“Bermuda – land of perpetual picnics” quipped one of the Island’s governors once, and his impression was quite correct, given the example of one New Jersey family’s summer trip to Bermuda in August, 1927.
The lively Cornish family, related to several Bermuda families, came here for about a month that year and recently, I read a fascinating account of their trip described in colourful detail in a diary cared for over the decades by family descendants in the United States. One of these relatives is Michael Wilcox, my second cousin once removed, whose mother Susan (then age seven) was one of the vacationers.
She and her sisters Alice, 13, and Harriett, 11, were accompanied by their father, Gilbert Cornish, and their stepmother Bertha Cornish. Their mother, Theodosia Gladys Zuill, had died giving birth to Susan. Theodosia was the daughter of my great uncle Edward Campbell Zuill and his wife Isobel Gray Tucker, daughter of Archdeacon George Tucker. So the family had lots of Bermuda connections and were well looked after during their trip.
Alice is the ostensible author of the diary, but, in fact, her father keeps intruding with interesting tidbits, making a lively and rather innocent tale of 1920s Bermuda.
The family was invited to Bermuda by the children’s great aunt Julia Mercer who lived at Aldie on Middle Road, Smith’s. And there she was in Hamilton when the S.S. Fort Victoria arrived – but not on the dock: “Aunt Julia appeared just outside the dock having forgotten to get the necessary permit,” says the diary. So she had to wait there patiently while the baggage was cleared. Gilbert Cornish’s bag was felt, but when he went back for the trunk with Archie Mercer, Aunt Julia’s son, there was a different Customs officer, “who proved to be Allen Zuill (a cousin of the girls). Needless to say, he simply chalked our trunk.”
The luggage, Aunt Julia and Gilbert and Bertha Cornish were loaded into Archie’s surrey, but the girls had a special treat. Their great-aunt Sophie Wilkinson appeared with a “beautiful team of Australian ponies and a fine two-seated carriage which she drove” so they went to Smith’s Parish in fine style. Sophie and her husband, Dr. Edgar Campbell Wilkinson, had fine stables with several splendid steeds which figure frequently in the diary.
Aldie was a spacious house with six large bedrooms and a bathroom-“the first to be installed in Smith’s Parish”-the diary notes with pride. The house had a telephone and electric lights, and so was thoroughly up-to-date. The water was pumped by hand up to a gravity tank, a task which fell on father Gilbert every evening.
“Had fine chicken dinner at about one o’clock and rested and looked around for the rest of the day. They have the funniest night creatures. They call them whistling frogs, but they are like our tree toads only more so. They begin as soon as the sun goes down— there is no twilight-they make more noise than katydids, but we are getting used to them. All went to bed early, had a wonderful sleep, but Mother is still walking the deck.”
With the morning came their first Bermuda swim-“the water is very warm almost too warm” and their first experience with the sun “Oh boy, look out for the sunburn. We should have gone in earlier in the day or later.” The afternoon brought the first of many parties, starting at four o’clock when the lawn became shady, with lots of relations coming to be introduced and enjoy sandwiches, ice-cream, tea and punch. “Sat around and visited in the evening. Went early to bed.”
Next day was Thursday, a half-holiday. About 60 of Aunt Julia’s friends took part in a lawn tennis club on Thursday afternoons on two grass courts. “Had refreshments, sandwiches, tea and cake” says the diary. In the evening Eugenius Zuill (a distant relative and a neighbour) came to call. Friday was a working day, but this did not disturb the pleasures of the vacationers, who were invited to a party on Trunk Island in Harrington Sound by the girls’ great-uncle, Harry Tucker.
“We walked to the Flatts, about two miles, and there embarked in his fine motor boat, all the girls being towed in the large row boat with numerous baskets and boxes of lunch…We landed and his son Noel (brother of Sir Henry (Jack) Tucker), about 19, fastened the boats…The water was fine with a beautiful sandy bottom, but rocky shore. Harriett floated around like a cork.” Then it was back to the house for “a wonderful picnic supper – boiled ham, which comes from Denmark in tins, sandwiches, potato salad, devilled eggs, lemonade for the girls, and coffee for the men, also tomatoes and fruit salad “We had a great sail back in the moonlight going the long way around the island. Back at the house, we found sherbet made in their new frigidaire machine. Ice is hard to get, all being manufactured, and transportation difficult.”
