the stories of our proud and friendly people, our charming and colourful villages, our fascinating ruins, our intriguing rain forests,
and our traditions that span centuries.

Thomas Manchester Thomas Manchester was born on the 16th August 1880. He was the sixth child and second son of James Thomas Allan Manchester and his wife Ann Catherine Atherton. A pillar of the St. Ann’s Anglican Church in Sandy Point, James was the owner of Lynch’s and New Guinea estates, the attorney for the Blake’s plantation and a member of the St. Kitts Executive Council. Together he and his wife had produced seven children, three...
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D L Matheson On the 24th January 1914, Donald F. Matheson and his wife Charlotte Matheson nee Mercer welcomed a son into the world. They called him Donald Lloyd. The world that the Mathesons lived in was one of privilege and young Lloyd, driven by a desire to learn, moved without much difficulty from the St. Kitts Grammar School to West Buckland School in Devon, England. The young man returned to St. Kitts in 1931 and joined...
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May Stevens Yvonne May Stevens was born on the 28th May 1910 into the large family of James Henry Stevens and his wife Ethlinda Leonora nee Penn. Her father was at the time, the Master of the Leper Home in Sandy Point but by 1914 the family had moved to Nevis where he held the post of Assistant to the Surveyor on that island. May grew up in a disciplined close-knit house hold that valued family and...
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CO-CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is an ornate church constructed out of grey stone and located on the eastern side of Independence Square. In the early years of the French occupation of St. Kitts, the Jesuits had build a Roman Catholic Church and dedicated it to Our Lady. Notre Dame was burned in 1706 during the Anglo-French war and rebuilt later as St. Georges Anglican Church. The catholic congregation in St. Kitts diminished drastically in...
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THE CUNNINGHAM HOSPITAL was located on the Western side of Basseterre on land that was now occupied by the the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College and the Public Library. This was not the first hospital on the island. De Poincy had built one soon after his arrival in 1639 but it was destroyed during the wars of the 17th century. Health on the Plantation At a time when the lives of the many were at the mercy of...
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When the tiny settlement of Basseterre was founded in 1627 College Street was very likely its western boundary but with the growth of the population and the construction work undertaken by Governor De Poincy, the settlement gradually grew into a small town. College Street got its name from the Jesuit College which was erected north of the town (now Douglas Estate). The Jesuits had replaced the Capuchins in 1642 after De Poincy expelled them for what...
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Hurricanes Wars were not the only dramatic events to effect the development of Basseterre. Natural disasters played a very significant roll.The 1642 and 1667 hurricanes destroyed all the houses on the island. In 1667 French Governor Laurent reported I hold myself obliged to inform you that this island is in the most deplorable state that can be imagined and that the inhabitants could not have suffered a greater loss, or been more unfortunate except they had...
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The Phantom of Cholera Cholera is an infectious disease of the small intestine that causes severe watery diarrhea over a few days. It , can lead to dehydration and even death if untreated. It is caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae. In 1850, cholera made its presence felt in Barbados and St. Vincent and by 1853 it was in Nevis. St. Kitts attempted to control the flow of people from places where...
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The St. Kitts Music Festival takes place every year at the end of June. It was the brain child of then Minister of Tourism and Culture, G A Dwyer Astaphan who wanted to create an event that would attract visitors to St. Kitts in the off season and to expose the creative elements on the island, and the general public to the different genres of music. The festival’s website sets out its objectives as follows: to...
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