Oct. 11, 2007 — The Enighed Pond Marine Facility on St. John and Crown Bay Marine Terminal on St. Thomas will soon have new names thanks to the Legislature.
Gov. John deJongh Jr. signed a Senate bill Wednesday naming the St. John facility after the late Theovald Eric Moorehead. The bill also names the Crown Bay Marine Terminal after Austin "Babe" Monsanto.
"Both gentlemen have made significant contributions in their respective professions to their communities and are deserving of such recognition," the governor said in a statement Wednesday.
Moorehead's daughter, Theodora Moorehead, said that her father paid for the initial drawings for Enighed Pond.
"He did say he might not live to see it, but some day they'll get it together," she said, referring to the St. John marine terminal.
Moorehead died in 1995 at age 79, leaving behind a daughter and his wife, Genevieve Moorehead.
Moorehead had his fingers in many pies. Theodora Moorehead said her father served as chairman of the Port Authority board, bringing the agency out of the financial red and into the black.
While serving in the U.S. Army, he learned from The Saturday Evening Post of plans to make St. John a national park, which would entail relocating the residents. He immediately got a discharge and came home to fight the condemnation proceedings. The park happened, and the residents remained.
He then ran for senator and won, serving 16 years.
Theodora Moorehead said her father sponsored the legislation that allowed the local government to buy the land where the George Simmonds Terrace affordable housing community sits on St. John's Centerline Road.
She said he and a handful of others started the island's first scheduled ferry service. And he helped organized St. John's volunteer fire department, which operated until the local government implemented a paid department.
He also served as a customs and immigration inspector.
While Moorehead's name will grace the sign at the Enighed Pond Marine Facility, his legacy is one of the first things residents and visitors see when they get off the ferry in Cruz Bay — Mooie's Bar.
Theodora Moorehead said her father opened the bar in 1956 when he was elected to the Legislature, which was then an unpaid position.
Monsanto, 81, and Moorehead became friends when Monsanto served as a V.I. National Park ranger back in its early years.
"He and I discussed what was going on on St. John," Monsanto said Thursday.
Monsanto was also the first Port Authority marine manager, he said, a job he held for 18 years.
Monsanto said he held the position during the era when it was called the V.I. Airport Industrial Resource Agency. He said that agency merged with the Commerce Department's marine activities to become the Port Authority.
He now serves as chairman of the St. Thomas Coastal Zone Management Committee.
Monsanto also serves on the V.I. Lottery Board and is a founding member of We from Upstreet Inc.
Monsanto and his wife, Alda, live on St. Thomas.
The Port Authority still needs to order the signs, spokesman Marc Stridiron said Thursday.
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