On Saturday they paid a visit to Orange Grove where the girls’ grandfather Edward was born and brought up. By then, Will Zuill had purchased the property from his brothers and sister but had rented it. The tenants were on a trip to England which made it easier to look over the house. “There is a lot of wonderful old mahogany furniture in the house. Almost too much, including sideboards, tables, desks and highboys; some of which belong to the house, including the beautiful Zuill dining room table which closes to a circle of 60 inches in diameter and opens long enough to seat 32” (an exaggeration).
They visited the Peak tower on the property, which they were told had paid for its construction from tourist visits. The visit to Orange Grove ended with yet another picnic “much annoyed by the ants who seem to infest this Island. They have to stand their wire safes, which hold the food, in cans of oil,” the diary notes.
“We had a pleasant walk home, the girls stopping for milk as usual.” This was obtained from the Pioneer Guernsey Dairy run by Chauncey Outerbridge.
Sunday started quietly. “Archie cleaned the horse and greased the carriage and incidentally the girls, Frances and Alice, with whom he is always joking about their weight… We looked at Aunt Julia’s war book which is a wonderful collection of newspaper clippings telling all about Bermuda’s activities during the (First World) War including all the boys as they went and the activities of the various units of women and men who supported the cause at home.” In the afternoon they went to St. Mark’s Church, Smith’s, arriving a half-hour before the service so Aunt Julia could show them memorials of relatives. They were impressed with the lovely memorial window installed by J. Scott Pearman to the memory of Eliza Zuill (my grandmother) and the girls’ grandmother Isobel. Both had been organists and the window has a musical theme. Pearman himself was still alive and active in the church, singing in the choir “with gusto.” Other memorials included a plaque in memory of the girls’ great grandfather, Archdeacon Tucker, and another to the Archdeacon’s great grand-father, Reverend Alexander Ewing. The great east window was partly erected in memory of other ancestors, William and Sophia Sears.
Monday was a quiet day for the Cornishes, more than made up for on Tuesday when they made a great expedition to St. George’s and St. David’s. “We were all guests of Aunt Sophie who called for us at 9:30 with a two-horse carryall or wagonette from Hamilton in which we found Mrs. Howard Mercer and two girls, Lucy and Pat. The former looks so much like Ed Zuill that Dad says he could claim her any time. And Lucy with her boyish bob looks like a boy.”
It was a big group, being 16 in all, but the wagonette was drawn by “a team of bony bays tall and lanky. Oh boy, how they could go! The drive was beautiful, first to the Flatts and then by the south road by Harrington Sound and across the Causeway and the ‘Swingin Bridge.’ We had a wonderful view of the rocky bays and coves…We also passed the various caves some of which we hope to take in later.”
“Then we arrived at the quaint old town of St. George’s. It was the capital but now it is rather slow although the big hotel is still popular with its wonderful swimming pool, dances in the evening, etc. The big hotels close in the summer. While we were waiting for the boat for St. David’s Island at 11:30, some of the party arranged for the watermelon and ice to make up our lemonade (here they use limes instead of lemons). Aunt Julia buys them by the hundred. And Aunt Mabel, Mrs. Howard Mercer, took us to St. Peter’s Church, said to be the oldest in America. I think it was built before 1700. It is very plain inside. Wide board floor and ordinary wooden pews painted yellow and grained the way our church was before it was painted. The walls were covered with tablets in which the name of Tucker occurred, frequently.”
“We left the church to take the little boat for St. David’s. It is their only communication with the main island and is run by the government to afford a cheap transportation for passengers and products from the island.” (This was before there was any bridge to the island, let alone an airfield). The party disembarked at the stop for the lighthouse, found a cool shady spot and sat down for dinner at noon. “The milk pail saved our lives. In it, we put half the ice and poured in bottles of lime juice. There is a little store kept by a man that Archie knows well. It doesn’t look as if it amounted to anything, but Uncle Archie says he buys the best. He keeps a cash register and has a Frigidaire. We had about 50 kinds of sandwiches and cake galore and as always the thermos bottles full of tea. Dad takes three-quarters of a cup of tea and fills it with lime juice and Aunt Mabel followed suit. We had lots left including watermelon. Then we climbed the hill to the lighthouse except Aunt Sophie, Aunt Julia and Aunt Mabel. It was hot, but cool on top, 58 feet, high, but we think the view from the Peak much better.”
