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";ti^giii":-Islands V ■X •I -A 1""" p .^ /-MA «&- . ' ^ V- » P 0 REDUCED 8" x 10" DRAWINGS \ v M1I11K¥« SMte^si^ ^■ii^r-V^,^-^;^-; -^V-/;.-" f "^ - ■;-:..■-!.•'..^r-; ^, " j-.^j: ■ ■;,-; *-' -; -: : ^\T/IK>Av™X >%'"'i'^V/-; -:- _ f? :~-y&:-ij-~'-'-'<?i*:'' -si'- ■:%: "-' "L-'r":'\."^ ^-"-i. - '?:*, . :r !^;~'l;":'""":-: "-C" :- "^ '"" ": - ;-J-rj'- ^.v"'^.;- *!;!"./"*" : -'■?■■ '-,''■"-■/"^'.- ■;- 4."".^Si'-Ji'" -' ; 'A'i'V^'^v 4 ''; --' " "' K\:^^:'^V";^"^V'v4^'.^T-.T."-^"'"■. ': ^^Po?f .F.";:;Uv ■,-.'.-.^j-_;";" .'."V.:^". - "z>, ~--\~ ; ,- '----^ -^ ?:;:.,.:--::-'. ^"■. , ".,:^-. ,:,- -. ;.. -■-- ,'.'■.. -.-.::-,'..:, ;r a,.,,..-' £ : . \ .'.'. ■. -"-<■::-■■-; :. ;$ -^, . -:\ S;^;-;; v^#'-;^.v.-"" WRITTEN- HISTORICAL AND.DESCRIPTIVE DATA ESTATE EEEF BAY HAER No. VT-2 (Page 1) HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD Estate Reef Bay ("Par Force") Vl-2. Location: Date of Construction: Original Owner; Present Owner: Significance: Current Condition: Present Use: Historian: South central coast of St. John Island, United States Virgin Islands, adjacent to Reef Bay. Sugar Estate ca. 1725 Sugar Factory ca. 1760 Steam Mill installed 1862 with accom- panying alteration of factory. Virgin Islands National Park, United -States National Park Service, The factory at Estate Reef Bay affords one of the finest surviving examples of the sugar industry in the West Indies. Boiling coppers, used for processing cane-juice, remain in place in their masonry boiling bench, and traces re- main of other steps in the sugar-making process. The Estate is also one of only two on St. John known to have con- verted to steam power for crushing sugar cane. Factory well preserved and recently restored by Virgin Islands National Park. Steam Mill in excellent condition, Abandoned; serves as historic exhibit in National Park. John C. Runna It is understood that access to this material rests on the condition that should any of it be used in any form or by any means, the author of such material and the Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service at all times be given proper credit. i^TAXLi Kh^b' BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 2) Estate Reef Bay, located on the south coast of St. John, has been described as "potentially the foremost exhibit of the sugar plan- tation within the Virgin Islands." [1] The recently restored factory building contains a complete set of boiling coppers in situ and in- cludes several other remains of the sugar and rum-making processes. A horizontal steam engine and cane crusher, manufactured in 1861, survive in excellent condition, while an earlier animal mill, missing the crushing apparatus, has been reconstructed on its grinding platform. The estate Great House [2], an animal pen, and five small structures which were auxiliary buildings and housing quarters for the factory workers, also remain in varying states of preservation. The present "Estate Reef Bay" represents the mid-19th century union of what previously had been two separate plantations. The first of these, "Estate Par Force," was situated on the east side of Reef Bay Valley "in the midst of a sizeable amount of open ground across the valley and north around and up the mountain slopes." [3] It was presumably set- tled soon after the Danish settlement of St. John in 1718. The name "Zytsema" appears on a letter signed by several planters informing the governor of St. Thomas of the slave rebellion on St. John in 1733. [4] Oxholm's 1780 map of St. John [5] names Anthony Zytsema as the owner of Estate Par Force and depicts five structures, including an estate house, a presumed sugar factory, and an animal mill, on the plantation. [6] The second tract was situated on the northeast end of Reef Bay and was unnamed by Oxholm. His 1780 map indicates that this land belong- ed to C. Weyle [7] and was a'site of cotton cultivation and livestock raising. [8] No facilities f&r sugar manufacturing are indicated. Ownership records show that in 1792 the executors for Zytsema's estate transferred the land to Juro Vriehus. [9] Oxholm's 1800 St. John map [10] indicates that the estate, still named "Par Force," con- tinued to employ an animal mill in its sugar factory. [11] Its neigh- boring estate