Good Evening! As customarily, I sent you a big traditional straw basket of consciousness and a cool breeze from the easterly blowing Tradewinds from the shoreline of the historical waterfront township of Frederiksted aka Freedom City, US Virgin Islands. ********************************** The History of my beloved Estate La Grange place of my birth and the location of the buried remains of my unbiblical chord. Lawrd Harry the Judge. LA GRANGE PLANTATION IN THE HISTORIC ERA 1650-2009 by George F. Tyson La Grange was first settled during the French occupation of St. Croix 1650-1696. Themost reliable map of this period, prepared by the French engineer Blondel in 1667, showsa settlement belonging to Buissoniere in the general vicinity of today’s La Grange.Another French settlement named Granderie is nearby, but appears to be north oftodays La Grange. When Friedrich Moth arrived in 1734 to reconnoiter St. Croix’s WestEnd, he found the remains of one of these French “habitations”, which he named “LaGrange” and claimed for the Danish West India & Guinea Company.La Grange was not taken up and occupied by the Danish West India and GuineaCompany until 1746. Prior to that date the area had become a haven for runaway slaves(maroons), who posed a serious menace to the development of sugar production on theWest End of the island. Establishing a major sugar plantation at La Grange was part ofan overall government strategy to bring marronage under control on St. Croix. Sugarcultivation commenced in 1747, and by 1750 a settlement, including an animal mill forgrinding sugar cane, had been built on the same site as the present factory complex.Nonetheless, La Grange and other West End estates continued to experience high levelsof marronage until the late 1760s, when the threat was finally brought under control.The Danish West India & Guinea Company was dissolved in 1754, and it properties weretaken over by the Danish Crown. La Grange and the other Company plantations wereadministered by the Danish Government until 1763, when they were acquired by theSchimmelmann family of Denmark. An inventory of La Grange prepared on thatoccasion listed the following structures:a windmilla cattle milla sugar boiling housea curing housea still housea new cistern at the boiling housean old boiling house, converted into a store housea large dwelling house for the managera dwelling house for the surgeona dwelling house for the overseera new kitchena horse stablea small store house at the milla hospitalPeter Oxholms detailed 1779 map of the Frederiksted area shows the windmill andfactory at the same location as today. It also shows a substantial village, housing over300 enslaved individuals, southwest of the factory complex. The La Grange great house was located on a hill several hundred yards east of the main settlement. Detailed mapsprepared by the British Admiralty in 1851 and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in1920 depict the main settlement/factory site, with some internal rearrangements, at thesame location. In 1851, a steam engine was acquired and a unique red-brick steamchimney was built adjacent to the old factory. Modernization of the factory at this timeenabled the Schimmelmann’s to maintain production levels despite the ending of slaveryin 1848.La Grange played a prominent role in the Emancipation Rebellion of 1848. It was thebirthplace and home of John Gutliff (aka Moses Gottleib or Buddhoe) and several otherorganizers and leaders of the Rebellion. Summoned by the La Grange plantation bell,now at the Danish Maritime Museum, thousands of enslaved protesters assembled at theLa Grange village before marching into Frederiksted to demand their freedom.The Schimmelmann family held title to La Grange until 1895, when they sold out toGeorge A. Hagemann, a prominent Danish engineer, who was the foremost promoter ofcentral factories for sugar processing on St. Croix. The enterprising Hagemannestablished a corporation known as the La Grange Sugar Factory, Inc. and beganpurchasing several surrounding properties, including Prosperity and William plantations,which he linked to La Grange by a narrow gauge railroad. In 1911, he converted the oldLa Grange sugar factory into a modern central factory that processed the cane grown onsome 22,000 surrounding acres.In 1922, Hagemann’s heirs sold the West Indian Sugar Factory concern to a consortiumof local and American business men headed by George Fleming, which continued itsoperations. In the 1930s the owners instituted a colono system of production, similar tothat prevailing in Puerto Rico, whereby small plots of sugar land were rented out to estatelaborers. By 1932, 31 of these plots had been allotted, 25 of which were being worked.Initially, the colonos did not reside on their leaseholds, but rather commuted to them fromFrederiksted or the La Grange village. Starting in the 1940s these landholdings were soldoff in small parcels to local residents, most of whom continued to grow sugar, which theysold to the La Grange factory. Thus, La Grange played a central role in redistributingformer sugar cane land to the descendants of enslaved workers whose strength, enduranceand forced labor had produced colonial wealth for the Crucian plutocracy and the DanishState.In 1947, the Fleming consortium went bankrupt, and the Government seized the LaGrange factory for payment of back taxes. The factory was subsequently leased to theBrugal Rum Corporation which produced bottled rum and bulk molasses into the 1980s.In the late 1990s, a Spanish businessman leased the abandoned factory with the intent ofinstalling a micro-brewery and a pirate museum. This plan came to nothing, and for thelast several years the factory and its surrounding buildings has lay abandoned.In 1979, the Factory complex was placed on the National Register of Historic Places bythe National Park Service of the United States.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:46:49 +0000