Historic resource study: St. John Island "The Quiet Place" with special reference to Annaberg Estate, Cinnamon Bay Estate

Hatch, Charles

A study which evaluates various phases of more complete narratives of the history of St. John of the Virgin Islands including the following aspects: aboriginal, abandonment, haven, settlement and development, economic collapse and diversification efforts. This study is formed around a more complete narrative of the historical story of St. John of the Virgin Islands of the United States (formerly the Danish West Indies) than was heretofore available. It seeks to point out and evaluate the various phases of the long story: (1) aboriginal (Indian) use of perhaps a millennium and a half, (2) presumed abandonment and neglect of at least a century (being too small and mountainous to attract settlement while there were better agricultural areas), (3) a useful haven for freebooters, pirates, privateers and even legitimate mariners and seamen (for much of the 17th century), (4) settlement and development into an example (though certainly no prime example) of a typical sugar island (a century and a half, until a little past the mid-19th century), (5) economic collapse and basically reversion to a subsistence way of life for the small number of people who elected to remain, and (6) futile efforts at diversification to find a new economic base with a half-century of hope in the manufacture of bay oil and bay rum. Remains and sites have been identified and analysed with particular emphasis on Cinnamon Bay Estate (noted for its long Indian occupancy, its lengthy continuity in the sugar business, and its part in the manufacture of bay oil), and Annaberg Estate (famed for its outstanding sugar factory, with windmill, ruins though its role in sugar production was neither as long nor as successful as some). Then there is the Par Force - Reef Bay area, with its standing Great House and Factory ruins, which long emphasized sugar production even to the mid-19th century installation of steam cane grinding equipment which, though rusted, is still in place. The report's illustrations are rather varied, embracing views of estates and ruins, equipment, contemporary prints, diagrams, and drawings. One is the manuscript survey of St. John done by P. L. Oxholm in 1780. This, in a Copenhagen museum, was the basis of his better-known published chart of 1800.

Historic resource study: St. John Island "The Quiet Place" with special reference to Annaberg Estate, Cinnamon Bay Estate

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