is not named on Oxholm's chart but is designated with the number 4, "the same as Par Force up the valley a little way, perhaps suggesting that it may have already been linked with this estate." [12] As of 1800 this was apparently still only a cattle ranch. John Vetter, who assumed ownership of Par Force in 1830, passed his holding on in 1833 to A. E. Vetter. Although the exact date is uncertain, presumably it was between 1800 and 1844 that the_ unnamed es- tate was consolidated with Par Force to become "Estate Reef Bay," and the existing factory at Par Force was replaced by "a factory on the more advantageous site of the former cattle farm." [13,14] A. M. Perth acquired the estate in 1844 and later that same year sold it to L. D. Smith. [15] ESTATE BEEF BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 3) The Reef Bay factory building, recently restored from its ruin- ous state by the National Park Service, is modeled upon Oxholm's ideal T-shape design for a sugar factory. It is situated with the head of the T (curing and storage rooms) facing to the north and oriented east to west, and with the stem of the T (sugar-works room) oriented north to south. The stem of the T measures 40 feet,6 inches in width by 38 feet in length. [16] A boiling bench made of masonry runs along the sea- ward west wall and supports five coppers, all of which are in good con- dition except for the second "grand" copper. The dimensions of these five coppers are: first grand copper, 6-1/2 feet in diameter; second grand copper, 6 feet; third copper, 5-1/2 feet; fourth copper, 5 feet; fifth copper or "teache," 5-1/2 feet. . There were no clarifiers in this factory, suggesting that the amount of cane-juice to be clarified was small enough to be performed in the coppers alone. A firing trench to the west of the boiling bench serviced the coppers, with the heat controlled by a series of vents opening into a flue also below the boiling bench. A roof supported on arches and square pillars covered the firing trench, and "three rectangular windows below the level of the trench roof and two circular vents in the space between the roof of the firing trench and the higher roof of the boiling bench allowed the steam from the boiling bench to escape." [17] A wall running north and south, broken by three archways, divided the sugar-works room into two sections. The eastern section housed two rectangular wooden cooling pans, 14 feet long and 6-1/2 feet wide. The east and south walls both carried a door and two windows for ventila- tion. The roof over the eastern section was lower than the roof over the boiling bench. [18] The roughly circular grinding platform of the animal mill measures approximately 80 feet in diameter and is raised about 6 feet above the surrounding ground level. It is bounded by a stone retaining wall roughly 2 feet thick. [19] The grinding apparatus is missing, but the wooden framework has been reconstructed. A stone gutter conveyed juice from the mill to the boiling house, entering the strucutre through an opening in the south wall about 4-1/2 feet above ground level. There was apparently never a windmill at Reef Bay. The valley location was presumably ill-suited for such an apparatus. Cane-juice passed from the stone gutter into the boiling bench coppers, where it was clarified. Presumably the furnace below the boiling bench was fueled by bagasse (cane trash) or wood. As the juice boiled, impurities were skimmed off into a skimming gutter running along the front of the boiling bench. These skimmings flowed or were ESTiVTE REEF R&y HM No. VI-2 (Page 4) washed into a copper resting on the ground, where they were stored for later use as fermenting mash in rum-distilling. Workers ladled the cane-juice from one copper to the next, and gradually the juice took on the constituency of a thick syrup. "Sticking" occurred' in the teache, which was slightly elevated above the other coppers, and the syrup was conveyed, using gravity and a portable wooden trough, to either of the two wooden cooling pans in the east section of the sugar- works room. The syrup slowly cooled in these pans and formed crystals. Molasses and other products which drained off during this process were released, presumably through a petcock, into a small receptacle be- neath the cooling