• Events

    Image of Picnicking on the beach at East End, circa 1909

    President’s Summer 2010 Message.

    Good Day, Everyone


    The Society has had a very busy and fulfilling 2009-2010 season.


    We forged new friendships with each other and with our hosts during off-island and on-island field trips. Our sea voyages (around Coral Bay on Elliot Hooper’s Silver Cloud and on the Fast Ferry to St. Croix) were great adventures. On Silver Cloud we enjoyed East End history from Board Members David Knight and Eleanor Gibney, Captain Elliot, and Society Life member Les Anderson. Led by David and Eleanor, we hiked diverse landscapes and historical sites—the coffee plantation Paquereaux, the once-heavily populated Waterlemon Bay, and the intriguing Vanniniberg . Our membership meetings were equally diverse and well-attended…never a meeting with fewer than 50 and one that spilled over the walls of lovely Bethany Moravian Church Hall with 120 attendees!! We reached back epochs ago with Roy Watlington and Don Drost’s presentation of St John’s geology. We focused on the history of St John as a “hotbed of science” with Board Member Rafe Boulon. We were able to recall the St John of ‘just yesterday’ with Board Member Elroy Sprauve’s December exhibition of handmade toys and artifacts and with two presentations of David Knight’s family’s collection of St John images from the mid-1900s. At our first membership meeting of the season, we hosted Ladies’ Storytelling moderated by Board Emeritus Andro Childs, and heard about growing up on St. John before the tourists came; at the last membership meeting of the year, the initiative with East End and Coral Bay Quarter St Johnians to ‘map’ vernacular 1840-1940 “placenames”, and to locate them on the Society’s website with interactive maps was previewed. We are much honored that these culture bearers have entrusted the Society with storing and sharing their cultural geography. And we are indebted to VI Humanities Council and to the entire project team for their hard work and support.


    We had many other successes. St John – Life in Five Quarters was completed early this fall. It is leaping off the shelves, and half (1,000!) of our books are sold. Thanks to the membership’s generosity, we covered the upfront costs of printing the book, and over a hundred copies were distributed to schools, libraries, and public-facing National Park employees. In addition, the Society’s Website launched a Webstore for book and membership purchases, integrated additional maps and mapping features, and installed audio for posting storytellings. A record number of people access it daily. Talented Board Members Peter Burgess and Morgan Barlas are positioning the website to play an important part in the Society’s future.


    The ‘season’ is now over. Some of our members are travelling from Paradise back to states-side homes now hopefully cleared of snow and free of inclement weather. For those of us living on St. John year-round, we’re looking forward (ungenerously?) to peace and quiet, a parking space, a bay entirely to ourselves for a snorkel or swim, and, of course, planning for next year.


    On behalf of the entire Board, Thank You.
    Robin Swank

  • Articles

    Vista of Coral Bay in a 1833 watercolor by Robert H. Schomburgk

    Read selections from archived SJHS Newsletter articles and supplemental articles about the history and culture of St. John. Recent additions include:

  • Photo Collections

    Photo of Christ of the Carribean, Peace Hill

    Explore our growing collection of photographs. Recent additions include:

    Historic Buildings (LOC-HABS/HAER)

    An extensive series of photographs and architectural drawings of historic buildings on St John. These works were drawn from the Historic American Buildings Survey Collection of the Library of Congress.

    Family Album of Anna Dohm Nose

    It was front page news on December 21, 1937, the local Daily News in fact, when Peter and Elsa Dohm and family arrived in their 10 meter yawl, Restmore, after a five year voyage. When the voyage began, Anna was four months old. Thus begins a family album covering the activities of this adventurous and entrepreneurial family. Luckily for us, this family believed in cameras and keepsakes, for Anna’s family album chronicles, with a small hiatus for the war years, the development of Cruz Bay and Red Hook from the 1930’s to the 1970’s.

    St Thomas Scenes

    This collection includes early 20th century photographs of St Thomas.

  • Maps

    Image of Oxholm 1800 map

    Step back in time and explore our map of historical sites on St. Jan, Danish West Indies in the year 1800, our later maps with verncular place-names of 1840s-1940s, or view current topological and satellite maps of St. John, US Virgin Islands.

  • Connections

    View of American Hill Estate from Maho Bay

    History is all about connections! Explore the connections between our images, documents, articles, and map-locations through a keyword index.

  • Presentations

    Lithograph print of the Cruz Bay Battery by Fritz Melbye, circa 1850

    View our slide-show presentation, "Enduring Eloquence", a brief background of historical images of St. John, by former SJHS President David Knight.

  • Documents

    Photocopy from the Danish National Archives, Copenhagen–1722. List of first plantation owners on St. John

    View copies of primary documents relating to the rich historical legacy of St. John. Selected documents include a list of early settlers dating to 1722, plans for the Cruz Bay Battery drawn in 1780, a census for Lovango Cay from 1846, and many more...

  • Shop

    St. John – Life in Five Quarters Book

    Come visit our new online store!

    St. John – Life in Five Quarters

    Selected readings from the archives of the St John Historical Society.

    This 200+ page book of local stories, pictures, and history includes accounts of prominent people and notable places, firsthand descriptions of earlier ways of life on St John, fact-based histories of estate ‘ruins’ we have rambled, and an impressive collection of interesting and beautiful images and photos, many of which have never been previously published.