Cotton Grove is estate 5 in St. Croix’s East End B Quarter. Cotton Grove was involved in both cotton and sugar production. Sugar was produced here by the 1790s and the windmill constructed by 1856. This windmill tower is incorporated into a dwelling. An inscription stone says “Wellington.”
Estate Cotton Grove has an interesting evolution of ownership and combinations and later disassociations with other neighboring estates. Like the entire eastern one third of St. Croix, no habitation is shown during the French period. The widow of William Richardson is shown owning the estate in 1750, indicating that William Richardson owned the estate prior, since women did not establish land ownership on their own at the time. No sugar machinery is shown on the Beck versions through the 1750s and 1760s. The annotated Beck maps indicate that Lucas von Beverhoudt owned portion of estate 5 along with estate 43 in East End A Quarter. The eastern half of estate 5 has ownership attributed to Jacob Madsen on these maps.
By the early 1790s, the east-west ownership split was attributed to Dungan and William Ryan, respectively. Oxholm’s 1794 map is the first appearing of sugar production machinery with an animal mill at Cotton Grove, where ownership still extends into East End A Quarter. The eastern half of estate 5 is shown to be a cotton plantation called little profit. Parsons shows a windmill at Cotton Grove in 1856. The USGS topographic maps indicate the base of the mill at approximately 100 feet, with the 1921 map indicating the elevation of the top of the mill at 140 feet. As the McGuire description below shows, the Cottongrove Hills rise to over 800 feet in elevation, separating the north and south of the east end of St. Croix.