The battle cry for the Spanish American War which started in 1898 was “Remember the Maine”.
The United States warship by that name had entered Havana harbor on January 25th, 1898. On February 15th, at 9.40 pm an explosion ripped the Maine apart. Only 88 men out of a complement of 26 officers and 328 sailors and marines had survived. All 22 black sailors on board died among them the star pitcher, William Lambert.
This incident led to the Spanish American War in which the United States ended up with Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines as conquests of war and lingering doubts as to whether the Maine had been sacrificed for political purposes to gain more territory for the United States. The newspapers of the day questioned the official report from the Navy about the sinking of the battleship.
The victims were later buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C.
The Mast of the Maine forms the centerpiece of the monument to the victims of the Maine. On a visit to that former plantation of General Robert E. Lee, I saw the monument. On the monument I saw the name of Charles F. Hassell and took a photo of the section of the monument with that name on it. Interestingly enough the thought crossed my mind: “I wonder if he has any Saba connection?” On my return to Saba I wrote about the trip in my newspaper the “Saba Herald”. Some old timers came forward,and told me that he was a brother of Isaac Hassell from “Over-the-Peak” and that he was an uncle of Fred Hassell and Ferius Hassell. Some years later Mr. Lenny Hassell who was married to Nan (Joanna Johnson) sent me documents which he had obtained from the Navy Department. All of these documents were relating to the death of Charles F. Hassell, as well as to the subsequent pension of $12.-per month which his mother Johannah used to receive from the United States government. The House Over-the-Peak, known as “Isaac’s House” was actually built from the money Johannah received when her pension was regulated. In those days a carpenter would build a good size house for $30.—and for a large wooden house $120.—Not per day mind you. He built the entire house for that price with his handsaw and hammer. And delivered the house in six weeks.
The report of death contains the following information, which should be of interest to our readers. Name of deceased: Charles Ferius Hassell.
Born on Saba, July 1st, 1863 (the same day as the emancipation of the slaves. A freedom child, he later lost his life in an event which caused the Spanish-American war). Rank: Gunners Mate, 3rd class. Date of death February 15th, 1898. Place of death: Havana. Cause of death: Asphyxia ex submersion. The document states further: “I hereby certify that Charles F. Hasell, Gunners Mate 3rd class, U.S. Navy, died while attached to the U.S.S. “Maine”. Death occurred in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on the night of February 15th, 1898, as the result of an explosion and the sinking of the U.S.S. “Maine”. Record of deceased: Naïve of Saba, West Indies, Age 34 years, 7 months, Height 5 feet 10 inches.Complexion:Negro.Where enlisted: New York. When enlisted; April 25th, 1895. Previous service, about 5 years and 2 months. First enlisted January 21st, 1889.
His mother Johannah, was 70 at the time of his death. That same year an application was made on her behalf by the local Kings Council and Notary, Engle Heyliger Simmons for a pension. Also the Government schoolmaster Mr. R.L.Hassell, wrote a letter on her behalf to the Commissioner of Pensions. A general affidavit had the following information: Moses Johnson and Lovelock Hassell had appeared before the Notary and declared the following: “that they had been personally acquainted with the person Charles F.Hassell, native of this island, son of Johannah Hassell, late Gunners Mate on the U.S. ship “Maine”, from his earliest youth, that he never married on this island, and that to the best of their knowledge and belief was never married in any other place, and that at his death he left no widow nor minor child.”
Mrs. Johannah Hassell, was taken care of by Henry Johnson Hassell (“Henny Plunkie”) a Captain and owner of the house which used to be the main building of the Captain Quarters Hotel. She died on April 30th, 1913 and was around 85 years of age.
Also taking part in the Spanish American War from Saba was Capt. Lawrence Johnson, who was in the United States Navy and Waldron E.R.O.P. Simmons as well.
