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Excerpted from St. John Off The
Beaten Track ©
2006 Gerald Singer
If you only have enough time to hike one trail, then the Cinnamon
Bay Self-Guiding Trail is the trail for you. Also, because the
trail is relatively short, flat and shady, it’s a perfect
choice for those who would like to experience a taste of the
St. John interior, but who might be put off by the prospect of
a long hike on the often hilly and rugged terrain characteristic
of the St. John forest. As an added bonus, the Virgin Islands
National Park has placed a series of wonderfully informative
signs along the trail covering everything from history and culture
to nature and environmental concerns.
The one half mile Cinnamon Bay Self-Guiding Trail begins on
the North Shore Road about ten yards east of the Cinnamon Bay
Campground entrance on the opposite side of road and will lead
you through the remains of an old sugar mill and bay rum factory.
From there the trail circles through the surrounding forest and
emerges back at the North Shore Road where you can observe the
remains of the old estate house.
The twelve columns that at one time supported the factory storage
room are plainly visible from the road. This stone structure
was used for the storage of crude brown sugar called muscavado,
molasses, barrels of rum, and crushed and dried sugarcane stalks
called bagasse, which were used for fuel and fertilizer.
South of the storage room are the remains of the horsemill and
the boiling house. The sugarcane crushing apparatus was in the
center of the horsemill and from there the cane juice flowed
down the trough and into the boiling room.
On the west side of the boiling room were the boiling trays
where the cane juice was boiled down, transferred from copper
pot to copper pot, and gradually thickened into sugar. The fires
were stoked from the outside of the building. The large chimney
still remains.
On the southwest corner of the sugar factory is the well-preserved
bay rum distillery.
The Danish West India Plantation Company acquired Cinnamon Bay
at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1903, they began growing
fruit and bay rum trees for the production of the bay leaf
oil, used in the popular cologne and lotion known as St. John
Bay Rum. Fruit cultivation did not turn out to be economically
rewarding because of the difficulty in transporting the fruit
to the European market. The fruits would often spoil before
they could be sold. Bay rum oil, on the other hand, showed
some promise. It did not deteriorate rapidly and had the potential
to be a profitable commodity. The success of this venture at
Cinnamon Bay motivated other landowners on St. John to begin
bay rum production.
Harvesting bay rum leaves was a labor-intensive process. Workers,
who were often young children, had to climb the trees and carefully
strip off the leaves. All the leaves could not be picked off
the tree at one time, and neither could the leaves be picked
more than twice a year to avoid damage to the tree. The leaves
were put into large sacks and brought to the distillery. The
harvesters were paid eight cents for a 65-pound bag of leaves.
(more about bay rum)
From the bay rum distillery, the trail leads into the tropical
forest and a magnificent stand of bay rum trees.
A short spur trail to the left leads to an old Danish cemetery.
Anna Margarethe Berner Hjardemaal, the wife of a former owner
of the estate, is buried here in an above ground tomb. Her
husband, Nicolai Severin Hjardemaal, a Dane, became the owner
of Cinnamon Bay in 1834.
The plantation was then called the America Hill Plantation. Hjardemaal's
wife was born in St. Croix on November 7, 1785 and died at the
age of fifty-one on November 27, 1836, just two years after she
and her husband acquired the estate.
Slaves on the plantation were not afforded such an elaborate
interment. They were buried at the beach at Cinnamon Bay. The
erosion of the shoreline and heavy ground seas has caused the
remains of some the deceased to wash out into the bay. Divers
have reported finding skulls and other bones under rocks and
coral around the western portion of the beach and at the next
beach to the west, Little Cinnamon Bay.
After about a quarter mile, the trail crosses the gut. In this
area you may notice several extremely large dead trees, some
still standing and others which have already fallen. These
trees were mammee apple trees. As late as the early 1980s these
magnificent trees lined the Cinnamon Bay portion of the North
Shore Road and grew in abundance in the forest near the gut.
The die-off may have been caused by a depletion of the underground
water table in the 1980s when an unusual amount of water was
taken from the wells.
In his book, Me and
my Beloved Virgin, Guy Benjamin describes
the mammee apple: “...brownish red globules covered with
brown skin over golden yellow flesh with large seed. Very sweet
o the taste, it makes a delicious preserve for tarts.”
