Ever since I first saw Philipsburg back in 1955 as a boy of fourteen I started an affair with St. Maarten. When I completed my schooling on Curacao I started working at the post office in Philipsburg on October 10th, 1960. ln the years between 1955 and 1960 I passed through St. Maarten twice yearly and got to know a number of people there. Shortly after starting work for the post office I knew nearly all of the people then living on the island.
Duty called me back to Saba in 1973, but I continued to visit St. Maarten almost monthly and to keep in touch with old acquaintances there.
As early as 1962 the lare Joseph H. Lake Sr. editor and publisher of the Windward Islands Opinion, and Opposition to the government, encouraged me to submit articles for publication in his newspaper. As a result of research for my newspaper articles, I became interested in doing further research into the history of St. Maarten.
It was not until much later that the thought of writing a book about St. Maarten started to formulate in my mind. I have delayed publishing this book perhaps only as an excuse to keep up a lively correspondence with many interesting people whose parents and ancestors were born on St. Maarten but who through circumstances now live scattered all over the world.
Many of these people still remember St. Maarten fondly, and I would like to quote from a letter of Mr. Fred Labega Jr. written in 1982. He speaks for all of us who have had an affair with Sr. Maarten:
Sr. Maarteners seem to adore the little speck in the ocean called by that name. My brother, Johan, who died in Caracas three years ago once wrote me that when he is in bed at night, in imagination, he 'hears the waves falling on the shore in Great Bay'. They were music to him. I have a letter from a friend, Harry Davis. He and his family lived in a house on the Frontstreet, just west of the Methodist chapel. This letter is dated June 9, 1916, and in it he says, 'I am always delighted to hear from the good old home, dearer than all the rest. 'Breathes there a man with soul so dead, that ne'er to himself had said, this is my own, my native land?' Yes, my dear old boy, even St. Maarten has its charms and the dogs bark sweeter there. How I long to see the beautiful white sand on the beach at Little Bay, to buckle my legs around the old gun, I believe I'd caress her dearly. I always did love nature more than man and my poetic sentiments carry me away in my dreams to these dear old places and then I sigh.' .
This letter was written from San Pedro de Macoris in Santo Domingo. He was much older than I am, and is now dead. The above quotation is from Sir Walter Scott. The gun means the barrel of an old-time cannon; its mouth was forced into the ground, and the rear part which protruded upwards generally had a large knob on it. This specific gun was on the Frontstreet, at the western corner of the alley which led to the beach. This alley was actually the continuation of the "Hotel Steeg" which ended at the Frontstreet, and was the first alley just west of the Methodist chapel. When I was younger every week I dreamt that I dwelt not in marble halls, but in St. Maarten.
Mr. Labega was 86 when he wrote those lines. He is one of the many who were forced to leave St. Maarten for the other Dutch islands because the Dutch colonial policy at the time did not have enough vision to develop St. Maarten so that its people could remain on the island and make a living there.
We would like to end by quoting from a booklet given out in 1951 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Methodism in Dutch St. Maarten. This booklet was written by the
Rev. R. Colley Hutchinson.
The island families, of which the Van Romondts and the Brouwers were among the most prominent, have almost entirely left or died out, and the older generation which was contemporary with them is quickly passing away. Those who would have been the natural successors are most of them living away. In their place an unceasing stream of immigrants from the neighbouring islands supplies the craftsmen, manual labourers and domestic servants of today.
Life in St. Maarten today offers a striking contrast to that of 100 years ago. The extensive fields of cane and cotton, the busy sugar mills, the ox-carts and carriages on the winding roads, the scenes by the
salt ponds, the prosperous estate houses with their bossy mammies and their swarms of servants and children, have become a legend. The independence and self-contained life of the island, pleasantly disturbed only at long intervals by the coming of a ship, is like a tale that is told.
When this was written in 1951 life on St. Maarten was quite different than today. We wonder what the Rev. R. Colley Hutchinson would think of the island today, but for certain he would have to describe life as it was on St. Maarten in 1951 "like a tale that is told."
The reader should be aware that St. Maarten (Dutch spelling) is used by the author to refer to the Dutch side of the island; St. Martin (English and/or French spelling) refers either to the whole island or to the French side.
