed October 7th 2020. https://dos.myflorida.com/offices/historical-museums/united-connections/women-in-history/anna-madgigine-jai-kingsley/.