Chinsegut Hill Manor House

The Chinsegut Hill Manor House is a United States historic site approximately five miles northeast of the city of Brooksville, Florida on Chinsegut Hill. It is located at 22495 Chinsegut Hill Road. Begun in the early 1850's, the structure has remained relatively unchanged since.HistoryWith the conclusion of the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) and the passing of the Armed Occupation Act on August 4, 1842, the character of Florida was transformed. In the interior of the Florida peninsula, devoid of white settlement just 10 years before, plantations were rapidly established. By the eve of statehood, planters maintained that nearly half the population and wealth of the territory was now located in central Florida.Drawn to central Florida by the opportunity offered by the Armed Occupation Act, Colonel Byrd Pearson from South Carolina laid claim to 160 acres in what is now Hernando County. He named his plantation Mount Airy and began cultivating sugarcane with the use of slave labor. Pearson constructed a cabin on the site that is now the East Wing of the Manor. Pearson's cabin was completed just two years after Florida became a state.In 1851, Pearson sold the property to another South Carolinian emigrant to Florida named Francis Higgins Ederington. Between 1852 and 1854, Ederington constructed the manor house.