“Back down the hill to catch the boat at two o’clock. We got off at the next stop only a short distance, leaving our packages on the boat but taking good care to carry the pail and ice. The boat went on. Then we walked through field and woods for about three-quarters of an hour to the home of two young aunts, Aunt Pat Hayward, 86, and her sister Harriett, 96. The latter does not hear much of anything, but Aunt Pat, while her eyesight is very poor, is otherwise very smart. She seems to take most of the care of the house except that her niece comes in every day. Aunt Pat has her hair bobbed and talked about her visit to the States and regretted the failure of the picnic to furnish ice-cream. Aunt Julia left boxes of cookies and other things.”
“The house is very old. One storey and white stone of course. In the backyard is the family graveyard and since private burial has been forbidden by law since 1815, you can get some idea of the age of the place. Again we walked with the pail in our midst and the remains of the ice. What would we have done without it that hot after-noon? It was about 15 minutes’ walk to the next wharf for the boat to return at four o’clock.”
This time the boat had some freight as well-four barrels of watermelons, squash and muskmelons being shipped across the harbour. In St. George’s, the party split up to do errands, then met in “the park” to eat some more sandwiches and cake and drink more lemonade and tea before clambering aboard the wagonette so the fine team of bay horses could trot them home.
Next day Gilbert Cornish visited Eugenius Zuill to look at his farming operation. He was reclaiming part of Devonshire Marsh, digging peat moss out of ditches, filling the ditches with stone, and then spreading the peaty soil on top and over the adjoining area. When the land had been raised enough to grow potatoes it was placed under cultivation-first a crop of potatoes planted in September and then celery, planted in February or March. This reached market in New York in May, just after the Florida crop had been sold.
“They take great pains with the crop,” the diary reports, “using the best of seed and culture and commands a very high price-going as far west as Chicago. It is getting to be one of Bermuda’s best crops. Onions are dying out. The competition from Texas is too keen. Easter lilies are still a big crop, the bulbs being shipped all over the U.S.”
Zuill took Cornish to lunch at the Rotary Club, and then home to Smith’s Parish for yet another entertainment—a trip to Devonshire Bay with surf bathing and picnic supper-“sandwiches of all kinds, lemonade and tea ending up with cake and ice-cream. Some of the party had a lift home, but others paid a call and then walked through the lots in the moonlight, arriving at our back door at about 9:30.”
Next afternoon was a tennis day, with about 50 participants. Gilbert and Bertha Cornish thought it would be nice to try the courts when there were no onlookers, and were invited to come over at any time. Play ended at 7 p.m. when darkness fell, and home they went where Gilbert Cornish and Archie had to “man the pump” as the gravity tank had run out of water. Bedtime was 10 p.m.—after a spot of watermelon.
Rain next morning did not last, so the afternoon’s entertainment laid on by step-grandmother Tucker-swimming and a supper party at Palmetto Bay (now the Palmetto Bay Hotel) took place as planned. While they were in swimming, however, there was a squall—”it was fun to put our eyes near the surface and watch the raindrops bounce.”
Prohibition had been the law in the United States for some years by 1927, but the Cornishes do not seem to have taken advantage of Bermuda’s easy liquor laws, for this party is the first time the diary mentions liquor. “Mrs. Tucker and Mary (her daughter) first dispensed whiskey and soda to the men which seems to be the custom; the glass decanters are on the sideboard in the dining room.” Everybody enjoyed the food – cold roast beef, tongue, potato salad, lettuce and tomatoes, olives green and ripe, iced tea, ice-cream, cakes and coffee. Then, an hour later, there was lemonade and watermelon “and everybody visited. We had a delightful evening. They certainly are delightful people.”
