One of the signs at the Annaberg Estate identifiying the plants and trees. On Saturday, January 24th, St. John Historical Society President Eleanor Gibney and historian and Society Archivist David Knight met with the Friends of Virgin Island National Park Docents at the Estate Annaberg sugar works. The Friends Annaberg

Standing in front of a mural in the newly completed Tektite Museum at VIERS are (l to r) Randy Brown, Ed Clifton, Jim Miller, Conrad Mahnken, and Bruce Schoonover (A presentation by board member Bruce Schoonover, summarized by Robin Swank) A large enthusiastic audience gathered at the Virgin Islands Environmental

Naval Floating Dry Dock (LSD), the U.S.S. Hermitage, carrying the ‘Habitat’ and other support materials and elements arrives in Lameshur Bay, January 1969. Forty years ago next month, February 15th, 1969, the underwater program known as Tektite I was just beginning, right here on St. John — just off the

(By Bruce Schoonover and Robin Swank) On Tuesday, April 15th, the Society once again participated in the “Friends of Virgin Islands National Park” Earth Day festivities. The goal is to educate, inform, and inspire V.I. youth and the community on the importance of preserving and protecting our environment. This year,

By Bruce Schoonover and Robin Swank Earth day 2007… preserving and protecting the environment This year, in connection with the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park Earth Day festivities, the St. John Historical Society highlighted its efforts to preserve and protect the Annaberg Country School ruins at Mary’s Point,

Frank Stick’s map of St. John showing the outline of Lameshur and Hope Estates Consolidation of properties has always played a huge role in the ownership of estates on St. John. By the late 1700s, we have seen that what we now think of as the Lameshur Estate was, in

(A summary of the February 14th, 2006 presentation by Bruce Schoonover) This year being the 50th Anniversary of the VINP, it is a fitting time to recognize our nation’s 29th National Park. Congress passed the enabling legislation for the establishment of the VINP on August 2, 1956, and it was

(Editors Note: Last Fall, while at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York, my wife and I ran across the following April 5, 1956 memo from Mr. Hjalmar Bang, regarding his early association with the Caneel Bay Estate.) (Published by permission of Rockefeller Archive Center. Ads are from

March 31, 2005, marks the 88th anniversary of the acquisition of the Danish West Indies by the United States of America. It also marks the 140th anniversary of when this acquisition was first contemplated… It was in 1865, some fifty-plus years prior, the United States began discussions regarding this purchase.