As a part of our internship last semester, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to St. John. Out area of interest was the East End of the island, an area that we began to focus on in the archives in Copenhagen prior to our departure. The moist and hot air that “welcomed” us on our arrival the 21 of March would take some time to get used to, but we were soon acclimatized and heading into the jungle searching for potsherds and ruins. We made several trips out from our camp in Cinnamon Bay to the East End, accompanied by NPS Archaeologist Ken Wild, and at times other interns from the US Mainland. One of our earlier trips was to the ruins of Halover, an estate that had drawn our attention in the archives. According to the material found in the archives, this was one of the larger estates in the area which had up till 40 enslaved workers in the early nineteenth century. This, however, did not fit with the archeological findings at the site, which indicated that the site had most likely been abandoned in the 1790s. Later on, back in the archives, we found evidence, which combined with the archeological studies, suggested that the estate had moved to Turners Point, probably in the 1790s. This new piece of information would not have been possible to put together without the combination of archeological field work and archival studies. The trips out into the wilderness of the East End, the hours spend working with the American interns, as well as enjoying the free time with them, and the beautiful island itself, are just some of the fond memories that we have from our time on St. John.
- Signe Haubroe Flygare & Stig Søndergaard Rasmussen.