Within this section you will find over 100 articles which have appeared in publications of the Society, have been the subject of our hikes and wanderings and/or are simply of interest to anyone with a love of St. John and its rich history.
If you’d like to submit an article for consideration in a future newsletter or quarterly journal, please be aware of the following guidelines.
- Word count should be between 500-1,000 words. Articles longer than 1,000 words are accepted on a case-by-case basis, so please contact us in advance for pre-approval;
- Please single space after periods;
- Article should be concise, on topic, and most importantly, relate to V.I. or Danish West Indies history; and
- The article’s relevancy to St. John should be clear.
Please send articles to the attention of newsletter editor Andrea Milam at: ContactUs@StJohnHistoricalSociety.org.
07
Dec 2005Caneel Bay Estate Before Laurance Rockefeller
(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 a VI Tourism magazine produced by the government.) “In connection with my contact with the…
08
Nov 2005T’was The Night Before Christmas… (and Other Bedtime Stories)
We all know these wonderful words: “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse…” They were read to us as children, re-read as young parents; and now, we recite them almost from memory to our grandchildren. But, do you know where your grandmother was born? In my family, the stories told at dinner,…
08
Oct 2005Bay Rum: A Niche of Distinction in VI History
Bay rum is tightly woven into the fabric of Native Virgin Islands culture. In the olden days, every single pantry in the Virgin Islands contained a bottle of bay rum. It is the one historic industry that St. John and St. Thomas can claim as being our very own. In Virgin Islands history, St. Croix, due to its achievements in agriculture, became known as the…
08
Sep 2005Soldier Crab Saga
(Editors note: Rafe is Chief, Division of Resource Management for the Virgin Islands National Park and one of our newest Board members.) I was born and live on St. John, USVI and have been living with Soldier (land hermit) crabs all my life. (Shown at left, without shell.) They are part of my every day life – in my pond getting a drink, around my…
08
Apr 2005Childhood Summers Spent on St. John
(A Presentation by Gaylord Sprauve, summarized by Jan Frey) 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. Gaylord Sprauve of St. Thomas was…
08
Mar 2005Acquisition of the Danish West Indies by the United States
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. In 1865, it was the Confederacy’s use of the Danish West Indies as a coaling…
08
Feb 2005Governor Pearson and Affordable Housing
The U.S. Virgin Islands’ first civilian Governor, Paul M. Pearson, served from 1931 to 1935. A Quaker college educator from Philadelphia who had organized and managed the traveling Swarthmore Chautauqua, Governor Pearson initiated a number of programs that were intended to improve the depressed economy of the territory and the cultural life of its citizens. In addition to building the first tourist hotel in the…
08
Jan 2005The Danish Struggle to Colonize St. John
(By Leif Calundann Larson, summarized by Jan Frey) Leif Calundann Larsen, author of the 1986 book The Danish Colonization of St. John, 1718 –1733, was the featured speaker at our February meeting at the Bethany Moravian Church. He outlined for the group the early history of the West Indies and Danish efforts in the late 1600s, and early 1700s, to establish a presence on St. Thomas…
07
Jan 2005Post-Plantation and Pre-Tourism: Life and Work on St. John in the early 20th Century
After the collapse of the plantation system, a new era on St. John emerged, often described as a “broad-based provisioning economy.” It included a diversified agricultural economy, subsistence farming, craft industries, small-scale forest industry, and cattle estates. Although only a few people owned most of the land and hired others to work for them, the emerging communities acquired small lots purchased, transferred, or gifted from…
06
Jan 2005John Wright, Outstanding Citizen of the Danish West Indies
(A Presentation by Per Nielsen, summarized by Jan Frey) We continue our report on the speakers at our December meeting. Here we review the presentation of Professor Per Neilsen of the University of Copenhagen. Fifteen years ago Per Neilsen began studying the life of John Wright and on December 3rd he shared his findings with the St. John Historical Society. John Wright was an important…
04
Jan 2005The Forest Island
When the first Europeans landed on St. John, did they see a dramatically different landscape and vegetation from what we observe now? In the absence of detailed reports from that time, we have to make a lot of educated guesses. The early accounts that do exist are often misleading, perhaps due to the same kind of confusion of plant names that still exists today. Although…
08
Dec 2004Cruz Bay Christmas Recollections of Andro Childs in the 1930s and40s
“I remember how we prepared for and celebrated the holidays,” Mrs. Childs began. “Cruz Bay was so small then, probably not more than eight or ten families. There were two little grocery stores that sold the basics,” she recalled. “For oil, you took a pint bottle to be filled; for butter or lard, you got it in a tin or a piece of paper for…