NELSON POINT

SIDE ONE: For over 1500 years, people have lived on the northern shore of Doctors Lake, attracted by access to fresh water and abundant game. Among the earliest European explorers of the area included naturalists John and William Bartram in 1766. William Pengree purchased the land in 1787, establishing the Laurel Grove Plantation through the work of 48 enslaved people. After his death, Laurel Grove was sold to Zephaniah Kingsley in 1803. Seminoles, in ongoing conflict with European settlers, raided the plantation several times. The plantation house was burned down in 1813 during the Patriot War, causing Kingsley to sell to John Houston McIntosh. In 1877, the Florida Winter Home and Improvement Company founded the Town of Orange Park with Nelson Point occupying nine lots. Soon after, Henry Horton operated a sawmill here to efficiently harvest trees on the lots. Powered by one small engine, it could produce 7500 board feet of lumber a day. In 1914, the site became home to the Carnes Fish Camp, which shipped their catch all along the east coast. The fishing and timber industries at Nelson Point sustained Orange Park during the Great Depression. SIDE TWO: In 1948, World War II veteran John Wilbur Nelson and wife, June, purchased the 20 acres that make up Nelson Point for $15,000. The deal also included a furnished house on the dock that had served as the Carnes Fish House business, a boat, livestock, a reliable old pickup truck, and Henry Horton’s sawmill. When the dock was deemed unsafe for their three children, Nelson rolled the house, furniture and all, onto shore using logs cut at the sawmill. They slept in the house that same night. Nelson worked as a contractor, taking on construction projects that included many local buildings. He volunteered to make repairs and provide wheelchair ramps for citizens in need. John and June Nelson were active members of Orange Park United Methodist Church throughout their lives from its start in 1948. They helped develop Scouting in the area, were active in parent groups, and volunteered at Orange Park Medical Center for decades. John Nelson’s dream was to share Nelson Point with the community after his death and, in 2023, that dream became reality when the town dedicated this area as a public park.