A Short History of Gallows Bay
Fishing Village to Commercial Center
The area to the east of Fort Christiansvaern, which is located on the small inlet on the eastern side of Christiansted Harbor, became known as Gallows Bay. In its early days, the area was not officially indicated on any legal documents as Gallows Bay, but was labeled “Galge Bugten” on the famed mapmaker Peter Lotharius Oxholm’s 1779 maps. Yet, this labeling may be the first time official recognition was given to a place which was known only by the general population. There was no legal demarcation on later maps, no distinction of Gallows Bay in the tax or the census records. Neither was there an ordinance creating it as a neighborhood or village as was the case of the Free Gut.
When the fort was built in the 1740’s, both the whipping post and the gallows were erected on its premises. Eventually, the gallows was moved further down Hospital Street. Over the years it was set up in different locations, perhaps because of the instability of the infilled land in the area. When a hanging was scheduled, town residents of all classes were mandated to be present to witness the proceedings. In the early days of the colony, as a punishment for murder and treason and grand marronage, running away for a lengthy time, by white indentured servants and slaves, was punishable by hanging at the gallows. This gruesome public display was finally eliminated in 1848 when capital punishment by hanging was outlawed.
As free coloreds, former enslaved Africans moved into the area, and the bayside became a fishing village and the place on the island of St. Croix for fishing activities. By the first census in 1755, a growing number of fishermen had come to reside in the area. Residents of the area began to refer to themselves as “Gallowsbayrians.”
Eventually, there were fishermen living both in Free Gut and Gallows Bay. While the women of Free Gut sold the fish mainly at the Fish Market, located to the north of the Fort, fish was also sold by the bayside in Gallows Bay. People arrived by foot and in horse or donkey carts, to purchase the fish that was caught by men who went out in small boats.
Along the Gallows Bay bayside, young boys were initiated into the water environment by their fathers and uncles. They learned to swim by their elders taking them out in a boat and pushing them off the vessel’s edge. They learned to cast a line from a pole, drop a leaded line, and use a net from their elders. The persistent ones prepared their lines with baits and sinkers in order to do some deep sea fishing, looking to catch larger fish such as grouper and parrot fish.
As Gallows Bay grew into a small fishing village, it had a dense population. There were many row houses, of which a few still exist. These multi-family structures were located behind what was the main building, set directly on Hospital Street. Bachelor fishermen, who were out on the sea most of the day, sought only a bed, for they most likely got their food from the many cook shops in town.
While men were rising early to catch the fish, women were ahead of them in providing for the breakfast six days a week. Before they could even begin their baking chores they had to light the fire in the old brick oven, situated in the back of their homes. They gathered the kindling and lit the fire first, then placed large logs on top to sustain. A steady temperature had to be maintained throughout the baking process. The women mixed the flour, kneaded the dough and set the loaves on the bottom of the oven, always ensuring that the fire was stable. They extracted the golden loaves from the oven with a large wooden spatula.
When a fisherman brought his catch up to the shore, a conch shell blew, signaling the jack fish were available. People came with their round-bottom baskets made of hoop vines, pots, pans, and even crocus bags to carry home fish. In Gallows Bay, roasting fish on the beach was the best way to eat fish. Gutted fish were set on a galvanized sheet of metal and placed over hot coals, a special sauce was spread on the fish. Roasted fish was a delicacy to Gallowsbayrians.
Buying and selling fish was certainly an economic activity, but it was also a social one. Everyone huddled around the vendors to select the freshest fish. In those days, fish cost 10 cents before noon, and less afterwards as there was no refrigeration to keep it cold. Some vendors sold their catch door-to-door.
After the Virgin Islands became a Territory of the United States, a special publication using data from the 1917 census examined many factors regarding fishing in the islands. The census showed that there were 103 fishermen on St. Croix, making up 61 percent of the employed population. Fishing was the second-largest industry on the island to that of sugar.
Eventually, the Hospital Street area was filled with soldiers and later gendarmes as the military complex was located there. Beside the administrative building, which today is in ruins, there was a huge barracks positioned behind. Men, at their leisure hours, talked with their Gallows Bay neighbors and hired out the services of young boys who served as shoe shiners, and of women who took in washing and cooked meals for the hungry men. The barracks was burned to the ground in 1916 by a gendarme officer.
