July 17, 2014

Dear Sir:

I presume that one of the reasons why Mr. Walton Brown, as a good historian, would like to have an inquiry into the Tucker’s Town/Castle Harbour forced land sales is to discover more about the questions and tales about the area.

The story of the defence of Castle Roads, the sinking of the Warwick and (in another era) her fatal grounding of the Royal Navy sloop known to scuba divers as “The Musket Shot Wreck”are part and parcel of the Tucker’s Town story — along with Governor Tucker’s plan to found a town there — leaving us with the name forever more.

Then there is the story of the sighting of a cigar-shaped object hovering over Tucker’s Town Bay, I think in the late 1880s or the early 1900s, and the ferocious hurricane which created a passage from the beach to Tucker’s Town Bay, thus making the point an island. The fact that it was so nearly an island anyway made it a useful place to put the donkeys which were brought up from Turk’s Island aboard a small schooner. The donkeys were blinded by the white glare of the salt piles and pans.

They were sent to Bermuda to recover, which I was told they did, and were then returned for further labour in the Turk’s Islands.

I have always heard that a considerable portion of the beaches was owned by Hamilton merchant Mr. Goodwin Gosling, and were nicknamed “Goodwin Sands” after the treacherous shoals in the English channel.

The truth of these legends would be an interesting task for an inquiry of whatever sort — I don’t think it needs to be set up by the Governor but could be carried out by a committee of the Assembly - headed, I hope, by Mr. Brown.

Yours truly,

W.S.ZUILL Sr.