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l<' ::rn98 . . 57 1950 - I~ NATIC)NAL PARK • PREPARED BY ON ~1. ~~CF l ~n UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR The American Virgin Islands consist of a group of three principal Islands - St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John - and a number of sur- rounding smaller islands, rocks, and cays in the Caribbean chain. St. John is the smallest of the three, with an area of a little more than 12,000 acres - approximately the size of Bermuda. It lies some 1,440 miles southeast of New York City, 900 miles southeast of Miami, Florida, and about 50 miles east of Puerto Rico. The more populous islands of St. Croix and St. Thomas have been greatly changed over the years. Recently, they have become popular locations for commercial enterprises catering to tourists and for privately owned tropical homes and retreats. The Island of St. John, on the other hand, remains relatively undisturbed and possessed of unique qualities for a national park. The Virgin Islands are readily accessible from the eastern seaboard by air and water and have become popular with tourists in recent years. Cover photo - View of Eastern end of St. John from Bordeaux Mountain with Fortberg Hill in the foreground and Tortola Island (British Virgin Islands) in the background. 2 I I " IRGIN ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK PROJECT The Island of St. John is centrally located among the American and British Virgin Islands. F 2098 • V57 1956 Virgin Islands National Par k The Virgin Islands National Park, recommended by the Secretary of the Interior to the Congress, was authorized by the Act of August 2, 1956. It is limited to an area not to exceed 9,500 acres, including approximately 9,485 acres on the Island of St. John and ad- jacent rocks and cays and a small area for administrative and operational pur- poses on nearby St. Thomas. Tentative boundaries for the park in- clude the portions most suitable for park purposes and exclude about one-third of the island's acreage. The areas not in- cluded contain the principal settlements and the limited amounts of agricultural lands, lying close to the bays on the southwestern and eastern sides of the island, required by the resident popula- tion. (See map, pages 8 and 9.) St. John, set in the protected and colorful channels of the archipelago, is different from any area set apart in the United States or its Territories for na- tional park purposes. It does not re- quire elaborate development, since re- tention of its unspoiled charm is a prin- cipal objective. The national park on St. John was made possible by the contribution of some 5 ,000 acres of land on the island, acquired for the purpose by Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., with funds made available by Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller and members of the Rockefeller family. 3 dcENIC FEATURES AND SETTING St. John contains only 19.2 square miles of land. It is nine miles long, near- ly five miles wide, and rises abruptly from the sea to an elevation of 1,277 feet at the top of Bordeaux Mountain. The tropical vegetation covering 8 5 per- cent of the island contrasts pleasantly with the white sand of its beaches and the colorful hues of the surrounding waters. Centerline Road, extending from Cruz Bay on the west to Coral Bay on the east, meanders generally along the high central backbone of the island and gives access to many of its points of in- terest. From these, ever-changing views may be had of waters dotted with islands and cays, some belonging to the United States and others to Great Britain. To the west, across the two-mile width of Pillsbury Sound, lie St. Thomas and the two St. James Islands. Nearby are Lov- ango Cay and Congo Cay. Northerly and easterly beyond the International Boundary lie the British Virgin Islands, dominated by Tortola Island, and stretching eastward to Virgin Gorda. Drake's Passage, a channel three miles wide between St. John and Tortola, takes its name from Sir Francis Drake, who in 15 80 became the first European to sail through it. Eight-tenths of a mile across "The Narrows" from Mary Point 4 on the north shore of St. John lies the closest British possession, Great Thatch Island. To the south stretches the Carib- bean, with the island of St. Croix forty miles away. Petro glyphs or rock inscriptions carved by the Carib Indians before the Virgin Islands were discovered by Columbus. Gleaming white sand and the crystal clear waters make swimming the most popular recreational activity. -Photo by Fritz Henle ISTORY AND Columbus was probably the first Eu- ropean to see St. John, in the group of islands he named "Las Virgenes," in honor of St. Ursula and the eleven thou- sand virgins. At that time, the Carib Indians had already been occupying these islands, as has been determined by the stone picture writings they left be- hind. Archeological research by Theodore DeBooy in 1916-17 led to the conclu- sion that the petroglyphs, or stone writ- ings, were made in pre-Columbian days and that many of the inscriptions had already been obliterated by weathering. ARCHEOLOGY Even so, distinct figures remain on the rocks at Reef Bay, near the waterfall, and also on Congo Cay and Carval Rock off St. John to the