Prince’s Quarter

Of the 56 estates in Prince’s Quarter, 38 had an icon for sugar manufacturing on historic maps. Of these estates, 28 had an icon for a windmill and 10 exclusively for an animal mill.

Prince’s Quarter had 30 windmills built for crushing sugar cane. Field reconnaissance found remains of 15 of these windmills, with 15 not located. Of these 15 not located, whether or not a windmill was constructed remains a question in one instance, in estate 43. The placement of the icon in the northwestern corner of estate 43 on the Beck printed maps, which was retained on the subsequent annotated and manuscript copies, creates questions. Later maps, including Oxholm, Parsons, and 20th century topographic maps, do not indicate any structures in this area. The windmill from the Beck printing is not far from where the windmill in estate Diamond was built. While relatively close, the mill at Enfield Green to the west lies a little further south from the mill’s placement on the Beck maps.

Prince’s Quarter stands out in the number of windmills not located in the field. The half of the windmills built in the Quarter not located through field reconnaissance represent nearly half of the windmills not located on all of St. Croix. The demolition of some windmills is understandable, such as the windmill most likely destroyed to construct the airport runway. However, the concentration of demolished windmills in Prince’s Quarter raises questions about why so many of the windmills on this part of the island were torn down.

Given the aggregation and dissolution of plantations in different periods, some specific place names appear repetitive in Prince’s Quarter. Often, the aggregation of individual estates into larger plantations occurred after various sugar processing facilities were constructed in independent estates. While the estates later shared a common name, the construction occurred when those estates had different owners.

McGuire geographic dictionary of the Virgin Islands (p.150) notes a population of the quarter in 1917 at 1,678 individuals. Given the trends in population growth and housing availability in this Quarter, the population is currently somewhat larger 100 years later.