Thanks to a new St. John Historical Society sign, visitors poking around near the Elaine I. Sprauve Library can learn more about the history of Estate Enighed plantation. The library is the former estate greathouse.
Visitors can read about the cotton and sugar plantation’s former owner, Saba native William Wood. Wood was buried in the Estate Enighed cemetery in 1757.
Wood’s ornately-carved monument is believed to be the oldest marked grave of a Saba native known to exist anywhere in the world.
“And it might be the oldest marked burial on St. John,” said Historical Society President David Knight.
Wood migrated to St. John by way of St. Eustatius, where his name is found in the 1728 census. In or about 1740, Wood acquired two struggling cotton plantations in the Cruz Bay Quarter of St. John and merged them to create a large and profitable sugar estate.
He married Elisabeth Durloo, a daughter of the prominent St. John planter Peter Durloo, in August of 1742.
Wood died on his plantation in the spring of 1757, leaving his wife, Elisabeth, and their children as heirs. A later partnership between their son, Johannes, and George Hazzel appears to have inspired the naming of the property, Enighed or, in English, Unity.
Wood’s grave rests alongside 11 others in the Estate Enighed Cemetery. It is the only remaining identifiable burial on the site. The granite slab marking Wood’s final resting place measures 6-by-2.5-feet and was most likely imported from Europe. The style of the monument is ornately carved rather than inscribed.
The memoriam on William Wood’s gravestone, written in both Dutch and Danish, reads “William Wood, First Alderman of the community of Jesus Christ, Former Burger Captain of St. John, Born on Saba 22 March 1692, Died St. John 9 March 1757.”
The marker also reads: “On Saba rose his sun of life. Wood, who knew God’s community, His life’s sun waned on St. John. Here resteth his remains. He will find the Alderman’s Wages of Grace with Heaven’s Lord.”
Learn more about the St. John Historical Society at www.stjohnhistoricalsociety.org.
