[CARIBBEAN] Europe, New England, Caribbean - HAZARD and SANDS
Douglas/Ungaro
who - with some of us - is interested in this
New England - Caribbean - England - Africa
connection. Also those BROWNES of Rhode
Island and elsewhere. The following 1903 obit
mentions a Dutch ship named "Palatine" or
"Princess Augusta", from Rotterdam.
Gloria is not on this list. Her email is:
miller...@cs.com
Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 4:27 AM
Subject: Violet Hazard born Block Island, RI - obit 1903
>I would like to submit info on my ggggrandmother's
passing in 1903. The article, from the Narragansett
Times, is interesting reading. Well, at least for
Sands/Hazard descendants. You might find it
interesting also. > >Gloria Hazard Miller
> From the Narragansett Times 12/18/1903
>
>Obituary of Violet Hazard
>
> Mrs. Violet (Sands) Hazard, a colored woman, one hundred years of
>age, died on Sunday at the town Asylum where she had been an inmate
>for several years. The funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon.
>Rev. J. W. Fobes officiating. The burial was in the family plot at
>Tuckertown. The bearers were Joseph Brant, Thomas Perry, James
>Rooms, and Charles Hazard. The deceased had been blind for a long
>while.
>
>Mrs. Hazard was born in an old mansion long since destroyed, the home
>of Colonel Ned Sands, her father's master, located on the southeast
>part of New Shoreham, Block Island. December 13, 1798 and she was
>the daughter of Benjamin Port Sands and Aropa Sands. In order to
>trace the ancestry of this aged wit may be well to relate here the
>incident which tradition recalls in the loss of the Palatines.
>
>The story which is told of this fated ship comes through tradition
>handed down from generation to generation, and while it undoubtedly
>is a little mythical, yet it surely has some foundation; in fact,
>tradition has it that about a century and a half ago the Dutch ship
>Palatine" (actually the Princess Augusta from Rotterdam, et.) " bound
>from some unknown port, but possibly from Holland, and having on
>board a party of emigrants coming to the new world, was either
>pillaged by the crew and abandoned by them or lost in a gale and
>drifted ashore with all its sails set and the few passengers then
>alive on board were taken off by the Islanders. Somehow the ship was
>set on fire, by whom tradition has many theories -- and it is said
>that one poor woman stood on the deck crying for mercy while the ship
>went up in a white flame.
>
>Those who were taken ashore were tenderly cared for by the
>kind-hearted dwellers on the Island of the sea, and among those who
>were rescued was a young Dutch woman who was saved by a negro slave.
>It is said that many died later and about the only survivor who was
>the Dutch woman. At this time the chief magnates of the island were
>the large family of Sands, among them were Ray Sands, Pit Sands, John
>Sands and Robert Sands. The Sands kept slaves and as has been said,
>it was one of these African negroes who saved the life of the Dutch
>woman.
>
>Grateful to him for having thus saved her life and finding herself a
>castaway on an island far from her native land, she took up her abode
>with the slaves, became the common law wife of the negro slave and
>lived on the plantations of the Sands. It is not known what her
>Dutch name was, but according to the customs of those ancient times
>the slaves assumed the names of their master.
>
>This Dutch woman was said to be very light in color. She had three
>children, Jane, Mary, and Cradle. Mary continued in the Sands family
>and became the wife of a negro slave by whom she had several
>children, among them being Benjamin Port. This lad as he grew up,
>had a master Colonel Ned Sands, and Aroka Sands was his wife, and
>Violet was their daughter. Violett's mother died when she was but
>two years old and she lived with her aunt, who brought her up. While
>but a young girl she had to go into the field to work, pulling flax,
>chopping it and working upon it in its various stages, and finally to
>help weave it into cloth. When in her twentieth year Violette left
>the fair island of Manissees and came to the mainland to live, and
>she never again trod the soil of her native home.
