The story of the West Caicos Fibre (Sisal) Company Ltd.

By Jeff Dodge

A species of the agave fibre plant was introduced to the Caicos Islands in the mid 1800s. At first it was hoped fibre production would replace the cultivation of cotton, which ended around 1813 due to pests, diseases, and worn out soil. The cultivation of the sisal fibre plant was also looked upon as an adjunct to salt production, which was dependent on the weather—one day’s rain during the raking season could reduce the salt crop by 1/4. The agave fibre plant was not affected by rain or drought. 

There are hundreds of species of agave plants and all have fibrous leaves to some degree. However, their quality and usefulness differ. Species such as Agave sisalana (sisal) were specifically cultivated for their high quality fibres which were used for producing rope, twine, paper, etc. It was the Agave sisalana that was generally grown on the Caicos Islands.

To promote the cultivation of the “sisal plant” on the Caicos Islands, Commissioner Henry Jackson wrote in his 1889 annual report that “the cultivation of  the sisal plant (Agave sisalana) was not dependent on the weather as was salt raking.”

In 1890, two companies were forming and acquiring land for the production of sisal fibre—the East Caicos Company, Ltd. and the West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. (Note: The word “sisal” does not appear in the name of either company.) Both companies were registered under the Companies Ordinance in 1891. The East Caicos Company, Ltd. will be the subject of a future article.

Creation of the West Caicos Fibre Company 

On September 26, 1890, Daniel and B.C. Frith (Frith Bros. & Company) leased 3,768 acres of Crown Land on West Caicos from the government for seven years at a cost of £150 per year. The agreement stipulated that the land could be purchased fee simple for £300, plus the rents already paid, once 2,000 acres were planted with fibre plants or at the end of seven years. (Note: Back in the day, Frith Bros. & Co. were major producers of salt on Grand Turk, operated retail businesses on Grand Turk, and mined guano on Middle Caicos). 

The West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. was officially established on May 23, 1891 when the Memorandum of Association and the Company’s bylaws were signed by its shareholders. Shareholder names are listed in the minutes of the first shareholders meeting which was held on May 25, 1891. 

According to the 1891 shareholder meeting, George E. Frith of Frith Bros. & Co. was the manager of the West Caicos Fibre Co. The nine shareholders included four Frith brothers, four members of the Harriott family, and Donald S. L. Lee, a  New York merchant. There may have been other investors in the newly formed company who were not shareholders.

On June 6, 1891, B.C. and Daniel Frith assigned the 3,768 acre lease they acquired from the government in 1890 to the newly formed West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. The Fibre Company agreed to take over the lease and pay all monies due and payable. According to the lease agreement, the Fibre Company would own the 3,768 acres of Crown Land outright no later than 1897 upon payment of £300—seven years after the lease agreement was signed.

Development of Yankee Town

Yankee Town was built on the west side of West Caicos Island by the West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. circa 1891 to support the company’s fibre production operations. Yankee Town consisted of buildings to house staff, two fibre extracting stations, and barracks for laborers. Staff included a manager, an engineer, two overseers, and about 70 workers—mostly from Blue Hills (Providenciales). 

The West Caicos Fibre Company opened a store at Yankee Town in the early 1890s. To insure their workers bought their necessities at this store, they were paid  with tokens—good nowhere else (the truck system). The “W.C.S.CO.” stamped on the reverse side of each token stood for the “West Caicos Sisal Company,” as the fibre company was sometimes called.

Financial woes begin early

On December 31, 1895, the Assistant Commissioner, Cockburn Harbour, wrote the following to Edward J. Cameron, the Commissioner of the Turks Islands:  “Of the sisal industry, I cannot say much. At West Caicos, it would seem, if output be the criterion, much is not being done.” Apparently, by 1894, the West Caicos Fibre Company needed more operating capital, because it entered into an agreement with Clifford L. Middleton and shareholder Donald S. L. Lee (both doing business as Middleton and Company, a New York trading company) for a line of credit of as much as $20,000. The loan was secured by the assets of the West Caicos Fibre Company, including 3,768 acres of land and all appurtenances and fixtures belonging to the company. All borrowed money from Middleton and Co. was to be repaid plus interest by December 31, 1897. 

