(Presented by Mr. Elroy Sprauve, summarized by Robin Swank) The Bethany Moravian Church meeting house was packed the evening of March 11th. Our March membership meeting featured one of our favorite speakers, teachers, and experts on St Johnian culture, social customs and language, Mr. Elroy Sprauve. Mr. Elroy spoke from experience
On Saturday, March 8th, the “Sadie Sea” was loaded to her (legal) gills with a cargo of St. John Historical Society members and their provisions. We were crossing the tumultuous Windward Passage to Lovango Cay to see some old and some new real estate. Picturesque Smith Cottage Toni and Wally
(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,
Godparenting has a long history in the Caribbean. Karen Fog Olwig writes about the role of godparents in the 1800’s and early 1900’s in Cultural Adaptation & Resistance on St John – Three Centuries of Afro-Caribbean Life.* Childcare, she says, like provisions or cooked food and favors, was passed freely
(Edited by Daniel P Kidder, Published by Lane & Scott for the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1852.) CHAPTER VI The Methodist Society, in Tortola, was at this time in a very flourishing condition. Large accessions had been made to it during the preceding year. The lady
They did not have a formal presentation, they began, but would tell stories of life experiences, or of things they had heard, or that they knew about, that have to do with St John. There was much good natured laughter as this distinguished panel emphasized that these are not stories
On Saturday February 16th, David Knight and Eleanor Gibney led a wonderful hike to one of St. John’s least documented 18th century sites. About thirty hikers got double-teamed– with historical, social and political information about Estate Retreat from David, and with the enriching view of history that Eleanor’s knowledge of
Date Event 1728, Oct. 18 Deed to Lovango granted to William Gandy from the Danish West India & Guinea Company, with an 8-year tax amnesty to encourage plantation development. Gandy was a master carpenter who had worked for the DWI&GC in St. Thomas. He had previously been granted a waterfront
(Presented by Roy Watlington and Shirley Lincoln, summarized by Robin Swank) In 1997 Roy Watlington and Shirley Lincoln published Disaster and Disruption in 1867: Hurricane, Earthquake and Tsunami in the Danish West Indies. It is a significant collection of primary documents–official proclamations, newspaper clippings of Damaged Goods Auctions and Notices of Reconstruction
Most people who have spent any real amount of time in the West Indies are at least vaguely acquainted with the small tree known as lignum vitae—a Latin name meaning “wood of life”, but oddly enough, NOT the tree’s scientific name: that would be Guaiacum officinale— from the Taino name
Compiled from David Knight’s Speaking Notes for the St. John Historical Society, February 2008 Date Event 1728 The property that would become known as Retreat is originally granted to Niles Anderson. c1755 The neighboring Mt. Pleasant estate, is formed by the merger of four early land grants (Pier Castan, 1725;
In 1853 the Annaberg Country School opened to provide free, compulsory education to the children of St. John’s rural Maho Bay Quarter. But, while the opening of the Annaberg facility is indeed a notable milestone in the history of St. John, the school was not the first of the “Country