In Havana once in the museum which used to be the Governor’s mansion I saw there, part of the wreckage of the “Maine”. I told the guide that I hoped she did not mind that I touch that cold hard steel, but I needed to do so to communicate with a fellow islander who had lost his life on that man-of-war. The National Geographic Magazine in February 1998, one hundred years after the disaster carried an article on the sinking of the “Maine”. With this article is included a photo of part of the crew. There are two black men in the middle of the photograph on the right of the photo. The one with the round hand resembles some of the family of former days here on Saba. The photo is in the Library of Congress and was taken by the Detroit Publishing Company.
In a time when Sabans were dependent on the sea many were lost on foreign shores and we end with a stanza from the Recessional of Rudyard Kipling: Lest we Forget.
In Dr. Robert Mol’s book “Doctor on Saba”, he has an extract from a letter written by Miss Esseline Douglas from Suriname who worked as a midwife on Saba from l942 to l945. Most of the doctors and professional midwives in the 20th century on Saba were from Surinam.
When she was an old lady Nurse Douglas returned to Saba and came to look me up at the office. According to her I was the last child delivered by a local midwife and she wanted to meet me. Given her description of conditions Nurse Douglas met on Saba when she started working here, she must have considered it a miracle that I had survived the delivery.
Nurse Angele Cagan was one of the most famous midwives on St. Maarten where she worked in the St. Rose Hospital. Back in her time there were not many, if any, deliveries of babies from Saba. However, this changed so much in recent times that those residing on Saba and born on St. Maarten will soon bypass those born on Saba. This ceremony was on the occasion of her 25th anniversary. Here with her brother Gaston, and Father Boradori, doctor Levendag and a number of friends and family.
Too bad I was off island at the time. I would have enjoyed meeting her.
In her letter she writes:
” At that time there was an average of 25 to 30 deliveries per year. Most children were born in the period from September to December because most of the men came to the island around Christmas. The physicians had finally asked for professional obstetrical help, especially because of the high perinatal death rate.
The day after I arrived, an old crone came to introduce herself as the person who had done the work for years. When I asked her about her work, she showed me a small handbag, in which, in the middle of some prune tobacco, there was a small scissors, a few small pieces of naval string (most probably mine!), and a piece of cotton wool.
If a delivery took too long, the doctor was called, frequently too late. Those who could afford it would go to Puerto Rico or to St.Kitts at the point when they were due.
My care for pregnant women began shortly after I arrived and I did not find it difficult to get the women to come to my office hours. I visited those who lived too far away using a horse or a mule. Most deliveries were done at home. A number of women were admitted to the hospital, an old house in The Bottom, which also served as out-patient clinic. I did the puerperial care in the patient’s home. The perinatal death rate decreased considerably, and it was good to hear that the Minister had said in church that the area of the churchyard where unbaptized children were buried had not been used for years.
Several bimanual placental extractions and four breach births were carried out during this period. One interesting case which I must mention is about a woman who sold fish who was on her way to The Bottom. Along the way, she delivered the child. She put the baby and the placenta in a basket, put the basket on her head, and walked to the hospital in The Bottom.”
And so “Yeat” delivered me as the last of many children during her liftetime as a local midwife.
‘Yeat” was a survivor and had worked out her own survival strategy.
My parents home was in a village called “Behind-the-Ridge” above the old sulphur mine.
Back in the l9th century sulphur was like gold. No one had yet found out how to extract sulphur from crude petroleum. It was found around volcanoes. Several companies were formed in the U.S.A. and Barbados to dig for sulphur on Saba. The largest mines in the Eastern Caribbean are to be found on Saba and are now a tourist attraction.
My father tried to survive, first by going to Bermuda and working there for awhile. The second or third largest group of settlers on Bermuda were from Saba. My father and others returned to Saba to survive off the land during the great depression. He remained on Saba.
“Yeat” would move in to your home in the 8th month of pregnancy. She only left after the baby was a couple of weeks to a month old. According to my father if you had left it up to “Yeat” she would have remained until the baby decided to get married and have more babies for “Yeat” to deliver.