northwest. On the north side of the island, at Old Oven Hill near Leinster Bay, pot- sherds of Carib origin have been found. DeBooy states that the period of Carib occupancy must have been of short duration. Ethnologists believe that these Caribs came originally from South America, traveling up the chain of the Lesser An- tilles in search of suitable places to live. Some of the tribes located on small is- lands not suited to agriculture, and these tribes became warlike, going off in boats to plunder the tribal settlements on the larger islands. It is thought that the Caribs of St. John belonged to one of these warrior tribes. The pages of history for the period directly following the discovery of St. John and the other Virgin Islands by Columbus are blank. But a German his- torian named Oldendorp records that about 15 5 5 the Caribs were driven from the Virgin Islands by Charles V of Spain and his "Conquistadores." At least there were no Indians on St. John when the first European settlers arrived in the 17th century. The first mention of settlers on the Virgin Islands was made in 162 5 but St. John was not successfully settled until 1684. All earlier attempts at coloniza- tion failed because the English from Tortola drove off the would-be settlers. In 1687, the Danish West India and Guinea Company laid claim to St. John, but it was not until March 25, 1717 that the first permanent colony was estab- lished on the island. Twenty planters and five soldiers landed at Coral Harbor on the east end of St. John and defied the British to drive them away. Immediately upon their arrival, they built Fort Berg on the summit of a small peninsula now known as Fortberg Hill, separating Coral Harbor from Hurri- cane Hole. This was a most strategic location because no one could approach from any direction without being visi- ble to the watchers in the fort. A bat- 6 tery was built in conjunction with the fort but both are ruins today. By 1726, all available land on St. John was taken by new settlers for sugar plantations, and the island flourished. Life was apparently serene and prosper- ous until November 13, 1733, when the Historic Reef Bay Estate House, the center of a ftourshing sugar plantation of a century ago. ll slaves revolted. Some of the planters fled to Peter Durlieu's estate, now known as Caneel Bay Plantation. They stayed there six months, while the revolt held sway. Finally French soldiers from the Island of Martinique arrived, quelled the riot and carried off many of the Negroes to a period of French slavery.'~ * Discrepancies in historical accounts of d ie rebellion of the slaves and the results of that rebellion make further research on this subject desirable. Wooo.s With the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies in the mid-1800's, it was felt to be impossible to keep up the old estates; the planters departed, and the island began to go back to bush. Thus ended the agricultural era. The Virgin Islands were purchased by the United States from Denmark in 1917. It is noteworthy that as early as 1867 the United States was interested in them. Low WALL Fi.oo.R P LAN MAtN Hou3£ - .JcAu r,·.;:.o- REEF BAY ESTATE ZO .JO 1/.0 SO FT fib./f55 7 8 64° 50' ATLANTIC 0 C E A N / ~ ~" VAR 1• 3?°W (111411) 22' r-----------r------------------,===c--f?'"i~~-~----- ANNUAL I NC REASE 5• '"'"""""· ... Q----+-_:_:_----1-------- 64°50' 48' A 51. MAP - U . S. COAST ANO GEODETIC SUCl.V~V CHART NO. 32:41 ST. JOHN <jl \ .. ~ fQ I SC4LS. -40000 Yards Kilome t ers Statute Miles R~ef'Bay J' 42' CARIBBEAN S E A 42' CORAL B.AY 64 °40' [AST£NO PT. WEST INDIES VIRGIN ISLANDS ST. JOHN DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE VIRGIN ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK ~TENTATIVE PARK LIMITS DECEMBER 19511 64°40' 22' 18' 9 ATUR.AL HISTORY St. John Island, which is one of the Lesser Antilles group, is of ancient vol- canic origin. There are also some sedi- mentary and metamorphic rocks, such as limestone and schist. The mountain- ous topography found on the island to- day was formed by the geological pro- cesses of folding, faulting, and erosion which followed the deposition of the sediments and the extrusion of the vol- canic rocks. Steep mountains, topped by Bordeaux Mountain with an elevation of 1,277 feet, deep, narrow valleys, and many bays with pure white beaches have resulted. The many interesting coral reefs extending outward from the is- land are being built up on an under- water shelf of rock formed during a recent period of submergence. There are no known minerals of commercial value on the island, although traces of many kinds have been discovered. The vegetation o,n the island consists of a second-growth, tropical forest with associated shrubs, viines and her- baceous plants. The original virgin forest was removed or radically altered during the 1700's or early 1800's, when much of it was cleared for sugar plan- tations, and most of the remainder was cut to produce charcoal for sugar refin- ing and other processing operations. With the abandonment of the planta- St. John is truly a tropical paradise. -Photo by Fritz Henle tions in the middle 1800's, forest growth again took over. Today, approximately 8 5 percent of the island is forest-covered and there is little visible evidence of the former uses. While not of