pans, and these products were also used in the rum- distilling process. The head of the T is divided into three rooms, and measures 18 feet-,-3 inches wide and 65 feet, 8 inches long. To the west is the stor- age and fermentation room. Here sugar and rum were held for shipment, and the mash mixture for rum was fermented in casks. A small central room provided access to the sugar works room; it also held a tapping pit for rum passing from the still through the worm, which was housed in a cistern built against the head of the T. The eastern section of the T-head was the curing room, in which hogsheads containing crystaliz- ed sugar were supported on a wooden framework to allow molasses to drain out. This framework is missing, but the three coppers that collected the draining molasses remain in place. A simplified rum-distilling process was carried on at Reef Bay, The lack of a doubler indicates that the entire process took place solely in the still and the cooling cistern. The still, measuring 5-1/2 feet in diameter, was serviced by a furnace beneath and a chimney to the east, and it was built against the north side of the cistern. Measuring 10 feet wide and 17 feet long, this cistern held the water which cooled the hot vapors passing from the still through the worm, causing them to condense into rum which was then gathered in the interior tapping pit of the central T-head room. A vent flue east of this.;cistern runs be- neath the T-head and connects with the main furnace beneath the boiling bench. Smith owned Estate Reef Bay until-.1855, when 0. I. Bergust and Company acquired it. The estate manager, William H. Marsh, improved and*enlarged the sugar factory in the early 1860s. A steam engine and cane crusher, numbered 286 and 291 respectively, both manufactured in 1861 by W. A. McOnie in Glasgow, Scotland, were installed in 1862. This cast-iron horizontal steam engine survives in remarkably well- preserved condition. Its major features include a bore of 12--Anches and a s-t-roke of .24 inches; a D slide-valve; a cast-iron connecting rod with box ends; a two-ball Watt-type governor; and an eccentric that provided ESTAXE REEF BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 5) lateral motion for a pump on one side and the valve gear on the other. The flywheel, 10 feet in diameter with a 4-3/4-inch face is mounted on the shaft that drove two reduction gears whose ratio was 11-7/11:1. The cane mill's three crushing rollers have diameters of 19 inches, and the two bottom rollers are slightly longer than the three-foot top roller. The engine room, added in the early 1860s to house the machinery, measures 25 feet, 5 inches in width by 27 feet, 3 inches in length, and with its associated chimney was "constructed solely for ... utilitarian purpose: and little effort [was] given towards creating an architectural impression." [20] Turning 90-degrees to the west from the boiling bench, the flue passes beneath the steam boiler and extends 7 feet,.. 6 inches beyond the engine room to a stack 25 feet, 8 inches high. The addition of a furnace at the south end of the firing trench made it possible to operate the boiling bench and the steam engine separately. A small cistern to the east of the engine room serviced the steam boiler. The feedwater was preheated by passing through a 7-foot long heat-exchange pipe that enclosed the engine's smaller exhaust pipe. Bergust and Company put their estate up for auction in 1864. They advertised it in the St. Croix Avis as "Sugar Estate Parforce with steam mill, stock and cattle and all appurtenances." Regarding the sugar-- works, the advertisement listed "fixtures, cookers, coppers, etc." and further noted "one steam mill without clarifyers, 8 horsepower," and "1 still and worm." The animal mill and grinding platform were termed "useless." [-21] ,. The estate went to Marsh, who owned it until his death in 1909, Marsh erected a small wooden house east of the factory building, and apparently he and his family members used it as a dwelling. [22] Another small structure, a masonry building of field stone and brick (the same materials used in the factory walls), was apparently used for storage. [23] This building, situated to the southeast of the dwelling-house, is, like the dwelling, inrruins. Marsh also