Cheesy Grits: Mathilde Dagmar's Island Haunts

After having spent parts of two days with Ricki Marshall in Christiansted's public library and the St. Croix Landmarks Society Library and Archive at Estate Whim, we thought it was time to explore more of the island itself and look for the some of the places mentioned in the various records.

But in looking back at my earlier posts, I realized that I haven't yet posted a good map of St. Croix so that readers can orient themselves a bit. (Although Mathilda Dagmar was born and baptised on St. Thomas, we had no plans to go there: it's about forty miles north of St. Croix and at that time, one either flew or took a slow ferry across infamously choppy seas—the ferry wasn't nicknamed the "Barf Barge" for nothing. But that's all past tense because the ferry ran aground and service has never resumed.)

Anyway, after the jump, a map.




Our first destination was Frederiksted on the west (left) end of the island. We went straight for 40/41 Strand Street, which was where Mathilda Dagmar and family were living at the time of the 1870 St. Croix census.

From the census, we gathered that it was a boarding house when they lived there. Not only is it still standing, but it was apparently really fixed up into a Victorian manse during the 1890s or so. In fact, if you zoom in to Frederiksted on the above map and find the corner of Strand and Queens Cross, 40/41 Strand sits right on the corner, backing up to the ocean. On the overhead view, you can see the white roof of 40/41 Strand and then a pink roof behind it, which is a small cottage perched atop of the enclosing wall for the yard/garden of 40/41 Strand.

Here is what the front looks like from the intersection of Strand and Queens Cross:

40/41 Strand in Frederiksted, the 1870 home of Jane's great-grandmother,
Mathilde Dagmar Christensen and family. That's Jake contemplating the grounds.
Picture take from about the middle of the intersection of Strand and Queens Cross.

 Here is a side view from the short stub of Queens Cross that runs down to the ocean:

North side of 40/41 Strand with just the end of the cottage on the wall.

And here are Mathilde Dagmar's descendants, standing in front of her house:

Jane and Jake at 40/41 Strand

The house appeared to be closed up/unoccupied when we were there. I later saw a sale notice for it on the web. The owner wanted around $1.7 million. Truth be told, it could potentially be a nice bed & breakfast, although of course if it needs a lot of work.....  It would be nice to own it for sentimental reasons but our sentiments haven't yet led to our making an offer.

Then we were off to find Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where Mathilda Dagmar was confirmed. It wasn't hard to find, because Frederiksted is very small: the church is five blocks east and one and one-half north from 40/41 Strand:

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Frederiksted.
By Martin Lie, Trondheim, Norway (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons

 The church was like this when we were there: closed up tight, so we didn't get to see inside. The picture of Holy Trinity on the Danish Consulate website shows the east side of the building with the doors open on that side. Alas, they were closed on the day we were there.

Just about a block from Holy Trinity Lutheran is St. Patrick Church, where Mathilda Dagmar's future husband, Frank McCabe was christened. We didn't go in; I don't remember if it was locked or not.

St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church, Frederiksted.
Mathilda Dagmar's future husband, Frank McCabe, was christened here.

We only visited one other family history site on this trip, and even then, we didn't get too close. Below is the entrance gate to the Old Danish Cemetery in Christiansted where Matilda Dagmar's mother, Adeline Deguisee, is buried. St. Croix still has its risky corners, and we were warned to be careful about going into the cemetery, even during the day. Whether or not the warning for that specific spot was justified, we don't know. What we did know was that many, many of the buildings on St. Croix have heavy iron fences around them and many windows are guarded by heavy iron bars.

So here is the entrance gate for the Old Danish Cemetery, as seen from our car:

Gate of Christiansted's Old Danish Cemetery, where Jane's great-great-grandmother,
Adeline Deguisee is buried in an unmarked grave.

Those were the major sights we saw on that short trip. I've turned up more documentation since we returned and also located Peters Farm Hospital, where Mathilda Dagmar and her family were living for the 1880 St. Croix census.

The best thing, though, was to run into another family historian who's been delving into his Crucian family history for far longer than I have been looking at Jane's. He helped me to reconstruct Adeline/Edlin/Adelaide's history back to her birth as a slave in 1836.

More about that in the next posts.