Officially there was no fee involved. Other than “Yeats” three squares a day ,
and she had a good appetite I am told. You had to lodge and feed her for at least six weeks. Where we lived gave her the perfect excuse as our house was quite a distance from hers.
The old time “local” doctors and “midwives” built up a certain mystique around themselves similar to the witch doctors of old. People were convinced that only certain people were gifted enough to do a delivery or set a broken bone. My great aunt Ann Elizabeth Johnson “Miss Shishi” was known for her ability to set a bone. If someone walked with a limp people would say “You can tell that “Miss Shishi” did not set that bone.”
Ann Elizabeth Johnson “Miss Shishi” who could set bones and do other medical work. She was my grandmother’s sister on fathers side.
“Kiby” Hassell, whose father was Dr. A. C.M. Lionarons who served on Saba from l904 to l907, says the following in Dr.Julia Crane’s book “Saba Silhouettes” about the local midwives. “Yeat” lived close to her house in English Quarter.
” It was midwives in them days (when I was born) and the midwives did good. There was one, she used to live over here too, to the house above. She used to have to go over to Mary’s Point, and that’s no fun. And she used to have to go over there. You don’t know where there is, Mary’s Point, ’cause that’s away back. And she went all around. She brought in most everybody here in Windwardside, and she never lost a case. Another one brought me, but not her. And she brought in nearly everybody. But the walks that she had to take, the long walks, from here to the Quarter, and all around. But she had to go, because there was no one to go but her.”
Malachy Britannia Switzerland Hassell known as “Kiby” and she was a neighbour of ‘Yeath” the famous local midwife.
“Yeat’s” house surivived in fairly good condition until several years ago. In the early nineties a great nephew of hers, John Hassell of New York, came to Saba and he built some apartments there. He was an avid jogger and died with a heart attack before he could do more. It was his hope that the maternity ward at the hospital could be named in her honour.
There were other midwives as well.In doing research on something else I came across a number of names. There may have been more, but here are some of them.
Hannah Wilson, The Bottom, born l860.
Sophia Rock, The Bottom, born l871
Mary Hassell, St.John’s, born l860
Rosita Lynch-Hassell, English Quarter, born l873
Annie L. Pamenter-Simmons, The Bottom, born l894
Ruth Camille Smith born Dunkin, The Bottom, born June 2lst, l9l4.
Mrs. Elsie Peterson in “Saba Silhouettes” had the following to say about the midwives.
” They were both white, as well as black. They used to call them midwives then, that time, and that was all the doctor you had at that time. One was black. The first one that came to me; and she was good, yeah, she knew her business. Some was good and some wasn’t. One came to me, her name was Ann Mary. She was a white woman, and she lived on St.John’s; and she used to drink, you know. And she came to me, and she was half drunk with one of mine. But anyway she done her business. She knew what to do. I tell you what come right in them days come right; and what didn’t come right was all the same. You wouldn’t know what you had died with if you had been to die, nor nothin. No, they died and that was it. They didn’t know what they had died with. Midwives a long time ago wasn’t much. Anyway they done their business. They knew what to do, at least the ones that came to me. I had whole ten children you know.”
Mrs. Elsie Peterson born Hassell on the right. She had ten children and there is an interesting interview with her and Dr. Julia Crane in her book Saba Silhouettes
“You know who I trained as a midwife? Ruth Smith. She is a good midwife, you know, but she went through everything with me. When Dr. Tjong-Sie-Fat came here to work with us Ruth could take her own cases; we’d go to dances and leave Ruth with the cases. She knew her work. Anyway I trained Ruth, and we could leave her in charge. Lizzie took my place after I left. Bessie was there before I left. She used to work in the Windwardside, with the maternity nurses- with the midwife from Suriname. It was only if they had cases in the hospital in Windwardside for a long time, we would each one have to take turns, Laura Linzey and myself, to go over and help.
