Greetings, Family and Friends,
I heard from Zen recently that there was to be an exhibition of Soufrière photos and I looked online to see what I could find about the show… only this…
“Nadia Huggins has been working with the Seismic Research Centre to put together a stunning collection of photographs from the 1902 and 1979 eruptions of volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The photographic exhibition will be on view from November 12 to 22, at the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines National Trust, Carnegie Old Public Library Building, Halifax Street, in Kingstown, St. Vincent.”
There are online, however, lots of photos of past eruptions and the devastated aftermath.
The Caribbean photo archive hosts a Caribbean treasure trove in general
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caribbeanphotoarchive/albums
and there are at least 3 collections on St.Vincent’s La Soufrière
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caribbeanphotoarchive/albums/72157615237865988
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caribbeanphotoarchive/albums/72157617750338317
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caribbeanphotoarchive/albums/72157613392068704
I think it was Brenda who pointed me to this detailed page on the 1902 eruption
http://www.georgetownsvgrevisited.co.uk/la-soufriere-1902-eruption.php
Reading it, I was struck by the portion quoted here…
“At Orange Hill, there was a large substantial stone built rum cellar, which by the orders of the manager, was left open to afford a refuge for any who wished to avail themselves of it. About seventy crowded together there. The windows were not shut, but they were small and faced the sea, so that the blast did not directly strike them. One man stood by the door holding it ajar to admit any who fled from the huts in the village. Forty were in the cellar, and all were saved”
I believe that the said manager was our great grandfather Alexander Murdoch Fraser (born 1844 in Crauts Farm, Knockie, Banffshire, Scotland), who died with his wife Catherine Robertson at Orange Hill in the 1902 eruption. Our grandmother, Lillias, would have been 20, and she didn’t marry until 1907, so I wonder where she was? Did they send her away from Orange Hill because of the danger? Had she been with her parents, likely we would not exist...
In my search for traces of the current photographic exhibition, I stumbled across an article by Naomi Clifford on the 1812 eruption, entitled
1816: The year without a summer, and published on 12 June 2015. An excerpt follows…
At about noon on Monday 27 April 1812, 28,000 inhabitants of St Vincent, free and enslaved, witnessed the sudden and violent start of the eruption of La Soufrière (The Sulfurer), the huge volcano in the north of their tiny Caribbean island. As great thunderous cracks split the air, the earth shook, a massive column of thick black smoke rose from the summit and volumes of red-hot sparks were spat into the atmosphere. Birds fell dead out of the sky. Everyone on the island, whether enslaved or free, was terrified.
“In the afternoon the roaring of the mountain increased and at seven o’clock the flames burst forth, and the dreadful eruption began,” wrote barrister and plantation owner Hugh P. Keane. The volcano was not just a thing of terror — it was also sublimely beautiful, and three days after the volcano first stirred, Keane rose early to sketch the scene, with the volcano’s sulfurous vapours curling skyward and the air filled with layers of yellows, reds and rusts. His drawing, now lost, somehow made its way to an acquaintance, the artist J. M. W. Turner, who used it as inspiration for a work he showed at the Royal Academy in 1815. Turner’s painting is now in the collection of the University of Liverpool.
Lava boiled up over the edge of La Soufrière until there was a massive explosion from the north-west side of the mountain and a molten river snaked its way through the sharp hills pushing its way to the west coast and pouring into the sea. Another vast stream spread eastward. Then the first earthquakes were felt, followed by showers of cinders, stones and red-hot magma. It was as if the earth were in a state of continuous movement, undulating like water shaken in a bowl.
The next morning, the island was in total darkness, as though the sun had failed to rise. A thick haze hung over the sea and the sky filled with yellowish black clouds. The island was covered with ash, cinders and fragments of lava—and the volcano was still rumbling. Gradually it settled back into silence.
In all, about 80 people died, relatively few for an eruption of such force, although there were many injuries, particularly amongst the slaves working in the fields. Two of the rivers had been completely dried up. The crops were ruined, and food had to be bought in from neighbouring islands.
J.M.W. Turner unveiled his
painting of the eruption of La Soufrière at the Royal Academy in 1815
In
The eruption of La Soufrière on the West Indian island of St Vincent, Clifford also wrote…
“St Vincent itself was regarded as one of the jewels of the Empire. The volcano’s eruptions (there had been a major eruption in 1718) had rendered the earth richly fertile, ideal for growing the dominant crop—sugar. Between 1807 and 1834 the island was the leading producer of sugar in the Windward Islands, with the highest ratio of sugar to slave.
Not only that, the island was exceptionally beautiful.”
Naomi Clifford’s articles led to the story of Maria Glenn (1801-1866), who, it seems may have been a Vincentian! Clifford wrote about her in a book called
The Disappearance of Maria Glenn.
The following is taken from
Maria Glenn, Brave & Determined Young Woman of Regency England by Naomi Clifford, August 16, 2016
Maria Glenn, the daughter of a barrister, was born in the West Indies in 1801... She was not pretty (even her uncle, who was devoted to her, said she was plain) but she was a good marriage prospect nevertheless. She was expected to inherit valuable sugar estates in St Vincent when her grandfather died. This expectation made her very interesting to the Bowditch, farmers just outside Taunton, with whom Maria, then aged 15, was sent to lodge in the summer of 1817.
She and two of her young cousins were sent to stay on the Bowditches’ farm to recuperate from whooping cough.
What happened next was the subject of bitter dispute.
Maria later claimed that James Bowditch, the 25-year-old second son, threatened to kill her and then commit suicide if she did not comply with his plan to carry her off and marry her on the isle of Guernsey (which was out of the jurisdiction of English law), and that was the only reason she agreed to leave her uncle’s house in the middle of the night. She was terrified.
James and his family said the whole thing was Maria’s idea and that she had spent the summer flirting and behaving improperly with James, and planning to run away with him to marry. They implied that as a plain girl, she was grateful for the attention.
The problem for them was that while their story changed over time, Maria’s did not.
She stuck to it through a string of stressful court cases, which were reported the length and breadth of the country and never wavered in its detail, even when some of the Bowditches’ powerful friends – including the radical Leigh Hunt of The Examiner – took up their cause against her.
Nothing to do with us, but quite the story, in which our island home featured prominently. Scandalous lot we are...
Sending loving greetings to "all ah you".
One love,
Lisbie x
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