purchased neighboring tracts, including parcels from Estate Little Reef Bay and Lameshur, and Carolina and Maho Bay holdings. [24] While other estates closed down their sugar-works and converted to cattle ranches or simply reverted to forested land before the turn of the century, Marsh maintained his operations until the early years of the 20th century. There are several versions as to when ana why the operations were finally halted. By one account, a factory worker, Ivan Dalmida, "was caught in the flywheel of the cane crusher and mangled to death" in 1908, and "the machinery was stopped and never run again." [25] ESTATE REEF BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 6) Family recollections maintain that operations ceased in 1916 after a hurricane caused considerable damage. [26] Still another account, from 1925, notes that Reef Bay had the "only sugar-mill now on the is- land." [27] Whatever the case, following Marsh's death in 1909, [28] the estate passed to his four daughters Malvina, Idina, Ella, and Anna. Apparently for a brief time (during the "Bay Oil Boom" on St. John) the rum still and furnace were utilized in the production of Bay Rum. [29] The sugar plantation, once cultivation had ceased, reverted to pasture land for cattle, Ella Marsh lived at the Parforce Great House until 1951, when she sold the estate to Frank Faulk. By this date the factory building was "roofless and in ruins," and Faulk laid temporary roofing over part of the structure. [30] The ruins at Reef Bay were restored to their present condition in the 1960s by the Virgin Islands National Park. ESTATE REEF BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 7) NOTES Frederik C. Gjessing, "Historic Structures Report, Part I: Architectural Data Section on Sugar Factory and Mill, Reef Bay Estate,. Virgin Islands National Park," (Washington: U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, 1968), p. 11. Hereafter referred to as "Gjessing, HSR." ^The Estate Great House is described in Frederik C. Gjessing's "Historic Structures Report, Part I: Architectural Data Section on Reef Bay Great House."' 3 Charles E. Hatch, Virgin Islands National Park — St. John Island ("The Quiet Place") With Special Reference to Annaberg Estate, Cinnamon Bay Estate, (Washington: National Park Service, 1972), p. 133. Here- after referred to as "Hatch Report." John P. Knox, A Historical Account of St. Thomas, W. I., (New York: Charles Scribner, 1852), p. 73. *P. L. Oxholm, "A Color Rendered Manuscript Being His Survey of St. John Made in 1780." 6Hatch Report, p. 133. This is presumably Carl Friderick Weyle, an administrator for the Danish West India-Guinea Company on St. John until 1762. (Biographi- cal material in file at St. Thomas Public Library, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.) Hatch Report, p. 135. ^Ownership records are found in the file entitled "Par Force" in the land ownership records for St. John contained in the Recorder of Deeds Office, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. 10P. L. Oxholm, "Map over the Danish Island of St. John in America," (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1800). 1;Leharles Ei Hatch, Jr., "Reef Bay ('Par Force1) Estate House and Sugar Factory, Virgin Islands National Park, Historic Structures Report History Data," (National Park Service, Office of History and Historic Architecture, Eastern Service Center, 1970), p. 9. Hereafter referred to as "Hatch Reef Bay Report." HSR: • ESTATE REEF BAY -HRER NO, VI-2 (Page 8) 12 Hatch Report, p. 135. "Hatch notes in his "Reef Bay Report": From this point on, for a century or more, the most consistent designation for the estate house was "Par Force" and that for the structure near the Bay, which in essence became its factory site, Reef Bay. This designation continued even after the two were joined as parts of a larger plantation holding, (p. 9) 14 Gjessing discusses the precise dating of the factory in his The details of the factory correspond closely to the architectural treatment of the Reef Bay Great House and are undoubtedly the work of the same architect or builder. It poses several questions. If the 1844 date of the Great House is correct, was the factory rehabilitated and given an architectural character in 1844 to harmonize with the architecture of the new Great House? Or was the factory actually built in 1844 at the same time as the Great House? This is pos- sible but not likely, (p. 8) "Gjessing [note 14} continues: Was the factory and the Great House both built prior to 1844 and this date only [the] indication of changes made by either A™ M. Perth or L. D. Smith when they acquired the estate in that year? (pp. 8-9) Architectural measurements and descriptions are from Gjessing, HSR, pp. 4-10. 