Estate Mount Welcome

Mount Welcome in estate 1 in St. Croix’s East End A Quarter likely derives its name from its location near the entrance to Christiansted Harbor. Sugar was produced by the 1760s, with a windmill appearing on Oxholm’s 1799 map and a decommissioned tower on the 1856 map. The windmill tower is in good condition.

Mount Welcome lies in a strategic place near the entrance to Christiansted Harbor. While south of Fort Louise Augusta, a battery is depicted on the north side of the hill during the French period at P. St Jean. This battery appears echoed in the 1767 map by Küffner.

By 1750, Adrian von Beverhout owns the estate, with no cultivation indicated. The Beck printed maps indicate no sugar machinery. However, on nearly all the annotated prints and manuscript copies of Beck, an animal mill appears in estate 2, with ownership attributed to Nicolay Salomon.

In both 1778 and 1799, Oxholm depicts an animal mill, with the later map naming it estate Mount Weliome. The location of the animal mill moves north to estate 1. Given the detail of the Oxholm maps, if the animal mill icons represent the same settlement, the Beck variants are in error. The 1778 map along with the 1790s manuscript copies of Beck indicate ownership by John Heyliger abz.

Parsons indicates a stone tower with no sails in 1856 at Mt Welcome, with a location consistent with Oxholm. The top of the hill bears an elevation of 135 feet.

The US topographical maps indicate a windmill on the southeastern side of Mt Welcome above 100 feet elevation, near the top of the hill. Other structures lie to the northwest, at the very top of the hill. This depiction is consistent with field reconnaissance findings.

The McGuire geographic dictionary of the Virgin Islands (p. 132) notes that Mount Welcome is “crowned by stone tower and ruined sugar mill.”