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Excerpted from St. John Off The Beaten
Track ©
2006 Gerald Singer
The Leinster Bay Trail is a flat 0.8-mile trail that follows
the shoreline of Leinster Bay from the end of the paved road
(Leinster Bay Road) beyond the Annaberg parking lot to the
beach at Waterlemon Bay. The Johnny Horn Trail begins just
behind the beach and continues on to Coral Bay.
The Trail runs right along the water's edge with
splendid, unobstructed views of Leinster
Bay, the Narrows,
Sir Francis Drake Channel, and West End, Tortola. Moreover,
it provides land access to one of St. John's best snorkeling
locations, Waterlemon Cay, the small island that lies just
offshore of the beautiful little beach at Waterlemon Bay.
In 1918, Luther K. Zabriskie offered the following description
of Leinster Bay in his book, The United States Virgin Islands: “Smith
Bay [Leinster Bay] with its fine bathing beach cannot be easily
forgotten. The bottom of the bay is of beautiful white sand
spread like a carpet.”
The small island of Waterlemon Cay once served as an arena
for settling disputes and matters of honor. The Danes had
outlawed dueling and as a result, citizens of St. Thomas
and St. John who felt the need to engage in this activity
would go to Tortola where dueling was legal. In 1800, when
the British Islands also prohibited dueling, the remote and
uninhabited island of Waterlemon Cay, far from the eyes of
the Danish and British authorities, became the new “field
of honor.”
Before Hurricane Marilyn in 1995, the Leinster Bay Trail was
passable by four-wheel drive vehicle. According to the National
Park, the decision not to repair the road to a condition
that would once again allow vehicle entry was made in order
to lessen the impact on the reef at Waterlemon Cay by snorkelers
arriving by vehicle.
The Leinster Bay Trail was once part of the Old Danish Road
that began in Coral Bay and followed the north shore of St.
John accessing the plantations at Brown Bay, Leinster Bay,
Annaberg, Mary Point, Fredriksdal, Windberg, Little Maho Bay
and Caneel Bay (Cinnamon Bay). Today, this route consists of
the Brown Bay Trail, Johnny Horn Trail, Leinster Bay Trail,
Leinster Bay Road, and the North Shore Road as far as Cinnamon
Bay.
Look for the trail that begins about half way down the beach
at Waterlemon Bay and leads inland. Here you will find the
extensive remains of the Leinster Bay Plantation as well
as what is left of a more recent cattle operation.
The remains of a small residence and a cattle trough lie just
inland from the trail. Proceeding along the path, you will
come to an old well tower. If you look in, you will see water
at the bottom.
well tower
There are three more wells on the site. One well is near the
brackish pond and two more are in the valley. Just past the
well are the ruins of the storage house, the boiling room and
the boiling bench where sugarcane juice was boiled down to
produce crystallized sugar.
sugar mill
Here you will see smooth black limestone tiles that look like
slate. These tiles, made in Denmark's Gotlin Island in the
Baltic Sea, are often found around the burning trenches of
old sugar mills.
The ruins of the horsemill are behind the boiling room. Also
remaining on this old estate are the gatepost, the rum still
and the canning room.
Archeologists have found evidence of at least twenty-six slave
houses on the hillside to the east of the plantation.
Jan Loison took up the plantation at Leinster Bay in 1721.
He was a French refugee, who came to the Danish West Indies
as a result of the revocation of the Edict of Mann, which
had previously protected Protestants known as Huguenots against
persecution.
Loison, unlike many plantation owners of the time, did live
on the property. He married a woman named Maria Thoma. Jan
Loison died in 1724 just three years after starting up the
plantation. The widow Maria married Lt. Peter Froling who was
the commander of Frederiksvaern, the fort in Coral Bay. Peter
Froling was one of the characters in the historical novel by
John Anderson, The Night of the Silent Drums.
According to old tax records, by 1728, the plantation was
growing sugarcane, and within a year, a sugar works had been
established. The plantation was destroyed in the slave rebellion
of 1733-1734.
In 1818, at Leinster Bay Plantation, a slave was punished
so severely that he died as a result. Forty-seven slaves subsequently
ran away and hid in the bush. Officials came to the plantation
and tried to make the slaves go back to work. They were stoned
and forced to flee. It took a force of thirty soldiers sent
by the governor to end this rebellion.
In 1822, Hans Berg, a prominent and wealthy Dane and former
governor of the Danish West Indies purchased Leinster Bay.
Berg also owned the Annaberg Plantation and several estates
on St. Thomas.
In 1863, Thomas Lloyd became the owner of the Leinster Bay
Plantation, as well as the Annaberg Estate. In October of 1867,
there was a devastating hurricane which was followed about
ten days later by a severe earthquake. Most of the remaining
sugar plantations on St. John ceased to operate after that.
Leinster Bay and Annaberg were devastated by the twin disasters.
Lloyd gave up any hope of restoring the property and left
for Tortola without making any provisions for the future of
the plantation or the workers. He left two hundred employees
with no means of support whatsoever.
After emancipation in the Danish islands, the former slaves
became employees. Their status, however, was not much better
than it was under slavery. The laborers asked the authorities
if they could stay on and work the plantation on their own.
The complexity of the labor laws left them in a state of limbo.
They could not leave the island without a passport and permission,
nor could they simply leave and work elsewhere. Furthermore,
the authorities refused to let them farm the abandoned estate.
This incident, however, helped to point out, and eventually
change, these archaic laws which were designed to maintain
the plantation system and keep the former slaves tied to their
estates.
In 1874, George Francis bought Leinster Bay after he returned
from the Dominican Republic. He died shortly thereafter, and
his widow sold it to the Danish policeman Henry Clen, who married
a member of the Francis family.
In 1914, a man named Jorgeson bought Leinster Bay, and in
1920 it was sold to Herbert E. Lockhart of the prominent St.
Thomas Lockhart family. He owned the estate until 1972, when
it was acquired by the United States government as part of
the National Park.
The Lockharts used the property for cattle production. Members
of the Samuels family from Coral Bay looked after the estate
and the cattle for Lockharts.
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