In the pre-dawn hours of November 5, 1839, Joe Popp somehow freed himself from the heavy iron shackles that bound his legs and escaped from the detention cell on the Annaberg plantation. After quietly making his way to Water Lemon Bay, Popp swam out to the estate’s boat — a sloop named the Kitty Berg — and fled to the nearby British island of Tortola.
(Summarized by Robin Swank) On the morning of January 25, 2010, forty-plus SJHS members, their guests and visitors, joined historian David W. Knight for an imagined journey back in time along the shore of Waterlemon Bay (AKA: Leinster Bay). While this pristine one-half-mile stretch of our National Park’s North Shore appears remote and “unspoiled” to us today, back at the turn of the 19th century
More than three decades ago, in the torrentially rainy final months of the 1970s, I got a job with the Grounds Department at Caneel Bay, never imagining the long and intimate relationship with plant life that this would lead to. The Cow-Horn Orchid (Schomburgkia-humboldtii) (Image courtesy of Eleanor Gibney) In several of the old flamboyant and white cedar trees around Caneel, there were masses of orchids
(Provided courtesy of Society Historian, Mr. Elroy Sprauve… By Johannes Lightbourn) St. Thomas, July 15, 1907. It has never been our lot to record such a catastrophe as that which occurred on Saturday night off the Southern coast of this island. The boat Sea Gull, under the command of Sandford Sprauve, left here after 6 o’clock for St. John having on board, including the boat’s hands,
For as long as I’ve been involved with the St. John Historical Society–and probably ever since the Society’s inception in the mid-1970s–we’ve wanted to have a logo: an image that evoked St. John’s history and culture and some of the unique attributes of both. The St. John market basket — a basket unique to St. John which seems to hold the spirit of St. John
A glimpse of Christmas Past was available to the public on Saturday December 12th, 2009. On display in the Lutheran Church yard in Cruz Bay was a collection of historical items, mostly from the 1930s through the 1950s, an era when St John residents, with quiet industry and self-sufficiency, hand-made their own gifts and toys for Christmas gift-giving, as well as items for everyday use.
(Nancy Gibney is the Mother of Eleanor Gibney, the immediate past President of the Society. Before moving to St. John in the 1940s Ms. Gibney was a Vogue Magazine editor. Our newsletter of November 2006 included one of her articles which appeared in the October 1, 1948 issue of that magazine—“A Report from Paradise…The Virgin Islands.” Following is a first in a series of articles.
“There is no gift so small that it cannot be given.” This is the sentiment that rang out clearly from the Ladies’ Storytelling at the Society’s November 10th Membership meeting. I am very grateful to the articulate and engaging Storytellers; as we enter the holiday season (many of us with less holiday in our season due to the economy), they reminded me that having only
(The following story is true. It has been wholly compiled from primary archival sources: no names, dates or particulars of the case have been changed. Any constructed details were added solely out of well informed supposition and a studied understanding of the places and events portrayed.) Vice-Governor of the Danish West Indies Christian Suhm reached impulsively for his snuffbox and took a liberal pinch of
On December 16, 1728, Lorentz Hendrichsen and his young wife Hellina Margretha Muller were formally granted title to a 1200’ X 3000’ tract of land in the Coral Bay Quarter of St. John. As was the policy of the time, the Hendrichsens were given a seven-year tax amnesty to aid in the development of a plantation [SJLL, 1729]. Due to this amnesty, no details concerning
The African Roots Project‘s noted historian George Tyson summarized both the history of the project‘s database build and its exciting uses at the Society‘s March membership meeting. (Presented by George Tyson, summarized by Robin Swank) The Virgin Islands Social History Associates (VISHA) initiated the St. Croix African Roots Project (SCARP) in 2002 in order to investigate the population of St. Croix before and after emancipation. Although people from
(Presented by Edgar Lake, summarized by Robin Swank) “Danish Artist Hugo Larsen’s Cultural Portrait Of Our Islands 1904-1907” was screened at our final membership meeting of the 2008-09 season. This DVD was beautifully written, directed, and produced by two hugely prolific artists– photographer and filmmaker Erik Miles, and author, screenwriter and playwright Edgar O. Lake. Certainly the DVD itself is a triumph! We were honored