Bay Path 1828: The road running along the cliff edge can still be seen. The large house was Zeezicht, the former residence of Commander Jan de Windt. (Contemporary copy of a watercolour by Samuel Fahlberg of 1828.)
During his visit to St. Eustatius, State Secretary Raymond Knops officially reopened the historical path connecting Lower Town and Upper Town in Oranjestad. As a report conducted by Royal Haskoning DHV concluded that the recently increased erosion caused by last year’s hurricanes created a dangerous situation for users of the path, it was closed off to the public by the government. However, a more recent survey by the same company indicated that the path can be used safely. Knops, accompanied by government commissioner Mike Franco, opened the path by cutting the cordon tape that blocked access at the top of the path.
The oldest road on Statia
Knops further unveiled a road sign with a short historical background of the path, which was provided by monuments director and historian Walter Hellebrand. The sign displays both names currently used for the path: “Slave Path” and “Bay Path.” Hellebrand was at hand to provide further detail to Knops and Franco.
He explained that not only is the path the oldest still-existing road on Statia (going back to the year of the arrival of the Dutch in 1636), it is also the first to have been paved: in 1787. The first thing the Dutch did when they landed was to climb up the cliff to build a fort on the southern corner of Claes Gut: the most strategic place to control the best (and sometimes only) landing place of the island: Oranje Baai.
“Did you count your steps as you were walking up,” Hellebrand asked, “because this Dutch landing party reported back to the West India Company that they constructed a fortress on a hill 150 steps high.”
Hellebrand observed that both gentlemen were obviously much fitter than the privateer Edward Morgan (uncle of the infamous buccaneer Henry Morgan) who came to the island in 1665 to occupy it for Great-Britain but paid for this with his life – not because he was shot by the guns or cannons of Fort Oranje, but it was July, terribly hot and he was rather obese, and the path is a very steep climb. He died of over-exhaustion; in other words, the path itself killed him.
It was probably the most intensely used path of any kind on the island as it was the shortest connection between the commercial part of town – on the bay – and the residential part – Upper Town. It is no wonder that it became the first paved road on Statia. “And please note,” Hellebrand adds, “that this was after Rodney’s infamous raid of the island in 1781. The stories that he ruined the island are a myth.” One paving stone still has the inscription “1803”, the year of a major renovation of the path.
Lead coffin
“Talking about Rodney, the path also takes centrepiece in one of the episodes of his attack and conquest,” Hellebrand continued. “When Rodney found out that a convoy of richly laden merchant ships had just left the island on their way to Amsterdam with the protection of only one warship, he quickly sent three of his ships off to chase them.
They caught up with the Dutch fleet north of Sombrero and captured it. The commander of the Dutch warship, rear admiral Willem Krul, got fatally shot. Rodney allowed him a hero’s burial on St. Eustatius. His body was solemnly rowed to shore in a procession of sloops. All the while, a cannon fired a shot from his ship each minute, answered every time by a cannon from Fort Oranje.
When the sloops reached the shore, the heavy lead coffin draped with black velvet and the Dutch flag were carried up the path preceded by half a detachment of English soldiers and followed by a long procession of Dutch and English officials and officers and finally the other half of the English detachment.
Funeral music and drums accompanied the march. When they arrived at the cemetery of the Dutch Reformed Church, Krul was buried in the tomb where the island’s governors were always interred. A plaque commemorates him there.
“What is not commemorated,” Hellebrand said, “is the suffering of the slaves who were forced to construct the path and who were usually the ones to carry the heavy loads up its steep slope, push up fully loaded carts, or lead the donkeys carrying goods.”
In historical documents, the path is usually called either the “Bay Path” or the “Old Path” (to distinguish it from the New Path or Tompie Hill). Statians who have been living on the island for over 80 years only know it as the Bay Path and relate that the name Slave Path was introduced after Americans took over the historiography of the island locally in the 1970s.
All over the world, those years were very fruitful in spawning “invented traditions” as they are called. However, the name was made official by the Street Names Ordinance of about three years ago.
Liar’s Path
Hellebrand revealed that in the 18th century, another name was used: “Leugenaars Pad” (Dutch for ‘Liar’s Path’). That was because at its top stood the Leugenaar (a set of benches under an open construction) where people would sit overlooking the hustle and bustle of the port, and exchange the latest gossip, or “lies.” In English documents, this was translated as “Scandal Hall” – the place where people would tell each other the most recent scandals.
Around 1900, it was in the same area, at the hill-head of the Bay Path, that the market was held. It made sense as the fishermen or their wives would come up the path with their catch and at the same time, it is the ending point of several roads leading here from the countryside used by people coming to sell their provision, fruits and vegetables.
The name “Old Market” was still used in the 1950s. Unfortunately, it was not adopted in the Street names ordinance so it now has the incorrect name Horseshoe Square, “which is neither here nor there,” Hellebrand confirms.
A memory that has always stayed with Hellebrand is the story he heard as a little boy during a service in the Roman Catholic Church at the top of the path: “It must have been some anniversary of the church or parish. Someone was telling about how the Catholic parishioners back in 1910 carried the stones from the ruins in Lower Town up the Bay Path to build the church – the men one in each arm, and the women one on their head. At the hill-head, they laid down the stones and went back down the path to fetch more. I was sitting in the church just next to that path. And I knew how steep it was! It left a deep impression on me. Even at six, either I was a budding historian or that person was a very good storyteller!”
“The way is away”
Hellebrand also pointed out that at the top of the path you can still see the beginning of the way that originally ran on the cliff side past the former kindergarten and Catholic clubhouse, but which was completely washed away at the beginning of the 20th century.
The current Father Van Tefelenweg (where the Monuments Office is) was then laid out as an alternative. That road joins the original one at the 90 degrees bend (dog’s leg) at the governor’s mansion.
“Erosion has always been a problem and after a major portion of the cliff fell down causing thousands and thousands in damage, the solution proposed was to build stepped retaining walls,” Hellebrand explains.
However, geologist G.A.F. Molengraaff, whose doctoral thesis was about Statia’s geology, wrote in 1886 that since the walls were built on the loose tuff, “if the aim was to stop the erosion process of the porous cliff, the opposite was achieved. The tumbling walls pulled off more parts of the cliff in one heavy shower than would have otherwise been broken off over a number of years. It was a major waste of money and a disservice to the island.” Molengraaff added recommendations for proper solutions.
“Unfortunately, something similar happened more recently when the vegetation was stripped off the cliff above the path. The guise was beautification, but the result was dramatically increased erosion. I strongly hope that the cliff will be replanted soon,” Hellebrand concluded.
