May 2009
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 Docent program began six years ago as an effort to provide a clear interpretation of
07
May
2009
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 Research Station (VIERS) on February 15, 2009 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the ‘splash
07
May
2009
April 2009
Songs from “Hot Steel in Cruz Bay” by Charlie Prentice’s Hotshots played softly as guests and members lined up to partake of dishes prepared by many talented chefs. I’m pretty sure Rudolph ‘Pimpy’ Thomas knew all the words to ‘The Old Man and the Donkey,’ and at another table I saw someone mouthing the words to “There’s a Man in Your Pajamas.”[1] The food was scrumptious!
07
Apr
2009
Anna (Billy) Wolmer Knight (Photo courtesy of David Knight) Edited and condensed by David Knight-2009 (Anna Wolner Knight (affectionately known to most folks on St. John as “Billy”) was the Mother of board member David Knight. She was born in New York in 1911, the first child of recently-arrived German immigrants. At the age of 19 she married Dr. George H. H. Knight and settled
07
Apr
2009
A handful of red Canavalia nitida seeds, rarely found in the V.I. and on right, a detailed drawing of the Locust tree (Hymanea courbaril). It is a multi–purpose tree—its pods are edible, the sap produces a natural medicine, and the wood makes admirable timber. There were a succession of inland Estates on St. John–Maria’s Hope, Bordeaux, Mary Simpson, Pasquero/Josie’s Gut and Misgunst. All eventually failed
07
Apr
2009
March 2009
(Assembled from David Knight’s 1/17/09 Handouts, his Timeline Notes on Estate Botany Bay, and Trek Dialogue, Summarized by Robin Swank) Occasionally the SJHS sojourns far afield of St. John. On this Saturday, fifty members and guests journeyed to the far west end of St. Thomas to Estate Botany Bay, a private landholding of Warren H. Corning and his heirs from 1955 through 2000, and seemingly
07
Mar
2009
February 2009
In December SJHS members joined Rudolph ‘Pimpy’ Thomas, Reggie Callwood, and Elroy Sprauve for on-site history lessons about two of our spiritual and architectural gems on St. John, the Bethany Moravian Church and the Nazareth Lutheran Church. BETHANY MORAVIAN CHURCH AND MISSION HOUSE According to The St John Drum in an October 18, 1974 article by Vernon J. Nelson, Archivist at the official Moravian Church
07
Feb
2009
January 2009
Condensed from “A History of Botany Bay” by David W. Knight (2001) Table of Contents The Prehistoric Presence at Botany Bay The Botany Bay Plantation Early European Settlement at Botany Bay The West End Plantation Consolidation on St. Thomas’s Far West End The Bathazar Caspar Busch Plantation, 1703 – 1745 The Abraham Tessamacher PLantation, 1703 – 1751 The Development of the West End Plantation Establishment
09
Jan
2009
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, Rest More, after a three 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
07
Jan
2009
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 south shore, and to the north–west of Cabritte Horn Point, in Great Lameshur Bay. Four
07
Jan
2009
(Original in Danish, translation courtesy of Nina York.) (This is an excerpt from an unpublished book of 176 typewritten pages, compiled by an employee of the Danish West Indies National Bank in the early 1900s. As a retiree, he wrote his memoirs of the years in the Danish West Indian Islands, a description that offers a good illustration of the kind of lifestyle which quite
07
Jan
2009
December 2008
Steve Simonsen—Photographer, Publisher[1], Producer, and our Speaker (Presented by Steve Simonsen, summarized by Robin Swank) A standing-room–only crowd of over 100 Members and guests greeted Steve Simonsen at lovely Bethany Church Hall for the first Membership meeting of the season. Steve presented four films and four series of ’stills’ to a variety of tunes), that Board member Bruce Schoonover collected and compiled in connection with
07
Dec
2008
December 2008
