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Excerpted from St. John Off The Beaten
Track ©
2006 Gerald Singer
The Bordeaux Mountain Trail runs between Lameshur
Bay and
the Bordeaux Mountain Road. Centerline Road is 1.7 miles from
the point where the trail meets the Bordeaux Mountain Road.
The Bordeaux Mountain Trail is 1.2 miles long and there is
a change in altitude of about 1,000 feet. The grade is, therefore,
quite steep. It can be strenuous going uphill and slippery
going down. The trick to enjoying this walk is to be sure to
pace yourself, watch your footing, and bring sufficient water
and sun protection.
The view from the intersection of Centerline Road and the
Bordeaux Mountain Road, near the Chateau Bordeaux Restaurant
was chosen as one of the “Ten Best Views” in the
Caribbean by Caribbean Travel & Life in their April 1996
Tenth Anniversary Issue.
At the bottom of the trail are the ruins of the old Lameshur
Bay Plantation. Exploring these ruins, you will find the
bay rum distillery, the sugar factory and the boiling bench.
You will also find a residence, a well, and an animal trough
that dates back to the more recent subsistence farming days
on St. John.
In the early part of the twentieth century, this estate was
dedicated mainly to the production of bay
rum oil. Bay rum
trees were cultivated on the upper regions of Bordeaux Mountain,
where you will see (and smell) many of these smooth-barked,
aromatic trees. This trail was once used to transport the bay
rum leaves harvested on Bordeaux Mountain, via donkeys, to
the bay rum distillery located at the beach at Lameshur Bay.
If you begin your walk from the beach, the first part of the
trail will be the steep four-wheel-drive road leading up
to a National Park ranger residence. A picturesque old stone
wall covered with bromeliads lines the dirt track. Just about
a quarter mile from the beach, the trail forks with the road
to the ranger residence turning off to the right and the
Bordeaux Mountain foot trail continuing up the mountain.
The trail is rocky and steep as it climbs along the western
edge of the Great Lameshur Bay Valley. Occasionally, swales
made of rocks cross the path. These rudimentary conduits
serve to divert rainwater across the trail instead of allowing
it to flow directly down the trail. Thus, the swales serve
to prevent rutting and erosion, which would normally result
when the natural vegetation has been disturbed.
Look for a sign with information about the Bordeaux Trail
Rehabilitation Project. About 100 yards past this sign, you
will find a seat, suitable for one person, made of dry stacked
stone with a flat top. Take advantage of this rustic resting
place, which was put together by the trail crew. You should
find more of these seats along the way, though some have been
damaged by hurricanes.
When the trail turns toward the right, you will come to a
large tree growing by the side of the path, next to which are
some flat rocks to sit on. Growing out of the tree is a strangler
fig. There is a beautiful view from here, which looks down
into Great Lameshur Bay and out at Yawzi Point between Great
and Little Lameshur Bays. To the southeast is an excellent
view of Ram Head Point. Just before the trail switches back
to the left for the first time, there is a narrow spur trail
to your right. This leads to a small, shady plateau and the
remains of a charcoal pit. Look for a tamarind and a genip
tree and a small stand of teyer palms. The ground cover is
love leaf.
Ascending the trail from here you will pass an area of pinguin,
or false pineapple, a spiny plant that produces an edible citrus-like
fruit. Notice how the environment changes with the elevation;
the higher up you go, the more moist and forest-like it becomes.
Leaving the cactus scrub surroundings of the lower trail, you
will pass through a dry forest environment with characteristic
vegetation such as genips, easily identifiable turpentine trees
with their reddish, shiny bark and the attractive black caper.
As you progress up the trail and the environment becomes even
more humid, you will begin to see the many bay rum trees planted
in the early 20th century to supply the distillery at Lameshur
Bay with their aromatic oil-rich leaves.
You may find another stone seat at this higher elevation,
also made by the trail volunteers. From here you can see over
the saddle in the mountains to the Sir Francis Drake Channel
and British Virgin Islands. After a few more switchbacks through
the shady forest, you will reach the end of the trail, which
emerges at the Bordeaux Mountain Road.
Across the road are the ruins of the Bordeaux Plantation. The
sugar factory was built between 1790 and 1820, during St.
John's best sugar production years. It was a T-shaped factory
representative of that period. In this case, however, a piece
of the “T” is missing. It was destroyed by the
road crew during the construction of the Bordeaux Mountain
Road. The boiling bench is still visible, as well as two
rum stills and two cooling cisterns. Parts of the canning
room also still exist. On the other side of the road are
the remains of a slave village. The estate house for the
plantation is up the hill on a knoll. There are three well-preserved
graves near the estate house.
The plantation was founded by Thomas Bordeaux in the 1720s.
He was a Frenchman who came to the Danish West Indies, now
known as the United States Virgin Islands, along with other
Frenchmen as a result of the revocation of the Edict of Mann,
which prohibited the French government to persecute the Protestants
known as Huguenots. Thomas Bordeaux, who was a prominent citizen
in St. Thomas, came to the Danish West Indies directly from
France. Although he was the owner of the property, he probably
never lived on the plantation. Bordeaux Plantation was later
owned by Jean Malville, a Moravian of French ancestry. Malville
was born in the Danish West Indies and became the first native-born
governor of the islands. During the time of his ownership the
plantation was called Malvilleberg.
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