A short distance after crossing the gut, the trail leads back
in the opposite direction. The gut will now be on your right.
Here is a small stand of cocoa trees, which grow a seedpod from
which chocolate is derived.
chocolate
Continuing along the trail, you will pass several large mango
trees, which are hundreds of years old. These and other fruit
trees were usually left standing when fields were cleared first
for sugarcane production and later for cattle grazing and charcoal
manufacture, and thus are some of the largest trees found on
the island. On this side of the gut, look for the many guavaberry
trees, which can be identified by their smooth, shiny bark that
looks much like the bay rum tree, but with smaller leaves.
The trail leads back to the estate house area of the plantation,
and here you will find an excellent specimen of the distinctive
calabash tree. The fruit of this tree, although not edible, is
used to make bowls, purses and other handy items.
The estate house is directly west of the sugar factory. In the
early 1900s, it was demolished by a hurricane. The house was
rebuilt with the walls and roof made out of galvanized steel.
The caretaker of the property lived here until the summer of
1969.
A cookhouse and oven are located west of the estate house. The
oven was heated by burning coals or wood until the bricks became
extremely hot. Then the ashes and remaining coals were swept
out and the food was put in to bake.
The first inhabitants of Cinnamon Bay were the Taino who lived
there from about 1000 A.D. until the end of the 15th Century.
European settlement began in 1718 when the Danish governor of
St. Thomas gave permission for planters to claim land on St.
John. They only had to meet the following conditions: One white
man was to be on the plantation within three months, and sugar
mills were to be built within five years. The plantations would
be exempt from taxes for seven years.
Three tracts of land were claimed in Cinnamon Bay. Peter Buyck,
a Dutchman, claimed the section of Cinnamon Bay now called Peter
Bay. William Gandi, an Englishman, claimed the area which is
now between Route 20 and the Cinnamon Bay Campground beach. Daniel
Jansen, a Dane, became the owner of the property inland from
the road.
By 1733, the year of the St. John slave revolt, the widow of
Daniel Jansen had acquired all of Cinnamon Bay. She lived in
St. Thomas, and the plantation was managed by her sons, Lieven
and Johannes.
That year, Africans from the Akwamu Nation, who had been brought
to St. John as slaves, revolted against the owners and managers
of the St. John plantations.
The rebellious Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and
the nearby plantations. They then descended upon Cinnamon Bay.
John and Lieven Jansen and a small group of their slaves resisted
the rebel onslaught.
Although the rebel forces were overwhelming, Jansen's slaves
fought a rear guard action and held off the Akwamus with gunfire.
This tactic allowed the Jansens to retreat to their waiting boat
and escape to Durloe's Plantation at Caneel Bay. Miraculously,
the slaves were also able to escape. The rebels proceeded to
loot and burn the plantation's two greathouses, sugar mill and
rum distillery.
The slaves on the Jansen Estate had most certainly come from
nations with a long history of bitter conflict with the Akwamu
people. They did not want to, nor were they welcome to, join
forces with their former enemies.
The buildings and other structures on the Jansen Estate were
almost completely destroyed. The ruins of the sugar works and
bay rum still, which presently exist at Cinnamon Bay, are not
from that time and only date back to the mid nineteenth century.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Cinnamon Bay was devoted
to sugar cane production. Factors such as the depletion of the
soil, the emancipation of the slaves and increased competition
led to the decline of the sugar industry. The estate substituted
other crops, and at the turn of the 20th century, the plantation
began to produce bay rum oil from the leaves of the bay rum tree.
This was the principle ingredient in the then popular cologne,
St. Johns Bay Rum.
In 1913, Cinnamon Bay was owned by a Danish company. The land
was dedicated to the breeding and raising of cattle. Danish and
English cattle were mixed with the native breed producing a strong
strain which became well known throughout the West Indies.
In the 1930s, Cinnamon Bay was owned by a man from Puerto Rico
who continued using the land for cattle production. He set up
a grocery in the storehouse, which is now the museum and beach
shop. It was stocked with goods which he brought in from Puerto
Rico on his schooner. He would then take cattle, charcoal, baskets
and provision crops back to Puerto Rico for sale. In 1955, Cinnamon
Bay was sold to Jackson Hole Preserve Inc. and later donated
to the National Park.
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