Tucker's Town, Bermuda
Encyclopedia
St. George's Parish, Bermuda
St. George's Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named after the founder of the Bermuda colony, Admiral Sir George Somers.It is located in the north-easternmost part of the island chain, containing a small part of the main island around Tucker's Town and the Tucker's Town...
at the mouth of Castle Harbour
Castle Harbour, Bermuda
Castle Harbour is a large natural harbour in Bermuda. It is located between the northeastern end of the main island and St. David's Island. Originally called Southampton Port, it was renamed as a result of its heavy fortification in the early decades of the Seventeenth century.-Geography:A gem of...
, on Tucker's Town Peninsula
Tucker's Town Peninsula, Bermuda
Tucker's Town Peninsula is a two-mile long peninsula which extends from the northeastern tip of the main island of Bermuda. It is in St...
on Bermuda's main island.
Forgotten community
Tucker's Town was founded by the recently-arrived Governor of BermudaGovernor of Bermuda
The Governor of Bermuda is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. The Governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government...
Daniel Tucker in 1616, but the land was found "verie meene", while the harbour itself was unprotected from the weather and isolated from the rest of the island. Tucker ignored these issues and began to lay out a street grid plan
Grid plan
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...
— featuring a 12 feet (3.7 m) road—and had a small chapel built, but was unable to attract any migrants from the main settlement at St, George's
St. George's, Bermuda
St. George's , located on the island and within the parish of the same names, was the first permanent settlement on the islands of Bermuda, and is often described as the third successful English settlement in the Americas, after St. John's, Newfoundland, and Jamestown, Virginia. However, St...
. The following year, only two or three cottages had been built in the area, and those were inhabited by soldiers manning Castle Island
Castle Island, Bermuda
Castle Island is part of the chain which makes up Bermuda. It is located in St. George's Parish, in the northeast of the territory.The 3.5 acre island is situated close to the entrance to Castle Harbour, to the north of the Tucker's Town Peninsula.Originally called King's Island, it is of...
. Once the failure of the Town was acknowledged, the land was allotted to officers stationed at Castle Island, and off-duty soldiers tended to spend their time there instead of at the Island's sentry post
Guardhouse
A guardhouse is a building used to house personnel and security equipment...
. The only civilian presence was the family of the fort commander.
By 1750, a small civilian community—35 families living on 350 acres (1.4 km²) of public land—had finally been established, as had a whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
station to support hunting off Bermuda's south shore. In 1758, Governor William Popple regranted the land to a group of wealthy landowners, but this had little effect on the tenants.
In 1780, the Government of Bermuda began an initiative to encourage the cultivation of cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
in Tucker's Town. The move was not commercially successful, as the wrong kind of cotton was grown. By 1834, former slaves owned property in Tucker's Town as part of St. George's large free black population (some 45% of St. George's blacks prior to that year's abolition of slavery).
An 1856 hurricane strike, coupled with frequent waterspout
Waterspout
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water. While it is often weaker than most of its land counterparts, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur...
s and tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
es, destroyed much of the area's pastures and houses. During the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in the 1860s, hundreds of barrels of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
and saltpetre
Potassium nitrate
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula KNO3. It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrate ions NO3−.It occurs as a mineral niter and is a natural solid source of nitrogen. Its common names include saltpetre , from medieval Latin sal petræ: "stone salt" or possibly "Salt...
were stored at Tucker's Town and Smith's Island
Smith's Island, Bermuda
Smith's Island is part of the chain which makes up Bermuda. It is located in St. George's Parish, in the northeast of the territory.The 61 acre island is located close to the northern entrance to St. George's Harbour, east of the town of St. George's to the south of the slightly smaller Paget...
