Reburial of Bones at Cinnamon Bay on Hold Pending Hassell Island Work

The excavation of a grave for the reinterment of centuries-old human remains found at Cinnamon Bay over the past several years has temporarily taken a back seat to a large project which is keeping V.I. National Park Archaeologist Ken Wild busy — the restoration of Hassell Island.

An historic floor of the kitchen of a 17th-century house was discovered at the original Cinnamon Bay site where the remains — likely those of men, women and children who died in a cholera epidemic sometime between 1680 and the 1800s — were to be reinterred.

Wild and his interns began digging a second burial pit behind the Cinnamon Bay archaeology lab, and progress at the site has significantly slowed since the Hassell Island project began.