A visit to the Sugar Factory ruins
at Cinnamon Bay offer a peek at St. John history. Here it is possible
to follow how the Sugar Cane was processed from the fields into sugar,
molasses and rum. See the horse mill where the juice was extracted
from the cut cane stalks, and the boiling house where rows of copper
kettles constantly condensed the syrup to crystal form. Walk through
the store rooms where "hogsheads" of fresh sugar dried, these
wooded barrels holding up to 1400 pounds. Note the rum still, with
its chimneys as tall as the surrounding trees.
Smell the spicy scent of the Bay
trees, used to make the famous St. John Bay Rum. Calabash and Genip
trees grow in the foundations of the Great House at America Hill, as
the Plantation was once known.
The horsemill used to squeeze the sugar cane, between these iron rollers, and extract the juice.