The shareholder meeting on April 2, 1896 listed Clifford L. Middleton of Brooklyn, NY as a new shareholder of the company and noted that Alice Harriott, Edmund Harriott, Daniel Harriott, and Howard Harriott ceased to be shareholders.

Rescue?

According to the government’s 1898 Colonial Report, operations at the West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. shut down in late 1896 or early 1897. Albert Stubbs rescued the company on December 13, 1897 by purchasing it for £12,000 (about $50,000). This transaction occurred just 18 days before the debt to Middleton & Co. was due to be repaid. Alfred Stubbs was the owner of Haulover Plantation on Middle Caicos and the Victoria Salt Works at Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos. 

Things didn’t go well for Alfred Stubbs on West Caicos and in 1901 he authorized Forbes, his London attorney, to sell the company’s assets including the 3,768 acres on West Caicos and the “cultivation equipment.” 

On July 11, 1901, Herbert Spicer, a paper manufacturer in Surrey, England, bought the West Caicos Fibre Company from Alfred Stubbs for £12,000, becoming manager of the company and its third owner. Unfortunately, Herbert Spicer had a questionable track record as a business owner. He appeared in bankruptcy court in August 1894 with liabilities of over £54,000.

In November 1898 it was reported that Herbert Spicer, trading as Herbert Spicer and Co., Catteshall Mills, paper manufacturer and merchant, had unsecured liabilities of £22,942. Less than a year later, a company calling itself Surrey Paper Mills, Ltd. acquired the Catteshall Mills from Spicer’s creditors. One might ask then, how did Herbert Spicer finance his purchase of the West Caicos fibre business from Alfred Stubbs in 1901?

Spicer entered into various financial obligations to purchase the fibre business from Stubbs. For example, he secured funds by promissory notes payable to Robert G. Lee, a London-based agent or attorney with close ties to Middleton & Company. Spicer also borrowed money from two of his financially successful brothers, Henry and Edward. These obligations were subject to Spicer’s right to create, or to have created, a prior first mortgage on the West Caicos Fibre Company’s assets for additional funds. The first mortgage was held by Anthony Gibbs & Sons—a London investment and trading company—for funds they loaned Spicer.

Operations stop on West Caicos

The West Caicos Fibre Company, Ltd. ceased operations just two years later. Spicer claimed this was due to the withdrawal of financial assistance and the failure of the firm to meet its financial obligations. In 1904, Spicer appeared in Bankruptcy Court again. During the hearing, he said he went to West Caicos in May 1901 for the purpose of “prospecting the Island of West Caicos.” Spicer, unable to repay his debts, lost the assets of the West Caicos Fibre Co. to Anthony Gibbs & Sons—the holder of the first mortgage on the fibre company.

Fraud claims

According Emilie Jane Stubbs, Alfred Stubbs’ daughter, her father lost about $50,000 from his West Caicos Fibre Co. investment. She blamed “the fraud  ‘practised’ on Mr. Stubbs in London while negotiating the sale of the West Caicos Fibre Co. to Mr. Spicer.” Emilie’s brother, Lewis St. George Stubbs (law student at Manitoba University) wrote Emilie on December 28, 1904 saying, “I am afraid he (our father) has been swindled out of West Caicos, and is left with a heavy debt to Middleton & Co. on his shoulders. That arch fiend R. G. Lee is mainly responsible. He is the chief villain in the plot. He and Forbes, the lawyer who acted for father, were in collusion with Spicer and his lawyer.” (Note: Robert G. Lee had considerable connections to Middleton & Co. His  brother was Donald S. L. Lee and his wife was Helen Middleton.)

In 1905, Lewis wrote his father regarding the fraud carried out against him. Lewis explained that the mortgage he (Alfred) received from Spicer in lieu of cash payment for the West Caicos Fibre Co. was written so that 

he did not have the first right to reclaim the fibre company if Spicer defaulted on his debt—Alfred was a junior lienholder (2nd Mortgagee).

The only avenue open to Alfred Stubbs to recover the money Spicer owed him was to go after him in court—a futile undertaking since Spicer was broke. At the time of Alfred’s death in 1913, he owed Middleton & Co., $34,331.35—the unpaid debt remaining from his purchase of the West Caicos Fibre Co. His debt was eventually paid by his estate.

