Dunlawton began in the late Second Spanish period as a 995-acre sugar and indigo plantation established by Patrick Dean and worked by enslaved Africans on land from the former Turnbull grant. Later owned by Sarah Anderson and her sons, it produced sugar, molasses, and rum until Seminole attacks during the opening of the Second Seminole War left it burned or ransacked in 1835 and 1836. Rebuilt after the war and enlarged by John J. Marshall, it briefly returned to major sugar production before declining. Its ruins preserve rare early sugar-making machinery, and the property later became Bongoland, then a landscaped public garden blending plantation remains, roadside sculpture, and botanical display.