 The entire process was carried out using slave labor and draft animals, under the management of the plantation overseer, John Dwight Sheldon.On Christmas Day in 1835, the mills and other buildings were destroyed by Native Americans during the Second Seminole War; only the walls were left standing, with the machinery inside them, made by the West Point Foundry of Cold Spring, New York, mostly undamaged.The site was further altered by soldiers who were garrisoned there to keep the Seminoles under surveillance.