Midwifery was the most important part of my nursing. You see the beginning of life in this world and several times you see the ending of it. And that is the thing I like – to see the first breath a human takes in this life. Oh, it’s nice. You could say no two cases are exactly alike. That is what I like.”
The past thirty years, or so, most children from Saba have been delivered on St.Maarten.
For many reasons, with better facilities there, most women choose that option rather than taking chances here. Men are unaware of the hardships women have endured with deliveries here. I know from personal experience of a situation where the doctor was half-drunk (as Miss Elsie would say), delivering a child. The doors were wide open, his dogs walking in and out of the delivery room, and the lady going through the ordeal was not even from here. At that point “Yeat” with her old rusty scissors would have been a most welcome sight.
There are still a number of people who can brag that “Yeat” delivered them. These many years later I am proud to be able to say the same. And so ” Yeat” wherever you are, here’s to you girl.
Ever since I was a young boy I was made aware of the catastrophe of May 8th, 1902 which erased that unique flower of a city called St. Pierre.
My grandmother Agnes Simmons used to tell me interesting tales about events which took place in her lifetime (1880-1962). There were times that I would overnight at the home of my grandparents. They lived in the village of Hell’s Gate next to the church. Hell’s Gate folk went to bed with the chickens. It was dark in those days. The neighboring islands were dark as well. From that same spot where my grandmother used to smoke her corncob pipe and tell me her stories, today the islands which we only used to see in the day are all lighted up. St. Martin, St. Barth’s, Statia, St. Kitts and Nevis. All look like Christmas trees on the near horizon. But when I was a boy you could only see one light in the harbor of St. Maarten .
Many people ask me where the name Hell’s Gate comes from. The village was also known as Zions Hill, but I never heard anyone call it by that name. Father Ramon the Roman Catholic priest seems to prefer Zions Hill. The road leading to Hell’s Gate was a bad one and had a bad reputation as well. Just a goat track cut out in the cliffs. It had sinister names, no longer used such as “The Negroes Sharped Their Knives”, probably referring to a slave rebellion, the “Clashing Ground”. The “Mares Fall” where Father Norbert de Groen and his horse went over the cliff. Both the priest and the mare survived. “Jacob’s Ladder” and to its foot was “The Devils Heater” and the “Devils Hand” . When the JEEP road was being built regrettably all of these landmarks disappeared. The one I thought the most r regrettable to have disappeared was the “Devils Hand”. It was as if a giant had his hand cased in cement. It was so perfect a handprint that it was hard to imagine that this was a natural phenomenon. To superstitious people it must have seemed like the road to hell. Many Sabans of that period were direct descendants of Scottish pirates, and by extension descendants of the Vikings. “Houlsgade” in the old Norse language, I am told means “The road to Hell.”
And after having ascended that part of the cliff known as “Jacob’s Ladder” one was so relieved to see a small Cluster of well-kept homes and gardens one must have thought to have passed through the gates of hell and landed into Zion. That is my interpretation. Anyone having a better one can try and beat mine.
Anyway, at my grandmother’s house, after having put out the wood fire in the yard on which the Johnny cakes had been baked, and having lighted the kerosene lantern, it was story time.
My grandmother had many experiences on that spot, including the loss of her house and her eldest daughter Lura when a bolt of lightning struck. She had passed through several hurricanes, suffered hunger because of droughts and lost crops. Yet she spoke most often to me about the volcano Mt. Pelee which had erupted and took the lives of between 28.000 and 40.000 people in less than a minute. This happened on May 8th, 1902.
She recalled hearing two loud bangs. People in the village thought it was a Dutch Man-O-War in the harbour of Sint Eustatius firing off her cannnon. Other old timers told me that they ran to var ious lookout points to try and see what was going on. By late afternoon ash began to fall and the people concluded that an eruption had taken place on one of the islands.
