A Hike to Brown Bay

The Brown Bay trail has always been one of my favorites. I like it because you start out in one environment, pass through many environments , see land changes, historical ruins, beaches, and come out on the other side of the island at a beautiful white sand beach.

The trail starts on the East End road just past Estate Zootenvaal. Zoo-Ten-Vaal! Say that a few times! I don't know who or what Zootenvaal was, no one ever talks about it.

Thanks to my friend and surrogate brother, Bob Garrison, there is a sign at the trailhead. Bob generously donated National Park Service compliant signage for all the trails on STJ, since there were none and everyone was confused and nervous. A nervous tourist is an unhappy tourist, a lost tourist is a scared tourist. Some of the 500 signs have even been put up. Bob also, amidst controversy, spent 25 years making the best trail map available. Some people disagree with his methods and think he's the island's ruination, but he got the job done. More on Bob another day.

You can make the secluded beach at Brown Bay your destination and swim and picnic, or you can go all the way to Waterlemon. Neither beach is accessible by car and well worth the hikes. 

The Brown Bay Trail

  Like most trails on STJ, the Brown Bay trail is an old Danish plantation road.  The history of the trails and pathways on STJ is interesting to me and I never get tired of wondering about them and the people who used and built them. There were no cars, just feet, mule and ox carts. Horses were expensive and hard to keep. It took a day to get from one end of the island to another, 9 miles. The way people traveled was the shortest routes possible, but the easiest routes, which were along ridgelines and following the hillside contours.  

The Brown Bay trail is hot and rocky most of the way with some cooler areas of shady relief. Solid shoes are a must. I don't get it, I see people hiking in flip flops. You want to lose a toenail? I hate to be a nag, but take care of your feet, people!

My first exploratory stop was Levens Marche beach. You'd miss it if you weren't looking, just a steep goat path off the trail that switchbacks down to the flat beach area. There I visited the ruins of what is thought to be an abbatoir, a nice way to say slaughterhouse. There the cattle would be penned, processed and shipped out. There's nothing left there now except the main building with some very nice stonework, some troughs and wells. 

The ruins at Levens Marche have typical masonry constructed stonework. Slaves who built the buildings used what they had on hand - the bricks are from the ballast on the ships, the coral is used to strengthen the mortar which was weak. When coral is alive its soft and can be cut with a saw. After it dries it becomes so hard it's like concrete. I like to think of these men taking pride in their work even in their situation. And it's still there, long after they and their sorrows, are gone. Very cool!

A few years ago, I was doing volunteer work clearing brush at the Annaberg Plantation slave village. A tourist approached our group. She asked about the ruins, what we were doing, who lived there. We told her the history.  She said it was truly very sad for them , but at least they had a nice view.

Look What I Found!

So, having said hello to Levens Marche, it's back to the main trail. After a while the breeze from the north and Tortola helps. The ground levels out and isn't so rugged. 

You can see that the trail used to be a road. 

Before going to the beach, I want to visit James Thomas. Not many people know about James so I like to stop in. I drop by on many of my quiet friends in my wanderings. There's a small path to the left after the turn off to the beach, it looks like nothing more than an animal track. Follow this into the woods, watching for wasp nests, and say hello to James Thomas Abbott Davis, aged 2 years. 

 There are corners of STJ that are silent and forgotten places. Being there you can almost forget there is a world of cruise ships, taxis, bars, rental cars. I have stood on this path not 3 feet from the main trail and had people walk by and never see me. They don't expect me to be there, so I become invisible. How many people come here and never see the James Thomases?

Little James isn't alone in this big burial place. There are two other graves, not grand at all, just stones piled in an oblong, one with a conch on top. I leave a stone on James' headstone and head to the beach.

Because you can only reach Brown Bay Beach by foot you might have the place to yourself. Today I'm not alone, there are quite a few families there. Don't kids go to school anymore? There is some excellent snorkeling here when the water is calm. It has an extensive seagrass bed, home for large plush orange stars and turtles. 

Walk behind the beach along a sandy path, until you can't go any further. There's a pond at the end that's usually stinky from lack of water, so it's best to now turn back to the beach. Walk along the cobbles until you come to the ruins of the Brown Bay Plantation.

These ruins give me the heebie jeebies. if ever there was a spirit full of unrest and bitterness, it's here. Once I came and found a dead goat. Another time I was walking and tripped on a rock that I could have sworn hadn't been there, cutting my ankle badly. There are always wasps here as if they are guardians. The vines and plants that seem to keep growing even in the dry season, dark corners at noon, and just an overall shadow and chill even on the hottest days. I always expect to turn around and find I'm not alone, but not a tangible form, a fleeting glimpse or uncertainty. As a contrast to this feeling, there is beauty here. The stonework has to be the most beautifully done of all the ruins, though today I couldn't get in to see it, it had gotten so overgrown. There are some large storage buildings, a horse mill, a well, remains of the sugar factory, some copper pots and the skeletal remains of what was once a grand staircase leading up to the estate house. On the hillside is a huge wall, the purpose is unclear. There's supposed to be a carved plaque that reads 1872 but I've never seen it. It may have been removed. I would never take anything from Brown Bay, I can sense the spirits would not be pleased and it's best to leave Brown Bay's souvenirs to it's dark memory.

"On Sunday the 16 (May 16, 1734), six Negroes and two negroe women surrendered at the appeal of their master who spared their lives. He then informed me of the matter. I ordered him to bring them to me, since they were identified as rebels. I have them put into chains. Three of them were burned at the stake on three different plantations on St. John. I had previously informed the governor while passing through St. Thomas that should I catch a few of the rebels, I would put most of them to death and send him the rest so that he could make an example of them. The following day I informed him of their capture. He sent a judge who passed sentence for the sake of formality; I sent him the three other rebels along with the two women and requested that he not have them executed until I be present. One was burned to death slowly, another was sawed in half and the third was impaled. The two Negroe women had their hands and heads cut off after all five had been tortured with hot pincers in the town.

One week later twenty-five rebels were found dead on an "outjutting point of land in an unsuspected place" identified later as near Brown Bay."

 

From St. John Backtime, "The Raw Truth has Been Reported," Commander Chevalier de Longueville, from a document discovered and in the Colonies section of the French National Archives by Aimery P. Caron and Arnold R. Highfield:

The Jumbies of Brown Bay are probably

justified to wander the earth. In 1733 the slaves revolted, hunting down the plantation owners and their families, taking machetes to everyone they found. One story goes that after French troops were called in and put an end to the revolt, remaining slaves, rather than be caught, gathered at Brown Bay and killed themselves. Another story has a woman and her child hiding there alone when a band of slaves arrived and cut them to pieces, their graves are nearby. I never found them. Whatever the real stories are, there is definitely a presence at Brown Bay.

Just out of curiosity, I push my way through the bush up a goat path that climbs the hill along the coastal cliff (this is hill 340 in the map photo). At the top of the hill the path turns inland. Soon I come upon pottery bits, broken brick, then a patch of aloe and a short section of stone wall about a foot high. There's a large Tamarind tree, the Spirit Tree. West Indians believe(d) they held the spirit of the dead and often buried people under them. Someone lived here once above the beach and ruins. What happened to them? Behind the house on the hillside are stone farming terraces, now eroded criss-crossing goat paths.No more musing, time to go.

Continuing on to Waterlemon is really worth it. There's a lot more to see, more ruins, more quiet friends, more stories; but it's 6 mile round trip and the shadows are already growing on Brown Bay.

Check out Bob's website:

www.trailbandit.org