Hassel Island (also sometimes Hassell Island) is a small island of the

U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and a territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located ...

, a

United States territory In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...

located in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. Hassel Island lies in the

Charlotte Amalie Harbor Charlotte Amalie Harbor is a major maritime hub located in Charlotte Amalie (subdistrict), U.S. Virgin Islands, the subdistrict of Charlotte Amalie, the modern day capital of the United States Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, on the southern ...

just south of Saint Thomas and east of Water Island, with which it is part of the sub-district of Water Island. The roughly island was once a peninsula of Saint Thomas, known as Orkanhullet (Hurricane Hole). Hassel Island was separated by the Danish government in 1860, and named for the Hassel family who owned much of the estate. In March 2012, the MTV's reality TV series ''The Real World'' was filmed for its twenty-seventh season on Hassel Island. The series was filmed at the Royal Mail Building which was the former quarters of the

Royal Mail Steam Packet Company The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by a Scot, James MacQueen. The line's motto was ''Per Mare Ubique'' (everywhere by sea). After a troubled start, it became the largest shipping grou ...

. During the later 1900s it was operated as the Royal Mail Inn. It is the only season that the television series has filmed in the Caribbean. The season completed its filming two months later in May 2012. In 2015, that land was purchased to be used as a private home. There are under five homes built on this island. It does not seem to be a fast growing populous place, but rather is a more secluded National Park and limited number of private homes.

History

Careening Cove, a bay on Hassel Island, appears on maps as early as 1687. FortWilloughbyHasselIslandUSVI

The Danish used Hassel Island's strategic location to defend the busy Charlotte Amalie harbor in the 18th and 19th centuries. FortWilloughbyGarrisonHouseHasselIslandUSVI

FortWilloughbyGarrisonHouseHasselIslandUSVI

The

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

occupied Hassel Island during the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

. The ruins of several British buildings remain on Hassel Island, including Fort Willoughby, which was built on the site of the older Prince Frederik's Battery (Fort Frederik), as well as Fort Shipley (Shipley's Battery) and Cowell's Battery. All three were constructed around 1801-1802. CrequeMarineRailwayHasselIslandUSVI

In the 1840s, the St. Thomas Marine Railway Company constructed the St. Thomas Marine Railway Slip. Later renamed the

Creque Marine Railway The Creque Marine Railway, formerly the "St Thomas Marine Repair Facility", is an inclined-plane ship railway on Hassel Island, in the bay of Charlotte Amalie off the coast of St. Thomas Island, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Its site is below Fort S ...

, it is one of the earliest steam-powered

marine railway A patent slip or marine railway is an inclined plane extending from shoreline into water, featuring a "cradle" onto which a ship is first floated, and a mechanism to haul the ship, attached to the cradle, out of the water onto a slip. The mar ...

s in the western hemisphere and perhaps the oldest surviving example of such a railway. The

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

-based Boulton Company built the railway's steam engine. CrequeMarineRailwayPowerHouseHasselIslandUSVI

In the 1860s, the Danish government dug a channel that separated Hassel Island from Saint Thomas and improved the circulation of the Charlotte Amalie harbor. The

operated its

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

hub on Hassel Island from about 1850 until the 1870s. In 1871, the

Hamburg America Line The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), known in English as the Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. Among those involved in its development were prominent Germ ...

set up a

coaling station Fuelling stations, also known as coaling stations, are repositories of fuel (initially coal and later oil) that have been located to service commercial and naval vessels. Today, the term "coaling station" can also refer to coal storage and feedi ...

on Hassel Island. There was also a

leprosarium A leper colony, also known by #Names, many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''Mycobacterium leprae, M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believ ...

on the island. The channel was widened by the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

in 1919, shortly after the United States purchased the

Danish West Indies The Danish West Indies () or Danish Virgin Islands () or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with , Saint John () with , Saint Croix with , and Water Island. The islands of St ...

. The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

also established a naval station on the island, which was in operation during World War I and World War II. In the middle of the 20th century, most of Hassel Island was owned by the prominent local Paiewonsky family. The Royal Mail Inn, a small hotel located on Hassel Island, built by the Paiewonsky family may have been the hotel immortalized in

Herman Wouk Herman Wouk ( ; May 27, 1915 – May 17, 2019) was an American author. He published fifteen novels, many of them historical fiction such as ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1951), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize in fiction. ...

's novel '' Don't Stop the Carnival''. The Creque Marine Railway and a

signal station A signal station is a form of Navigational aid, Aids to Navigation that is defined by the International Hydrographic Organization, IHO simply as "A signal station is a place on shore from which signals are made to ships at sea". While this broad de ...

at Cowell's Battery were in operation until the 1960s and 1970s, respectively. The southern portion of the island was inscribed as a historic district on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1976. In 1978, the historic district was expanded to cover the remainder of the island as well. In 1978, the

Virgin Islands National Park The Virgin Islands National Park is a national park of the United States preserving about 60% of the land area of Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as more than of adjacent ocean, and nearly all of Hassel Island, just off the Charlott ...

purchased most of the island from the Paiewonsky family. The rest of the island is divided between the territorial government and a few private residences. Since around 2004, the Saint Thomas and Hassel Island Preservation Trust, the Virgin Islands National Park, the Saint Thomas Historical Trust and other organizations have been working to restore and preserve the island's historic sites. There are limited guided

kayaking Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits fac ...

and

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

tours of the island. Hassel Island is also the location for '' The Real World: St. Thomas'', the twenty-seventh season of the reality show ''

The Real World ''The Real World'' (known as ''Real World'' from 2014 to 2017) is an American reality television series produced through MTV and Bunim/Murray Productions that most recently aired on Facebook Watch after airing on MTV from 1992 to 2017. It wa ...

''.

References

External links

Hasselisland.org — Hassel Island history and preservation organization

* ttp://www.northamericanforts.com/East/vi.html Northamericanforts.com
St. Thomas Source.com: "Hassel Island's makeover uncovers historical riches"
{{NRHP in Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands Islands of the United States Virgin Islands Landforms of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands National Register of Historic Places in Virgin Islands National Park Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States Virgin Islands

History

Further reading

References

External links