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The painting is a copy of the famous 1873 ?Whistler?s Mother?, created by James Abbott Whistler. The painting was displayed at the park because of a distant historical connection. Whistler?s mother, Anna McNeill Whistler (1804-1881) was an occasional visitor to Kingsley Plantation in the early 1850s when her brother, Charles McNeill, and his wife, Martha Kingsley McNeill (1775-1852), owned the property. However, the painting was not created at the plantation.

Kingsley Plantation was a state park from the 1950s until 1989. Tours of the house, furnished with antiques purchased in the 1950s and 1960s, were offered by park staff. In 1989, U.S. Representative Charles Bennett negotiated the creation of the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, which would include national, state, and city properties and parks. As part of the negotiation, the State of Florida purchased Fort George Island to be used as a state park, but transferred Kingsley Plantation to the National Park Service.