17Ibid., p. 6. 18Gjessing notes that the older factory section "exhibits consider- able evidence of preoccupation with architectural decoration, far more than you would expect in a structure of its kind." He continues: It stands on an articulated base with stucco band work at corners and around windows and door open- ings. A double band takes the place of a cornice and the space between them is divided in panels corresponding to the fenestration of the wall below. Acroterions define the corners of the main elements of the structure. The ornamental plaster work is carried through on the interior, and there are indica- tions both of the interior and the exterior of a color treatment of band work as well as painted joints emphasizing the decorative effect, (p. 8) ESTATE REEF BAY HAER No. VI-2 (Page 9) 19 "Observations on the Architecture at Reef Bay Estate and Fortberg Hill, St. John, Virgin Islands," (undated; author not given but prepared by Frederik C. Gjessing), p. 10. Hereafter referred to as "Observations." 20Gjessing, HSR, p. 8. ■'.'"'.. 21 Given in Hatch Report, p. 134; originally in St. Croix Avis, 1 January 1864. Hatch notes that this advertisement also listed "1 Overseer house," a "Sailing boat," a rowboat, and livestock in- cluding 4 horses, 17 asses, and 74 horned cattle. He cites other information from a document, "Conditions for Auction Sale of the Sugar Plantation Par-force," National Archives Record Group no. 55, "Banish West Indies," conveyed to him by Frederik D. Gjessing. This supple- mentary information includes the "Managers House," Servants rooms," kitchen, oven, large cistern, "2 Cattle pens," and a number of household furnishings. It also mentioned "24 first Class Labourers Domino Pastureman all included" and "9;second Class Labourers." (Ibid.) ^"Observations," p. 10. Gjessing states (HSR) that after their" father's death in 1909, Anna Marsh lived in the factory-site house and her sister Ella lived in the Parforce Great House. Anna Marsh was murdered in the small wooden house in 1941. (p. 4) 23 "Observations," p. 10. Unidentified ruins of a third building, also composed of masonry, lie to the south of this structure, as does as small bake oven. The anijnal pen, flanking the southeast wall of the grinding platform, survives in fairly stable condition. 24 Hatch Report, p. 134. 25Gjessing, HSR, p. 3. "^Cited in Hatch Report, p. 135, note 18. Original reference in Clarence L. Johnson, "St. John and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands of the United States," 1950, pp. 16-17. 27 Cited in Hatch Report, p. 135, note 18. Original reference in James W. McGuire, Geographical Dictionary of the Virgin Islands of the United States, (Washington: Department of Commerce, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1925), p. 156, McGuire also noted (p. 156) that the name "Reef Bay" has been variously given as: "Refbay,"" "Reffbay," "Riffbayen," "Revbay," "Ripbay," "Riffbay," and "Bahia del Arreeife." ESTATE REEF BAY HAER No. VT-2 (Page 10) 28 Marsh's body is buried in a small cemetery, now greatly deteriorated, south of the grinding platform. Malvina Marsh died soon afterward and was buried next to her father. (Gjessing, HSR, p. 3) 29"Observations," p. 8. Hatch (Report, p. 157) notes [after Luther K. Zabriskic, The Virgin Islands of the United States of America: Historical and Descriptive, Commercial and Industrial, (New York, 1918)] that an "E. W. Marsh" (possibly Ella Marsh?) was one of "the principal operators in the bay leaf and oil industry in St. John." 30 Gjessing, HSR, p. 4. • .. Addettdum To: HAER No. VI-2 ,' ESTATE .REEF BAY, SUGAR FACTORY Reef Bay Quarter UAEiZ St, John Island rfff^K- Virgin ^Islands Vjf PHOTOGRAPHS Historic American Buildings Survey National Park Service Department of the Interior Washington, D.C. 20013-7127