But times were changing. Along with becoming a U.S. Territory, there came fishing laws, restrictions that were imposed by the U.S. Government to preserve the fish population. Gallows Bay fishermen were in fact instrumental in practicing their own fishing restrictions to preserve the fish population. Unlike other fishermen on the island, Gallows Bay men went out to sea only on Wednesdays and Fridays so as not to deplete the fish supply.
Kalmer Guiard “Wolf” Tutein, Jessica Tutein Moolenaar’s father, was known far and wide as an outstanding fisherman. He did not believe in ‘catching out’ the coming generation of fish. He always ‘held back’ fish. He was a generous man who also gave away fish to poor people he knew had no food.
Jessica Tutein Moolenaar (1925-2001), known to all as “Jess” was the unofficial Mayor of the area. She was the “voice of the people” of the Gallows Bay community. She was an avid protector of marine life and fishing rights of her beloved bayside, at which she operated from her home. Everyone came to her to learn the ‘means of the day’.
During the 1960’s, the cargo receiving area, once located at Christiansted wharf, became obsolete. The Port Authority created a larger cargo dock in Gallows Bay and moved the entire operation there. In 1969, container shipping started. Not only were larger ships calling on Gallows Bay, but the containers were transported from the dock on land to their distribution centers via large trailer trucks that operated all hours of the day and night and produced noise and dust.
Also, in the 1960’s Altona Lagoon and Gallows Bay were dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to accommodate small-sized cruise ships. Gallows Bay therefore became the primary port. Much of the cargo coming into the Frederiksted and Christiansted wharf areas was transferred to the Gallows Bay port, which in 1984 became a container port and docking place for inter-island ships. Consequently, the dredging brought on a mandate by the local government that called on Gallowsbayrians to use Altona Lagoon, further east of Gallows Bay, as their staging area for fishing.
In conjunction with Buck Island being proclaimed a National Monument and included in the Christiansted National Historic Site in 1963, federal restrictions were placed on the number of fishermen and the quantity of fish they took at the site; along with a limit on the number of boat visits to Buck Island. With the National Park Service being used as the enforcement agency, the Territorial Government was charged with enforcing the 3-mile limitation and the Federal Government enforced the 3 to 200 mile regulations. Consequently, Gallowsbayrians felt squeezed in by the fishing and boating regulations of these two entities.
In the 1970’s, the VI Government created suburbs outside of the town of Christiansted, located in Mon Bijou, Welcome, and Richmond. Young men and women who grew up in Gallows Bay, preferred to move into these residential areas of concrete single family homes with three bedrooms and modern kitchens and bathrooms. In doing so, they left their elderly parents in the ‘family home’ in Gallows Bay. And as the parents slowly died off, these homes were closed and the grass and bushes were allowed to become overgrown, giving a vacant look to certain sections of the area.
In the mid 1970’s, the Armstrong family, who owned large tracts of land in Gallows Bay, bordering on Estate Welcome, created Chandler’s Wharf, where Marshall & Sterling Insurance now occupies; and built with their Port Terminal Company (PORTCO) several buildings where Gannett Hardware, St. Croix Bank, the U.S. Post office, and Merrill Lynch rented out space and opened their businesses.
Today, Gallows Bay is a thriving Commercial Center, an area which plays an increasingly important role in the commerce of St. Croix. But it is clear that the old fishing village ways of living a gracious life has made an enormous impact on many of the traditions and civilities that Crucians now fondly embrace. There is a warmth and friendliness, an unusual sense of camaraderie that exists across the spectrum of life on St. Croix.
Many people who settle here, who have traveled around the globe, say St. Croix is unlike any other place on earth. See for yourself. Buy a bucket of fresh-caught fish from one of the roadside fish merchants, take it down to the beach, roast it on a galvanized sheet of metal over hot coals; stare out across the beautiful waters of the Caribbean Sea, and think about the early days of the fishermen and their families in Gallows Bay. Where else would you want to be?