Sabans were aware that Mt. Pelee was acting up. In those days Sabans had well over thirty large schooners which plied the trade throughout the West Indies and the Guyana,s . My great grandfather Thomas Johnson was a Captain, and he owned a schooner called the “Endeavour”. Many Saban schooners would have traded with that the loveliest of West Indian cities, St. Pierre. On that fateful day a Saban named John Hassell, a Mate on the schooner the R.J. Morse was engulfed in the inferno there and lost his life leaving a wife and four small children behind. One of them Volney Hassell, blind from birth, in his old age gave an interview to Dr.Julia Crane which is published in “Saba Silhouettes”. In that interview he describes his father’s death:
” Our father got blowed up into a eruption up there. He sailed out, you know, not no steamers, a schooner, from America, out to all the islands out here. And the accident happened into Martinique. Volcano. And, you know, they could see the smoke from down here – the lava in the air, yeah, and he was into that. Yeah, he was into the schooner. Well, the other schooners cleared out. It must be, what’s to be. All the other schooners cleared. But the one that he was on the captain wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t go and well, that’s what happened.”
John Hassell father of Volney Hassell who lost his life on a schooner in the harbor of St. Pierre on May 8th, 1902.This photo is unique as there might not be many photos of people who died in the eruption.What remained of that once great city of St. Pierre after the eruption.
Mt. Pelee left its ashes on all the islands to the North. After its destruction of that cultural oasis St. Pierre it repented and its ashes fertilized the Northern Islands for decades to come. Now Montserrat has taken over the role of Mt. Pelee.
So much has been written of this tragedy that we will suffice with quoting from a few writers on the subject. I have visited St. Pierre on three occasions, looking around, collecting shards and bricks and other memorabilia. Over the years I have tried through research to visualize what St. Pierre the living city must have been like in its glory days. The writer Lafcadio Hearn paid a glowing tribute to the city in his book “Two Years in the French West Indies”. Frederick Ober in “Camps of the Caribees” visited there as well. Alec Waugh in “The Coloured Countries” said the following about St. Pierre.
“No place that I have ever seen has moved me in quite that way. Not so much by the thought of the twenty-eight thousand people killed within that narrow span. It is the knowledge rather that here existed a life that should be existing still, that existed nowhere else, that was the outcome of a combination of circumstances that now have vanished from the world forever. Even Pompeii cannot give you quite that feeling. There were many Pompeii’s after all. Pompeii exists for us as a symbol, as an explanation of Roman culture. It has not that personal, that localized appeal of a flower that has blossomed once, only in one place: that no eye will ever see again.”
” The culture of Versaille was transported there to mingle with the Carib stock and the dark mysteries of imported Africa. Saint Pierre was never seen without emotion. It laid hold of the imagination. It had something to say, not only to the romantic intellectual like Hearn or Stacpool, but to the sailors and the traders, to all those whom the routine of livelihood brought within the limit of its way. “Incomparable” they would say as they waved farewell to the “Pays de Revenants”, knowing that if they did not return they would carry all their lives a regret for it in their hearts. History has no parallel for Saint Pierre. And within forty-five seconds the stir and colour of that life had been wiped out.” Even though there is a new town now in that amphitheater which once housed a unique flower called St. Pierre, one has a deep sense of loss and a silent scream cries out for the city that was.
Lafcadio Hearn had predicted her demise. Saint Pierre was the loveliest city in the West Indies. The loveliest and the gayest.
All day its narrow streets were bright with colour; in sharp anglings of light the amber sunshine streamed over the red tiled roofs, the lemon-coloured walls, the green shutters, the green verandahs. The streets ran steeply, “breaking into steps as streams break into waterfalls” Moss grew between the stones. In the runnel was the sound of water. There was no such thing as silence in St. Pierre. There was always the sound of water, of fountains in the hidden gardens, of rainwater in the runnels, and through the music of that water, the water that kept the town cool during the long noon heat, came ceaselessly from the hills beyond, the murmur of the lizards and the cricket. A lovely city, with its theater, the lamplit avenues, its Jardin de plants, its schooners circle wise along the harbour.
