Tales of the Caribbean Sea, Part 4: USVI
- Jim Watson
- Feb 21
- 5 min read
Scattered across the West Indies like emerald shards in a cobalt sea lies the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Stowed away between the old Spanish dominion of Puerto Rico and the enchanted isles of the Leeward Antilles, the islands have long played a legendary role in the history of the region.
Today’s Virgin Islands archipelago is comprised of two distinct administrative units: the United States Virgin Islands in the western part and their European sister islands, the British Virgin Islands, to the east. The reasons for this dichotomy are too much to go into here, but the division has spawned two very separate island cultures in the modern world, whilst still sharing a common history.
Blackbeard sailed here and profited immensely. So too did the legendary female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Reade along with their partner-in-crime “Calico” Jack Rackham. The islands are littered with tales of buried treasure and the ghosts who guard them.
The best way to explore these beauties is to start where you stand and that will most likely be the main island of St. Thomas. Yes, that St. Thomas of fame and fortune and lifestyles of the rich and famous (and infamous, as you will see).
St. Thomas sports the largest city in the USVI, namely the capital city of Charlotte Amalie (pronounced either a-MA-lee or A-ma-lee, depending on who you talk to. I heard locals using both).
Here on the waterfront of Charlotte Amalie you’ll find plenty of eateries and trinket shops, if that’s your bag. But you’ll also have access to something very important: the transportation hubs from which to explore the outer islands, including the British Virgin Islands. A number of small outfits offer regular ferry service to the islands of St. John and St. Croix, the other two major islands of the U.S. side as well as ferries to the islands of the British side. There’s even seaplane service from St. Thomas to St. Croix. Not cheap, but quite a thrill, I’m told.
The town itself is loaded with history, especially along that old waterfront. With all its turbulent history, Charlotte Amalie has its share of tales of ghosts, or “jumbies” as they’re called here and in much of the Caribbean. (I am told that if you ever find yourself being chased by a jumbie, you can fake it out by quickly putting your shirt on backwards, making it think you’re heading in the opposite direction!)
Even my Airbnb rental—an historic old Danish government building from the 1700s—had its own little tale to tell.
Remember the Alamo? It seems the building was once owned by none other than General Santa Ana, the notorious leader on the Mexican side of that infamous battle. Santa Ana was a well-established figure in the Virgin Islands and owned several properties on St. Thomas.
According to the building’s owner with whom I spoke one day about the place, the general caught wind of a plot to poison him being hatched by a mistress of his who lived on the premises. His solution to this dilemma was diabolically simple: he would just beat her to the punch, so to speak. He poisoned her right there in that very building.
My inquiries with the owner into whether or not the woman still haunts the place were met with silence. I only know that she didn’t visit me.
As far as hauntings of renown are concerned on St. Thomas, the Hotel 1829 is hard to beat.
The most infamous apparition is “the Blonde in the Hallway”: a mysterious woman with her long, eponymous blonde hair, occasionally seen gliding past the Tiffany stained-glass windows of the hotel lobby. Staff and guests report following her footsteps, only to find empty halls and no trace of any living person.
Some of the happy haunts at the hotel appear to be quite helpful and industrious. Stunned maids and kitchen workers report finding piles of crumpled linen suddenly folded neatly and previously dirty dishes mysteriously cleaned and stowed away in the kitchen’s cupboards.
The building has an interesting history of ownership. It was, as the name implies, built in 1829 but did not originally serve as a hotel. The structure in fact started out life as a “grand private residence” and was built by a daring French sea captain named Alexander Lavalette. Some labeled him a pirate, an accusation he didn’t seem to dispute. “Kindly called a sea captain,” the people said, “but in reality a pirate.”
The story goes that he fell madly in love with a beautiful woman from Paris, but her family would only allow her move to the wild and wooly Caribbean if she had “luxurious accommodations” there. Thus, Alexander Lavalette began the ambitious 10-year construction project to build the mansion.
But the joke was on Lavalette. For once the project was finished, his true amour took one look at the place and fled back to Paris, leaving the grande maison behind and leaving Lavalette holding the bag. Pity now his poor ghost, who has nothing better to do than fold linen and wash dishes. Just another jumbie in a sea of jumbies.
We’ll close with the story of “White Suit,” a mysterious apparition that once haunted a building just below the Hotel 1829 on Commandant Gade (“Gade” is the Danish word for “street”)
A woman named Adelle and her husband and children lived in the building in the early part of the 20th century. Adelle was strictly a non-believer in things paranormal and would tolerate no talk of such things from others.
One afternoon, she was taking a nap in her bedroom and upon waking saw a tall man in a white suit and white hat standing at the foot of her bed. The man promptly disappeared before her eyes. “That did not happen,” she reassuringly said to herself. She chalked it up to a post-nap hallucination and went on with her day.
Problem is, it happened again the following day. This time the mysterious man’s cologne lingered in the air, even after his ethereal departure. To solidify these sightings even further, Adelle’s husband David, along with other friends and family, began to see him as well.
These unsettling incidents eventually became so untenable that former skeptic Adelle and her family sold the property and moved to another, less enchanted, location on the island.
There then followed several decades where the building sat lonesome and empty, from 1930 to 1978, at which time a French gentleman purchased the property. He, too, began seeing the apparition. But rather than pull up stakes and leave, he did some research and discovered that in the previous century there was indeed a former resident of the building who had hung himself on the premises. The new French owner even found a photograph of the man. He was wearing—you guessed it—a white suit and white hat.
Apparently, once his tale of woe was discovered by the living, the ghost was satisfied. The mysterious man and his white suit and white hat have not been seen since.
NEXT WEEK: TALES OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA, PART 5
Comments