. In 1862, a 42-year-old black labourer named James Talbot purchased at over 100 acre (0.404686 km²) of Tucker's Town from the estate
Estate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
of lawyer Benjamin Dickinson Harvey, whom in 1800 had acquired nearly 200 acre (0.809372 km²) of the area. In 1882, Talbot sold part of his estate for a nominal fee so that a school could be built. The school's eight trustees planned for a one-room school
One-room school
One-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most rural and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room...
that would also be used to encourage temperance
Temperance (virtue)
Temperance has been studied by religious thinkers, philosophers, and more recently, psychologists, particularly in the positive psychology movement. It is considered a virtue, a core value that can be seen consistently across time and cultures...
(see also: temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
). The schoolhouse survives as "Lookout Cottage" at the entrance of the Mid Ocean Club
Mid Ocean Club
The Mid Ocean Club is a private 6,520 yard, 18-hole golf course in Tucker's Town, Bermuda. Designed by Charles Blair Macdonald in 1921, it was modified to its current design in 1953 by Robert Trent Jones. It is consistently placed highly among world courses and is ranked 45th by Golf Digest for...
.
Tourism centre
Devil's Hole, Bermuda
Devil's Hole is a large water-filled sinkhole, close to the southeastern corner of Harrington Sound, Bermuda. At one time a subterranean, oceanic cave, it is fed by the Atlantic ocean proper, rather than the far closer sound, via an underground estuary....
. The last to be evicted was Dinna Smith, who was physically removed from her property in 1923.
The BDC managed to score a deal with Furness Withy
Furness Withy
Furness Withy was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange.-History:The Company was founded by Christopher Furness and Henry Withy in 1891 in Hartlepool. This was achieved by the amalgamation of the Furness Line of steamers with the business of Edward Withy and...
Steamship Company, who hired Charles B. Macdonald
Charles B. Macdonald
Charles Blair Macdonald was a major figure in early American golf. He built the first 18-hole course in the United States, was a driving force in the founding of the United States Golf Association, won the first U.S...
to design a golf course for their new hotel, the Mid Ocean Club. Macdonald's course was finished in December, 1921, with the assistance of Portuguese workers from the Azores. The BDC also encouraged the richest of visitors to build their own mansions at Tucker's Town. Childs Frick
Childs Frick
Childs Frick was an American vertebrate paleontologist.He was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and a major benefactor of its Department of Paleontology, which in 1916 began a long partnership with him. He established its Frick Laboratory...
and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, , was a prominent socialite and philanthropist and the second-generation matriarch of the renowned Rockefeller family...
were among the early elites to build summer homes
Vacation property
Vacation property is a niche in the real estate market dealing with residences used for holiday vacations . In the United Kingdom this type of property is usually termed a holiday home, in Australia, a holiday house/home, or weekender, in New Zealand, a bach or crib...
. The hotel itself was completed, after two years of construction, on 30 November 1931. Opened by Governor General Sir Thomas Astley Cubitt, it featured 400 rooms and was built by 600 Azorean contractors. Prominent visitors were often photographed and used to market Bermuda, and included Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Harpo Marx
Harpo Marx
Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...
, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
and Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
. In 1935, almost 75,000 tourists visited the country, compared to 27,000 in 1911 and less than 1,400 in 1885.
Following World War II — during which Tucker's Town was garrisoned as the site of the transatlantic telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...
hut — the Mid Ocean Club (and Furness, who by that point ran several more hotels in Bermuda) was struggling financially, and in 1951 it was sold to its members. Golf course architect Robert Trent Jones
Robert Trent Jones
Robert Trent Jones, Sr. was a golf course architect who designed about 500 golf courses in at least 40 US states and 35 other countries all around the world...
was hired to redesign the course, though he made few changes to MacDonald's design.
Today, individuals such as American businessman and Presidential candidate Ross Perot
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988...
(who made headlines in 1992 for his involvement in the dynamiting of a live coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
near his mansion), Prime Minister of Italy
Prime minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
and Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
are known residents.
Tucker's Town gave its name to a song by Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...
on the 1996 album Fairweather Johnson
Fairweather Johnson
Fairweather Johnson is the second studio album by the band Hootie & the Blowfish, released on April 23, 1996. Three songs from the album were released as singles: "Old Man & Me", "Tucker's Town", and "Sad Caper"...
.