Life was comely there; the life that had been built up by the old French emigres. It was a city of Carnival. There was a culture there; a love of art among those people who had made their homes there, who had come to Martinique to make money that they could spend in Paris.
Young Josephine must have travelled from her home in Trois Islets to a ball or two in the city.
Frederick Ober in 1889 had the following to say about St. Pierre; ” A second time I sailed into the bay of St. Pierre, a second time loked upon the volcano rising above it. The town is about a mile in length, straggling at the North away down the coast, ending in scattered villages; and at one place where a river makes a break in the cliffs, creeping up towards the mountains.
” A narrow belt between the high cliffs and the sea, built into and under them; the houses of stone and brick, covered with brown earthen tiles, tier upon tier, climbing up to the hills. With the soft mellow tints of the tiles; the grays of the walls, the frequent clumps of tamarind and mango and with the magnificent wall of living green, St. Pierre strikes one as a beautiiful town.
“The streets are narrow but well flagged, and at every few squares is a fountain; and adown the gutters through them all run swift streams, carrying to the sea the refuse of the city. St. Pierre is the commercial port of the island, and there are many stores filled with the wines and wares of France. There are a fine Cathedral; a theater of large capacity, to which for three months each winter a troupe from Paris draw crowded houses; a bishops palace and governor’s residence, with large and handsome barracks for the troops.”
Lafcadio Hearn lovingly described the city and daily life there and the “porteuses” who supplied the city with its daily needs from the surrounding vilages and farms.
As he left St. Pierre for the last time he wrote: ” Farewell, fair city, -sun-kissed city, many fountained city/dear yellow-glimmering streets, white pavements learned by heart, – and faces ever looked for, and voices ever loved! Farewell, white towers with your golden throated bells!- farewell, green steeps, bathed in the light of summer everlasting! craters with your coronet of forest!- bright mountain paths up winding ‘neath pomp of fern and angelin and featherin bamboo!- and gracious palms that browse above the dead! Farewell, sof-shadowing majesty of valleys unfolding to the sun, – green golden canefields ripening to the sea.’.
Hearn describes the wind after sunset as his ship dparted the harbour: ” Perhaps some such breeze, blowing from Indian waters, might have inspired that prophecy of Islam concerning the Wind Of The Last Day, that “Yellow Wind, softer than silk, balmier than musk, ” – which is to sweep the spirits of the just to God in the great Winnowing of Souls.”
Just a few years later the great winnowing of the souls of St. Pierre took place when that yellow wind swept off the mountain and cosumed the city in 45 seconds.
Hearn further predicted… ” Some day there may be a great change in the little city of St. Pierre; there may be less money and less zeal and less rememberance of the lost. Then from the morne, over the bulwark, the green host will move down unopposed; creepers will prepare the way, disocating the pretty tombs, pulling away the checkered tiling; then will come the giants rooting deeper, -feeling for the dust of the hearts, groping among the bones;- and all that love has hidden away shall be restored to Nature, -absorbed into the rich juices of her verdure, – revitalized in her upliftings of emerald and gold to the great sun.”
” Fascinated as I have always been with the story of St. Pierre, On May 2nd, while on a visit to Florida it came to me in a dream. Once again like Lafcadio Hearn I was wandering the streets of the city admiring the fountain and the lively hustle and bustle. The dream stayed with me, and I recalled my second visit to the Museum there. Across the street there was a small grocery. I walked in with my youngest son to buy him a soft drink.
After I was served, an ancient lady came shuffling out of the back of the store and looked at me with the most penetrating look one could imagine. My blood ran cold. In French Creole she said, “You have returned.” She then went to the back of the store mumbling to herself. The lady at the counter looked amused. She said “My grandmother says she has something for you, just wait a minute. When she returned, she gave me an old postcard, a large blown-up version. She continued staring at me and said” “She would be so happy to know that you returned.” I stuck the old postcard in a folder that I had just purchased thinking that she must be senile. Her granddaughter smiled and said: “She thinks she knows you from when she was a young girl. She must be twice your age. Perhaps you look like someone she knew.”