>
>She first went to the town of Hopkington and worked in different
>families, and later went to South Kingstown. At the age of thirty
>she was married to Alexander Perry Hazard, whose mother at one time
>lived in the Hazard family in the Narragansett country. Together
>they labored for many years, never leaving the South County in which
>they made their home. They had three children, all of whom are now
>living. They are Sarah, Louisa, and Emeline. In 1899 Mrs. Violette
>Hazard had nine grand-children and twenty-nine great grand-children
>living.
>
>Mrs. Hazard's husband, Alexander Perry Hazard, died thirty years ago
>at the advanced age of seventy-eight. Then most of time since his
>death until she went to the town asylum she lived with her daughter
>Mrs. Louisa Victoria Sebation of Matunuck.
>
>Mrs. Hazard often told of the lore of the Palatine, and also
>described the mysterious light which, as the poet says:
>
> "The dead of long past years
> Those in forbodings keep,
> in blaze horrific reappears
> and plays along the deep."
>
>This light resembled a ship on fire and was usually seen just before
>a storm. Mrs. Hazard said she had seen just before a storm. Mrs.
>Hazard said she has seen this vision of the phantom ship and said:
>"I reckon it was seen before storms as long as any one lived who was
>on that ship."
>
>She would relate many incidents connected with the life on Block
>Island nearly a century ago. Among them was that during the war of
>1812, men of war would drop anchor off the Island and the sailors
>came ashore, taking cattle and anything they wished. Sometimes they
>would pay the slaves who were on guard, but the gold and silver the
>poor slaves got they had to turn over to their masters. She
>remembered vividly the great September gale of 1815, and said that
>the sea rose extremely high and washed nearly across the land. Homes
>were blown down, trees torn up and cattle drowned. Before this great
>gale she said there were many trees on the island, but the salt
>killed nearly all of them and since that time it had been difficult
>to grow trees on the island, especially apple and fruit trees. As
>there were no good trees to make firewood, the slaves had to gather
>peat and dry it to be used as fuel.
>
>Mrs. Hazard told of having gone a long distance and wheeled peat to
>the farm house to burn. For a light at night the natives tried out
>whale oil and burned it, which made a good light. She referred to a
>time when a very large whale, which had been killed at sea and
>drifted ashore. This was eagerly seized by the Islanders who cut it
>up and secured oil enough to last them a long time.
>
>Mrs. Hazard said she could just remember when their were remains of a
>pier on one side of the island, but there was then nothing but a few
>posts to mark the spot where this ancient wharf was."
>
>In her obit in the Westerly Sun, she also related how she had seen
>George Washington on one of his visits here.
>>
Richard Bond
which was financed by Princess Grace of Monaco as a place to train inner
city youth as restaurant staff. I told Brother Jacobs the monk who
managed it about the legend and poem which he was unfamiliar with and he
provided me with a meal for my family in exchange for a copy when I came
back.
Block Island was named for Dutchman Adriaen Block resident in the BVI
for a while and by turns explorer, lawyer, pastor, privateer and wrecker
who would sometimes go through conflicting professions on the same day.
At one point in the Virgin Islands he was said to be giving a sermon
which he cut short when he saw a ship run a ground. People to rescue
money to make see you later.
C.M.Codrington
Great vignette on Adraen Block!
Small world. I lived on Block Island for a year when still a "painter".
Wonderful walks in the fog (and man they invented it there!) great
graveyards. Lived in a 17th century house...There is a great book on Block
island history and tales written by resident historian of Block Island (name
escapes me at the moment) who was a man of color anyway he had an office
next to the Post Office and held court there each day. Man had absolutely
majestic hands and was one of the most naturally gracious people on earth. I
suspect he has passed now
I have his book packed away somewhere....if I can find it some of the
stories are marvellous.
Sorry, the Palatine story triggered it all....
But a walk through those (very) old graveyards would likely trigger quite
abit of name recognition for alot of us. A lot of mariners buried there.
Cod