commercial importance because of its composition and size, the forest has importance and value for park purposes which should increase with time and protection. This tropical forest has an unusually diversified flora for such a small area and seems to be unique even for the Car- ibbean region. According to N. L. Brit- ton in The Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and The Virgin Islands, 1923-25, more than 260 species of native woody plants were specifically recorded for St. John, of which 15 4 were trees, 72 shrubs, 26 woody vines, and 8 cacti. The more common trees found on the island in - elude cinnamon-bay, various species of fig, palms, mahogany, mango, soursop, breadfruit, guava, seagrape, and man- grove. Flamboyant, hibiscus, bougain- villea, and other flowering shrubs are found in abundance. Several species of orchid and ferns also add interest. In addition, there are on the rocky and semi-arid slopes on the leeward side of the island several species of cacti, one of which (Cephalocereus royeni) grows at least twenty feet tall and rather close- ly resembles the organpipe cactus of the 11 Southwest. The flora of the island ap- pears to be in a natural succession to- ward its original condition. Wildlife on St. John Island, as on other islands of the West Indies, is not unusually abundant or varied. The mon- goose, a small animal introduced from Asia many years ago, can still be found even though the government has tried to exterminate it because it destroys chickens, birds, and small animals. Small lizards are common but there are no snakes, and mosquitoes and flies are rela- tively scarce. Bird life, on the other hand, is plentiful. There are probably between 10 0 and 1 5 0 species of resident and migratory birds found on St. John. Most of these are members of North American families rather than tropical 12 families. Among the more common land birds are doves, pigeons, mockingbirds, warblers, hummingbirds, and hawks, and parakeets have been reported. Many kinds of waterfowl, including pelicans, boobies, grebes, ducks, gulls, terns, frigate birds, herons and egrets, are seen around its shores. Fish common to the Caribbean Sea abound off the shores of St. John. Among the large deep-sea fish are sailfish, tar- pon, barracuda, kingfish, dolphin, tuna, bonita, and shark. There are also many small, bright-colored tropical fish to add interest to the turquoise waters. Many brilliant and varied forms of shells, including the large king and queen conch shells, are found on the bea~hes. ECREATION POSSIBILITIES Ruins of an extensive old sugar mill at Caneel Bay. -Photo by Fritz Henle This large and spectacular ca1ctus is a common landmark in tht· Virgin Islands. The Island of St. John tells the story of the settlement of the Caribbean is- lands and life as it existed from prehis- toric time. In addition to features al- ready described, there are bush-covered remains of the 18th-century forts and batteries, picturesque ruins of extensive estates constructed during the planters' era, and parts of old sugar mills and equipment. To become best acquainted with the island, one should travel either by horse- back or on foot. It is possible on the existing trails to plan a number of trips that will include both mountain scenery and seaside beauty without retracing any of the route. Hikers and horseback riders do not :find either of these activi- ties under the tropical sun uncomfort- ably hot because of the abundant shade and the constant blowing of the trade winds that give the island its even cli- mate. Sailing and other boating possibilities are almost unlimited. The many shel- tered coves and harbors offer ample an- chorage and winds and tides around the island are ideal for sailing most of the year. Swimming from white sandy beaches is one of the most popular sports of the island, and aqua-lung enthusiasts :fihd the sea around the island ideal for their underwater activities. 13 ISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION The climate of the Virgin Islands is subtropical and healthful. Warm, sun- ny days throughout the year provide an average annual temperature of about 78 °, with a difference of only about 6° between winter and summer. The lowest recorded temperature is 69° and the highest 91 °. Normal annual rainfall is between 40 and 5 0 inches and the humidity is comparatively low. There were 7 46 people residing on St. John in 1950, as reported in the census records for that year. St. Thomas is the principal transport hub of the American Virgin Islands and nearly all visitors to St. John arrive via St. Thomas. Regular mail and passenger service is maintained between the two islands by municipally owned and operated launches. Tourist accommodations on St. John are available at Caneel Bay, Trunk Bay, Cruz Bay, and Coral Bay. The Virgin Islands, with their many bays and island passages, are outstanding for boating and sailing. 14 Aerial view of St. John, with Caneel Bay Plantation Resort in the foreground. 15 UNITED ST A TES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fred Seaton, Secretary NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Conrad L. Wirth, Director Printed July, 195 5 Reprinted November, 19 5 6 lithographed by I lllllll llllll l~~lliilil illlillilf lllll lllll llllllil DSC015320