I forgot about the postcard in the folder after I left to return to my ship. Months later I found it again. It was adressed to no one. The view on the front showed a busy street in the city and the glory of St. Pierre. The message simply read: Je pense toujours a toi. Je t’embrasse. Esther.”
The card was dated April 17th, 1895.
Who was this Esther and who did the old lady thnk I was. On my last trip to St. Pierre I could not resist going across the street from the Museum. The lady behind the counter recognized me right away. She said to me: Grandmother passed on shortly after you left. It seemed that her sole mission in life was to deliver that old card. Grandmother said to tell you if you returned that Esther survived the eruption as she had been visiting friends in Fort de France and had taken ill there. Esther always thought you would return, and she did not die until some years ago.” We both agreed that the grandmother must have mistaken me for someone in her past. Ever since that time I have a novel floating around in my head which I will put on paper hopefully soon.
In the book “The Day after Their World ended” by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, they give an account of the final days of St. Pierre.
On Thursday May 8th at 8.03 am, the silent scream of more than 30.000 souls went into the ages when the upper flank of the mountain facing South, opened up. An eyewitness in a distant village, Suzette Laveniere, described the final moments as follows.
” From the gap, at least three hundred feet wide and possibly as deep, came a stupendous roar, forcing a second black cloud to roll out in huge whorls. It mushroomed upward, forming an even blacker umbrella of darkness. This cloud roared down toward St. Pierre, tumbling over and over. One moment it would clutch at the ground, the next it would rise perhaps a hundred feet before falling back to the earth again.
It seemed to be a living thing, glowing all the time, while from its center burst explosions that sent lightning like scintillations high into the darkness. In less than a minute it had joined the first fireball which had demolished St. Pierre, they merged to blot out everything and certainly to kill all they touched. The whole city was in flames. “
And so one hundred years later, we say in the words of Lafcadio Hearn: Farewell, fair city, sun-kissed city, -many fountained city – and faces we looked for – and voices ever loved!”
And farewell to Esther of yesteryears dreams. Je pense toujours a toi. Je t’embrasse.
In the year 1932, heavy rains in the month of May, what remained of the old road at the Ladder Bay, was covered with rocks.
Ondergezaghebber (Vice Lt. Governor) X.H.C.M. Krugers in 1934 renewed the road, on the Ridge that is, with cement steps and walls, so that a curving road of 524 steps (200 meters) was made possible. The old historic road which was in the ravine on the left side of the new road was then abandoned.
Krugers also restored the Guard House, which before that time was a Police Station and Customs House.
Erroll Hassell served as a Local Councilor. There were two who advised the Vice Lt. Governor when budgets had to be approved. He like most other Saba men had visited the United States and other countries where there were motor vehicles. Each year the Council would meet to approve monies for the upkeep of the Public Roads. These were mostly goat paths. My grandfather James Horton Simmons and others would be obligated once a year to serve time in the upkeep of the roads. He would be offered the choice of five cents a day in cash or the equivalent in Rum. Horton had a bunch of daughters and chose for the five cents. Anyway, Erroll in July 1938 put his name on the road. Rudolph Johnson found it somewhere between the Fort Bay and The Bottom. When the budget was being approved Erroll suggested that ten thousand guilders should be approved to make a motor vehicle road to The Bottom. The Vice Lt. Governor thought he was out of his mind and turned it down. However, Errol insisted that the Governor on Curacao who had the final word should make a decision. The Governor must have lost his pen of correction and overlooked the budget, and it went to the Parliamentary Colonial Council for approval and there too it must have been overlooked. The money was approved by law and so could be used. My grandfather James Horton Simmons was paid sixty-five cents a day as a labourer and my father Daniel Thomas Johnson who was a foreman was paid two guilders and fifty cents a day and so in 1938 the road was started.
The Saba Islander 