Estate Parasol
Parasol is estate 16 in St. Croix’s Northside B Quarter. Based on appearances on historic maps, the windmill was likely built in the late 18th century. The location of the windmill, because it sits in the saddle between two hilltops rather than on one of the hilltops. The windmill is in good condition, although the inscription stone was removed.
Parasol reflects the delay that remoteness and rugged terrain caused in the settlement and development of sugar cultivation. No settlement is indicated through the 1750s. In the 1760s, all of the annotated Beck maps and manuscript copies of the Beck map indicate no sugar machinery and attribute ownership to Abraham Markoe or his heirs, whose ownership is also reflected on the 1790s manuscript copies of Beck.
A windmill appears on the 1799 Oxholm map at Parasol along with the 1856 Parsons map. However, Oxholm places the windmill on a hilltop and not in the saddle between two hills as is correctly done on the USGS topographic maps, which indicate windmill ruins at 500 feet elevation at Parasol.
McGuire geographic dictionary of the Virgin Islands (p.143) notes the estate was a stock farm attached to estate Fountain in the 1920s.
Historic Maps of Parasol
