Joost Van Dyk - Baugher's Bay Settlement

Baugher's Bay Settlement

Despite their limited economic importance, the Dutch West India Company still considered the Virgin Islands to have an important strategic value, as they were located approximately half way between the Dutch West India Company's colonies in Brazil and New Amsterdam (now New York City). Under the orders of Peter Stuyvesant, the director of the Dutch West India Company, van Dyk built large stone warehouses at Freebottom, near Port Purcell (just east of Road Town), with the intention that these warehouses would facilitate exchanges of cargo between North and South America.

Fearing a repetition of the recent attack, van Dyk erected some small earthworks and a three-cannon fort above the warehouse, on the hill where Fort George would eventually be built by the English. He also constructed a wooden stockade to act as a lookout post above Road Town on the site that would eventually become Fort Charlotte.

He also stationed troops at the Spanish "dojon" near Pockwood Pond, later to be known at Fort Purcell, but now ordinarily referred as "the Dungeon".