Early Maritime History of St. Thomas

By Charles Consolvo

After Columbus' thwarted landing at Salt River on St. Croix, the earliest documented visit by Europeans was by the Danes. Prince Rupert is said to have landed on St. Thomas and careeneed his ship on Hassel Island in what is now known as Careening Hole in the 1650x. (To careen a ship, it is heeled over on its side in shallow water to expose the bottom for repair.) The next recorded visit was by Captain John Smith, the founder of Jamestown. He, in the Susan B. Contant, stopped here in 1607 on his first voyage to North America to collect wood, water and turtles and found it to be a delightful spot.

The Danes succeeded in colonizing St. Thomas in 1671, and by 1682, the then Governor, Adolph Esmit was a bosom friend of the pirates cruising the Caribbean. One pirate, Jean Hamlin, arrived in his ship La Trompeuse to sell his loot, anchoring off Hassel Island next to the Trinity, another pirate ship made famous by the notorious Bartholemew Sharp. A British warship, in hot pursuit, approached to capture La Trompeuse and was driven off by her guns supported by the Danes, who also fired on him. The British captain withdrew and anchored out of range. That night he sent a cutting-out expedition to La Trompeuse and burned her, the conflagration also engulfing the Trinity. Both ships sank in the harbor and their remains lay buried there today. Isidore Paiewonski wrote a book about the incident, The Burning of the Pirate Ship Las Trompeuse.

There is a possibility that some bronze spikes and wood fragments discovered in a search in advance of the West Indian Company's proposed dredging of the harbor are in fact from the Trinity. Radio carbon dating provided a date of about 1650 for the wood, which would be the right dating, especially if analysis showed it to be teak. The Trinity before being captured by Sharp was La Santissima Trinidad, built by Spain in the Pacific.

The European wars of the 18th century brought prosperity through trade to St. Thomas, which had been declared a free port. In 1776, the American brig Nancy loaded gunpowder in St. Thomas to supply Washington's army. As she neared the coast of Delaware, she was chased by British warships and ran aground. Another American ship came to her aid and was able to off-load about two thirds of the gunpowder and her crew before the British boarding parties arrived. They also left a surprise, lighted fuses leading to the remaining gunpowder, which exploded, reportedly killing many of the British boarders.

In 1801 the British seized St. Thomas, building fortifications and quarters on Hassel Island, only to return it to the Danes after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. The repite was short-lived; the British again seized the island in 1807 and remained in possession until the end of the Napoleonic wars, greatly inhibiting the trade which had been the life blood of the island.