Cross the river at Mayport on the St. Johns River Ferry Service to Kingsley Plantation (11676 Palmetto Ave.; 904-251-3537), one of the few remaining examples of territorial Florida's plantation system and the site of the state's oldest plantation house. The planter's house dates to the 1790s and is named for its third owner, Zephaniah Kingsley. A maverick for his time, Kingsley married Anna Jai, a slave, and subsequently emancipated her.

The drive alone makes the trip worthwhile. Palmetto Avenue, off Heckscher Drive, is a rutted dirt road shadowed by overwhelming tree canopies and a disconcerting quiet. At the entrance to the Kingsley property, visit the plantation's 23 slave cabins. A vivid reminder of the plantation system, they are constructed of tabby, a sturdy mixture of sand, lime and shells. You can actually enter the frame of the structures and visualize the living space. Inside the main plantation house, interpretive displays trace the history of the plantation, once one of Florida's most important producers of Sea Island cotton. Consider stopping for some fried shrimp at the Alimacani Fish Camp, or one of the other rustic eateries on the river along Heckscher Drive.

Visit the Amelia Island Museum of History in the former Nassau County Jail (233 South Third St.; 904-261-7378) in downtown Fernandina Beach with the history of Fernandina Beach and Northeast Florida. Military aficionados will want to visit Fort Clinch State Park (2601 Atlantic Ave.; 904- 277-7274) at the north end of Amelia Island. Work on this began in 1847, but it was rendered obsolete by the Civil War because of the heavier shot of newly invented cannons.

Return to the coast for a healthy serving of history in St. Augustine. The oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the United States, St. Augustine was founded by Spanish settlers under Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565, 39 years before the first English settlers arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. A tug of war between Spain and Britain left St. Augustine's economy in shambles until well after Florida was ceded to the United States in 1819. Later, industrialist Henry Flagler single-handedly breathed new life into the Ancient City in the 1880s, transforming it into an elegant winter resort.

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