New Smyrna Beach was founded in 1768, shortly after the British acquired East Florida in 1763, by Scottish physician and businessman Andrew Turnbull, who received a deed from the British Crown to settle the area. At that time, it was simply called New Smyrna, named after the Ottoman city in the Asia Minor birthplace of his wife, Maria Gracia Turnbull, in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey). It is the oldest city in Volusia County and one of the oldest in all of Florida. Due to the fact that Spanish missionaries settled in the area as early as the 1560s, New Smyrna Beach is often referred to as the second oldest city in the United States.
Founder Turnbull brought around 1,255 settlers from Smyrna, the Greek Islands, Italy, and Minorca to cultivate indigo, corn, rice, hemp, and cotton. Although the colony produced relatively large quantities of processed indigo, it collapsed in 1770, weakened by disease, dissension, and attacks by local Indians. The remaining 600 settlers fled to St. Augustine, further north, in 1770, where their descendants still live today. Turnbull left the settlement and retired to Charleston, South Carolina.