Changing hands again

Anthony Gibbs & Sons sold the West Caicos Fibre Company to Mr. Giles Carr Randall Harvey for £5,600 on October 15, 1904. Harvey was a British stock exchange clerk at the time. Why he bought the company is a mystery because he sold it a month later to Pita (a synonym for sisal) Limited for a loss. One possibility is that Harvey acted on behalf of a group of investors who a month later formed the Pita Limited company.

Pita Limited paid Giles Carr Randall Harvey £5,000 for the fibre business on West Caicos on November 9, 1904. Seven days later, they ordered a Burrell Steam Road Locomotive from the Charles Burrell and Co. in Thetford, England. They intended to use it to haul Agave fibre leaves from the fields on West Caicos to the extraction stations at Yankee Town.

In 1907, Pita Limited leased 600 acres of Crown Land on the eastern side of West Caicos from the government, increasing their holdings on the island to 4,368 acres. Two years later, Pita Ltd. paid the government for an option to lease Crown Land at Blue Hills (Providenciales) and North Caicos.

Pita Limited sells their West Caicos holdings

Pita Limited sold their holdings on West Caicos and their options to lease land at Blue Hills and North Caicos to the Colonial Fibre Planting and Trading Company, Ltd. for £65,000 on November 1, 1909.

The Colonial Fibre Planting & Trading Co. Ltd. prospectus listed the following assets of the Company:

(1) 3,768 acres of land on West Caicos held in fee simple;

(2)  A lease for an additional 600 acres of Crown Land on West Caicos;

(3) An option to lease government land on Blue Hills and North Caicos.

The prospectus also stated that “out of the 4,368 acres (on West Caicos), 1,600 were planted with 1,088,000 mature (fibre) plants.” The prospectus went on to say that the Colonial Fibre Planting & Trading Co. expected the West Caicos fibre business to yield about 3,500 bales of fibre in 1910 for a total profit of about £8,750 after expenses.

Money woes begin early

Just four months after purchasing the fibre business from Pita Limited, the Colonial Fibre Planting & Trading Company (hereafter called “the Company”) signed an Indenture (agreement) to borrow £30,000 from the Viscount of Galway, George Monckton-Arundell of Bawtry, Yorkshire and businessman Robert Whitehead of Millers Dale, Derbyshire. The Company raised these funds by issuing First Mortgage Debentures totaling £30,000 carrying interest at 6 percent per annum. The first mortgage was against all appurtenances and fixtures as well as land leased or owned belonging to the Company.

According to the Government’s Colonial Report of 1910, the Colonial Fibre Planting & Trading Company exercised the option they acquired from Pita Limited to lease government land on Blue Hills and North Caicos. One might assume that the Company intended to use the £30,000 they borrowed to begin fibre production on this newly acquired land, but its actual purpose or need is unknown.

Chaos on West Caicos finally ends 

The Colonial Fibre Planting and Trading Company, Ltd. became the final company to succumb to incompetence and financial troubles when it was officially dissolved in 1916. However, according to the 1912 Government Report, “no work at all was carried on during the year (1912) at West Caicos, the Colonial Fibre Planting and Trading Company being in liquidation.” (Author’s underline.)

Let’s not forget the Viscount of Galway and Robert Whitehead, the two gentlemen who loaned £30,000 to the Company  in 1910. What transpired after the Company went into liquidation? Did they acquire ownership of the Company’s assets as per their First Mortgage agreement? We may never know. 

A final summary

Commissioner George W. Smith in his Turks and Caicos Islands Report for 1921, best summarized the complete fiasco that occured under the guise of a fibre industry on West Caicos Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [Note: Commissioner Smith included the failure of the Belle Isle Salt Manufacturing Company, a salt production undertaking on West Caicos in 1859/1860, when he wrote “during the past 60 years.”]

The author thanks Linda Abend of Bermuda for her work locating and copying original Turks & Caicos documents held in the Bermuda Archives. This article could not have been written without her help. Thanks also to John Adams, former Bermuda Government Archivist, and Charles Hopkins, both of the United Kingdom, for providing copies of Turks & Caicos Colonial reports from the National Archives UK; and Deborah Dodge for valuable editorial suggestions.