Astrolabe

A glimpse at the postal history of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Story & Photos By Peter Marshall Many people the world over have never heard of the Turks & Caicos Islands. But among philatelists (a posh word for stamp collectors, myself included), the Islands are famous for the colourful, diverse postage stamps they issue. Until the salt-raking ...

Meet Edmond Neale Coverley. By Sherlin Williams ~ Illustrations Turks & Caicos National Museum Collection Edmond Neale Coverley was born on Grand Turk to Flavious Coverley, an Englishman, and Olivia Firth, a young lady of the wealthy Frith salt merchant clan. Neal, as he was affectionately called, and his wife Minimia Elodie Astwood, lived with their children ...

Spanish colonial coin found in Maravedi Cove. By Roberto G. Munoz-Pando On my recent visit to the storage area of the Turks & Caicos National Museum, many items caught my attention. Among them, one really comes to mind because it represents the area I have been studying and writing about for the past three years. It was ...

This whale shark encounter has to be seen to be believed! By Dr. Randel Davis ~ Photos By Jean-Francois Chabot Tuesday, July 22, 2008: It was a day that started like any other. After a hard morning on Providenciales’ Northwest Reef looking for cannons from the US Navy Brig Chippewa (which we found!), Capt. Jean-François Chabot ...

Swidden agriculture in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Story & Photos By B Naqqi Manco, TCI Naturalist Visitors to the Turks & Caicos Islands: Try finding a traditional crop patch here — I dare you. It won’t be an easy, straightforward search. In countries with mechanized, technology-driven agriculture, farms are easy to recognise, even if they’re ...

Newly discovered photos document an intriguing 1955 expedition to South Caicos. By Dr. Donald H. Keith ~ Photos By Mendel Peterson On a dreary winter’s afternoon in January while rummaging around for something else, I found a small box containing four rolls of black and white film marked “Air Shots, Turks and Caicos Islands 1955.” I remembered ...

A travel tale of a 1954 journey around the Islands in a Caicos sloop. By Edwin Doran, Jr. The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared in Motor Boating in December, 1957. The author, Dr. Edwin Doran, Jr., was a geographer and a sailor, a keen observer and recorder. His descriptions of the Islands ...

The trials, tribulations, and joys of creating a new exhibit. Story & Photos By Dr. Donald H. Keith, President, Turks & Caicos National Museum Foundation Putting the new “Golden Age of Grand Turk” exhibit together has been a challenge for us in a lot of different ways. This will not be obvious to the casual observer. When ...

Preserving Grand Turk’s windmills before their history “blows away.” By Dr. Donald H. Keith, President, Turks & Caicos National Museum Foundation In 1997, I took an interest in the windmills of Grand Turk. Perhaps it was a result of curiosity generated by the stories Sherlin Williams told me about how complicated it was to keep them ...

The infamous Turks Island wreckers By Mark Parrish, Big Blue Unlimited The Grand Turk lighthouse was built in 1852. Its construction was borne out of necessity for the sheer volume of ships that fell victim to the treacherous reefs around the island. The history of the Turks & Caicos Islands during the eighteenth and ninteenth centuries ...

What will be the fate of this abandoned steam engine? By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Chairman, TCI National Museum One of the most visually impressive historic sites you will find anywhere in the Turks & Caicos Islands is “Yankeetown” on West Caicos. I stumbled across it in 1983 during a survey for archaeological sites. The little ...

The loss of the US Navy Schooner Onkahye, 1848. By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Chairman, TCI National Museum, and Dr. James W. Hunter “Near Nine O Clock on Wednesday night the Vessel Struck and from the grating of her Keel . . . I concluded . . . that She Had run up and Lodged on ...

The Jeremiah Denis Murphy exhibit. Story & Photos By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Chairman, TCI National Museum The exhibits in the Guinep House were created in 1990 and have remained largely unchanged for more than 20 years. We have uncovered a lot more history since then, with more fascinating artifacts to show and more incredible stories to ...

Join in the drive to re-create a working Fresnel lens display. Story & Photos By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Chairman, TCI National Museum Like any renovation, the Museum’s started out with a simple, concise plan that grew in complexity as we saw other things that ought to be dealt with at the same time. Once the most ...

A tribute to the Range Rats of Grand Turk By Bill Hocking “I salute—from my space helmet—the Range Rats, the unsung heroes of the space race to the future.” Buzz Aldrin, Apollo XI, 1969 On a clear St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1958 at 7:15 AM, the first Vanguard missile was successfully launched into a highly stable orbit. ...