King's Road (Florida)

When the first governor of British East Florida, Col. James Grant, arrived in the capital, St. Augustine, on August 29, 1764, almost the entire Spanish population of the town had emigrated to Cuba and elsewhere in New Spain.

[2]: 15–16 [3] In 1765, Jonathon Bryan, a wealthy Georgia planter who was also a skilled surveyor, rode on horseback from St. Augustine to the Cowford (now Jacksonville) in search of the most suitable course for that section of the proposed road.

It was built mainly for the benefit of Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish entrepreneur who with Sir William Duncan organized a company in England to establish a large plantation south of Mosquito Inlet called New Smyrna.

Fifteen hundred Greeks, Italians, and Minorcans were indentured to work for the company and settle there; those who survived the harsh conditions and treatment they endured fled to St. Augustine on the King's Road in 1777.

[5][6] Travelers on the King's Road crossed the narrowest part of the lower St. Johns River at the Cowford (now Jacksonville) by ferry, and continued south.