Sylvia,
If I have time to stop, I will, to see Pierre Beauperthuy, I pass his place almost everyday and know pretty well his familly.
You are so right when ou say "
It is very sad to me that something or someone is responsible for the naming of this point, and we have lost it.", but it is the reality of St Martin unfortunatly...
Very very few people keep history and memories alive here. It seems that people do not care about their past and it is what shocked me the most when I arrived, almost 20 years ago...
As you may have noted reading my posts, I am passionated by history and facts, and where ever I live (or lived) in this world, I do (did) my best to learn about it, which is pretty much what I did during all those years on the island, but many many of my questions are still unanswered.
My Mom was the same, so I guess I've got that from her... She came to St Martin way before me and learn about before me... One day she noticed, comparing old maps and more recent ones, that a place was missing on the latest... The place's name was "Petit Fond". Somewhere in the mountain between Grand Case and Baie Orientale. She went around questioning everysingle old person she could find... Majority of them couldn't recall the place, and the very few who did only said " I think I heard that it was... but I am not sure because it so long ago".
And when I say "the place" a mean "
the village of Petit Fond" !!!! This village had been leveled down by a huricanne at the begining of 1900's, I beleive in 1925. So it wasn't a "so far back history" or "so long ago" but even that no-one seems to remember or to care.
We went to see Mr. Enock as well as Mr. Petit and questioned about it and asked why nobody tried to find back the ruins and eventually put back the name on the map. The answer was: "nobody remember where it was exactly and we don't think you will find it!For what reason anyway, it doesn't exist anymore"...
My Mom said : "and what if someone find it, will you put back the name on the map?", and she said "
we will find it and
we will put it back on the map"! And me thinking...Oh noooo ! Here she goes again!... LOL
Here started a loooooong period of "harassement" from her to me LOL!!! Almost everyday she was asking me to pack my back pack and we were climbing the mountains above Orient, litterally making our own path. After few weeks of that, usueless to say that I was fed up with the challenge, because I felt we were never going to find the place in the "jungle"..
Then one day I decided it was going to be the last day and I told her she better find it today or this darn place will stay out of the map LOL... So here we go again clibing the mountain and using for maybe the tenth time, one of the same path that we cut, trying to access an area that we didn't explored yet..
My Mom was walking 20 feet ahead of me, and half way to the area, i asked her if she was thirsty... But since she was walking ahead of me she didn't understood clearly what I asked, so she stoped and turned around to ask me to repeat...
And then I see her face changing, totally stupefied, and she yeld "Do not move anymore! Do not move!"!!!
Allright, I grew up in Africa and used to wild animals, venemous snakes, huges spiders, scorpions, you name it, etc... but useless to say that I kinda freaked out because I couldn't figurate out why I shouldn't move anymore...
Then she take her camera and shot two or three pictures... And I am thinking... Isn't that cute? she love me so much that she just decide to take a picture of her loving son in the midle of the jungle to freeze this historical moment...LOL
Well I wasn't far from reality... She told me then, after pocketing back her camera, "now come towards me for 6 feet, stop, turn around and look on your right in the bush"...
I executed and what I saw in the bush was a grave stone! We were right on Petit Fond cimetery ! We had found the place, and we had passed the place many many time without noticing anything... If it wasn't for my question to her, we would have pass one more time without finding the village.
We walked through the bushes, found the bases of the houses, and some broken poteries, ustensils, etc... you could see that the place was alive once upon the time...
When we said to Mr Petit and Mr Enock that we found it they couldn't beleive it... we show them and now the name of Petit Fond is back on most of the modern map...Unfortunatly they didn't place it exactly where it lay but that's better than nothing...
Well I started that post without even thinking to write a novel about the whole story LOL, but I guess I did and hope I didn't bored anyone!
Kind Regards,
Philippe
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