In the 1850s, Bayport was a shallow-water gulf port town that became the Hernando County seat and a port of delivery in 1854. Before the Civil War, it shipped lumber cut from locally grown cedar trees used to make pencils, and by 1861 it had about 40 houses, a customs house, warehouses, and a wharf. The surrounding plantations and ranches supplied cattle, turpentine from native longleaf pine trees, and cypress and pine lumber, while salt made from seawater in evaporation ponds, along with cotton and corn, helped support Confederate forces. As the Union blockade of Confederate ports tightened, smaller ports such as Bayport became important to blockade runners, and Bayport developed into a haven for trade between Florida’s gulf coast and Cuba, supplying critical war commodities to the Confederate effort; between 1862 and 1865, the Union’s East Gulf Coast Blockading Squadron intercepted eleven blockade runners near the town. Bayport was attacked twice in 1863. On April 2, seven boats from the Union warships St. Lawrence, Sagamore, and Fort Henry approached to within 400 yards under difficult conditions while Confederates hid four of six blockade runners up a nearby creek; Union forces found the schooner Helen, captured its crew, and burned it, and Confederates burned a sixth vessel, a large schooner loaded with cotton in the harbor and ready for sea, before the Union boats withdrew with disabled guns. On September 14, a Union squadron of the warships James Battle, Two Sisters, Annie, and two boats from Fort Henry targeted a British side-wheel steamer flying a French flag; Confederates burned the steamer and a nearby warehouse, and the Union boats withdrew. In 2010, the Florida Public Archaeology Network and Hernando Historic Preservation Society located mid-19th-century ship remains that may relate to these actions, and in 2014-15 the Gulf Archaeology Research Institute found the original harbor and Confederate positions north of Bayport County Park.