The House at 3 Company St.

Originally published January 2017

by Monique Clendinen Watson

I enjoyed the social media postings of my friends visiting St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands over the holidays, particularly the pictures and videos of everyone attending the Crucian-Rican breakfast a week ago. There were hundreds of people dancing in unison on Company Street, near the Christian Hendricks Vegetable Market after tramping down King Street and up Company Street in the early morning hours to the market where there was free traditional breakfast served to one and all. I am sure that the late George “Bagoon” O’Reilly and other organizers are thrilled at the success of this event which was designed to bring the spirit of Crucian Christmas Festival back into Christiansted town. The event celebrates Three Kings Day and the community and familial ties between Crucians and Puerto Ricans that flourished over the last century.

I was reminded recently when I interviewed Mrs. Leatrice Armstrong Percy that in Three Kings Day parades of the past, the parade route also went down King Street and back up Company Street.

The 90-year-old Crucian lady who lived at various locations on Company Street in her lifetime and who still owns No. 3 Company remembers

enjoying the masqueraders and other parade entries from the porch at No. 3. “It was very basic back then,” she said. “The masqueraders used crocus bags and banana leaves to make their costumes. I remember the scratch bands and entries such as the “old devil,” the “Indians” and the “clowns.” And of course, she said, “there was a lot of drinking…and the government owned the liquor stores.”

The U.S. Virgin Islands commemorates 100 years of being part of the United States of America on March 31, 2017. The islands were purchased from Denmark for $25 million in 1917 and the Danish West Indies became the U.S. Virgin Islands after two centuries of colonial rule. Like other locales across the globe, the past hundred years have brought profound changes to this island territory. Mrs. Percy was born after the Transfer, as the event is known in the Virgin Islands, but at 90, still remembers life on Company Street in the early part of the century. “Life was very easy, laid back and wonderful,” she said. “Everybody looked out for each other and no one locked their door.” She remembers drawing water from the wells in Christiansted with her friend “Clemmy”, going to the movies at Teytaud theater and socializing

on Christiansted Wharf. “There would be young people “necking” on the benches by the library and Thurland would have band concerts there,” she said. “Streetlights went out at 12 and on moonlight nights, they were turned off.” She also remembers that “during the war” (World War II) “water was 3 cents a bucket” and that families carefully rationed and shared food to make sure that no one was left without. “We even had a rhyme about it: “Every Monday kallaloo…Tuesday fish stew…” When you had meat, you made soup first and then later made a sauce to eat it with fungi.”

Mrs. Percy inherited #3 Company, which she says was built in the 1800s, from her father Radcliffe Armstrong, who managed Sion Farm Estate, and who she points out was one of the first people on the island to own a car. “I think it was a Ford.” The family, which included her mother Isa Phaire Armstrong and her sisters, Lilian, Asta and Marion lived at that address on and off over the years and also at the corner of Company and Prince Street, across from Holy Cross Church. Other cousins who lived in the town of Christiansted included the Phaires, Finches, Cartiers, Boughs, Solis and deChaberts.

The U.S. Post Office at Richmond is named for her half-brother Wilbur Armstrong. Mrs. Percy’s daughter-in-law, Mariel deChabert Percy, who now operates a gift store Eden South at #3 Company, says that back when her memory was better, her mother-in-law used to tell the story of her paternal grandmother taking her for walks to Christiansted cemetery to visit the gravesites of her ancestors, the “Netluohcs.” Family lore had it that

“Netluohcs” spelled backward is Schoulten, as in Peter von Schoulten, the Danish governor general who issued the emancipation proclamation in the Danish West Indies (name of the USVI before the Transfer). “It is purported that Governor von Schoulten’s brother, who lived on St. Croix, was the father of that branch of the family, who changed his name,” said Mariel. Mrs. Percy also remembers the families whose homes were close to #3 – “the Goldens lived across the street, there was Ms. Neptune’s candy shop, Ms. Maude Bollings lived in the house above Sonya’s and Anduze Barber Shop was next door.” Legendary Virgin Islands judge, journalist and labor leader, D. Hamilton Jackson also lived on Company Street (Mahogany Inn) from 1935 to 1947.

Mrs. Percy left St. Croix in 1946 for Ohio to study to become a Lutheran sister. She changed her mind after learning that while religious sisters were required to be celibate, the male ministers could be married. “In those days, I wasn’t quiet,” she reflected and left for New York where she was encouraged to enroll in Fordham University to become a pharmacist. She later went back to Ohio and

completed her training at the Ohio State School of Pharmacy. She returned to St. Croix in 1950 and went on to a distinguished career in health care as a pharmacist, first at the Old Hospital at Peter’s Farm, Christiansted, the ruins of which can be seen when you drive on the bypass, and then to the Charles Harwood Hospital and the Juan Luis Hospital and Medical Center. She remembers working with the late Dr. Melvin Evans, who of course went on to become the first elected Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, the second elected Delegate to Congress and an U.S. Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago before his death.

I enjoyed my visit with Mrs. Leatrice Armstrong Percy, who has recently moved from her home in Rosegate, Christiansted to live closer to her son,

Radcliffe and daughter-in-law Mariel in Two Williams, Frederiksted. She told me that her elder son, who now lives stateside, Albion Percy, Jr. recently visited. She generously shared her memories of Company Street with me with great hospitality and humor. Mariel reminds me that she was “one of the two melee women on the old Virgin Islands radio show ‘Sarah and Addie,’” with skits that cracked jokes about island life.

Number Three Company Street has been home to the Armstrong, Steele and other families over the years and in recent memory, the site of the Goldworker. Presently, Mrs. Percy’s daughter-in-law, Mariel’s store Eden South is found at that location. At Eden South in the Antillean Archipelago you can find rainforest t-shirts, Jack’s Bay Pepper Sauce,

handcrafted local baskets and local preserves and syrups. There are books, paintings and other gift items made by local artists. Mariel, who works for Innovative as a draftsman, opened Eden South to offer more “culturally authentic” items for sale to residents and visitors alike. She started the business back in 1998 out of her house, but jumped at the chance to offer more by opening Eden South at 3 Company. One of her t-shirts features an authentic recipe for guavaberry licquer.

You can contact Mariel at Eden South at 340-713-1003 or visit their website at www.edensouth.com. For more stories about life in Christiansted, St. Croix in the early part of the 20^th century, I recommend The Neighborhoods of Christiansted – St. Croix 1910-1960, written by historian Karen C. Thurland. Books by Thurland, Richard Schrader and other Virgin Islands writers and historians can be found at Eden South and at libraries in the US Virgin Islands or at www.virginislandspubliclibraries.org. They are also available at www.amazon.com or at the St. Croix Landmarks Society at www.stcroixlandmarkssociety.com  or at Virgin Islands bookstores like Undercover Books at www.undercoverbookstcroix.com. You can find more work by Virgin Islands social historians at www.visharoots.org. For more on the 100^th Anniversary of the Transfer, visit www.vitransfercentennial.org.

As the world we live in is global and interactive, I would like to hear from you who know and love St. Croix who may have stories, pictures or memories to share about Company Street. Contact me at mcw@bluegaulinmedia.com.

 Monique Clendinen Watson is a writer and public relations specialist who is from the U.S. Virgin Islands and who lives in Virginia. She owns a public relations firm, BlueGaulin Media Strategies, www.bluegaulinmedia.com  and is a U.S. Virgin Islands Ambassador. Photos by Monique Clendinen Watson, Chalana Brown, Shanna O’Reilly and the Percy family. © Company Street Chronicles and Bluegaulinmedia are copyright protected. January 2017. All rights reserved.