On Saturday the rain came down in earnest, knocking out plans for swimming with Aunt Mabel and her children who had come to Julia’s for the weekend. The girls became restless and rambunctious and decided to “take it out on Uncle Archie.” They tied up his pyjamas, dusted his pillow and put brushes and shoes under his sheets. “On Sunday morning, we heard nothing from him until Sue’s persistent questions made him admit he had a little trouble, but that he intended to make up for it which he did on Sunday night…pieces of cedar brush carefully distributed in Alice’s bed.”
During Sunday – a hot day – there was church, then people for lunch, then others visiting in the afternoon and evening. When everyone had gone “Archie and Dad sat on the front porch with ears straining for the result of his getting back at the girls. All the screams that greeted his ears when the cedar was discovered seemed to amply repay him for the loss of sleep the night before.”
It was time to move to another house—-that of Aunt Fanny Walker (nee Tucker), a sister of the girls’ grandmother. Unusually for Bermuda, it was a wooden house, built in a hurry after Walker had sold a much larger home, which became a clubhouse run in conjunction with the Grassmere Hotel. It was soon the scene of the next jollification, a birthday party for the girl’s Uncle Willie Tucker. Fourteen sat down to dinner. “Willie Conyers shakes the wicked cocktail to start out with and later we had real champagne with wonderful roast duck and chicken with vegetables. Coffee and birthday cake, cream de mint (crème de menthe).”
There were two birthday cakes so the doctor could take one home. Cooked in the other were a thimble, button, ring and horseshoe. “Noel got the ring but insisted it didn’t mean any-thing.”
Next evening was spent with the Conyers. Once again Willie shook cocktails, and there was another fine spread with more roast duck on top of an afternoon picnic-the Cornish family had difficulty getting it all down. Conyers’ radiola was turned on and he “gave us WIZ in pretty good shape, but there seems to be a lot of interference from ships.”
It was back to picnicking the next day, with surf bathing on Elbow (‘Elba’ according to the diary) Beach. Another weekend was upon the family, and this time they went sightseeing thanks to Will Zuill, who provided them with tickets for the trip to the reefs. Two large glass-bottom boats were towed behind the sea gardens vessel, which made several stops until 100 people were on board. It then headed out to the reefs and anchored in a sandy place surrounded by coral. Each glass-bottom boat took 25 people for a 15-minute jaunt across the reefs.
Sunday was a return trip to Elbow Beach with the Tuckers, who gave the family lunch before setting out for the bay where the Tuckers owned nine acres of land, and where they were building a cottage. “The land is very rough,” the diary remarks, “covered with cedars and bush grapes. It will be a wonderful place to work up and develop and there will be plenty of sites to build on…We drove back. The ride was through very pretty country. Paget is said to be one of the beautiful and aristocratic parishes.”
Early the following week, people were concerned about reports of a hurricane in the Atlantic. Storm warnings were hoisted at the Dockyard and locals started closing their shutters. All this activity in the middle of calm weather bemused the visitors somewhat. “Everyone down here has a barometer which they watch as a cat does a mouse, tapping the glass several times a day and watching carefully for a fall.” The family understood better when they heard tales of the dreadful hurricane of 1926 just the year before. “It blew down the Colonial Opera House in Hamilton and blew off parts of the stone roofs laid like tiles about an inch thick on the houses.” Almost every place lost a number of trees and the banana fields were nearly ruined, the wind breaking the trees right off at the roots. Of course, they spring right up with new shoots but it takes them a year or 18 months before they can mature another crop. Almost all the damage was done in 15 or 20 minutes.
“After the storm from the east had reached a lull which lasted for a short time with the glass remaining very low. It didn’t go up a bit. Then the wind rushed back from the west reaching a velocity of 120 miles an hour when the recording instrument broke— so we can see their anxiety about hurricanes.”
This time Bermuda breathed a sigh of relief as the storm went by some distance away without touching. And so the picnics and parties would go on. They paid a visit to Norwood where the girls enjoyed the maze laid out, they were told, on the plan of the Crystal Palace maze.
By Wednesday, August 25, they had spent a week and a half with Aunt Fannie and it was time to return to Aldie. But not directly. Archie Mercer put the luggage in his carriage while the family went to Dr. Edgar and Sophie Wilkinson’s house, Sophia, opposite the Cathedral, and met the Wilkinsons’ son Campbell and his wife. After a sumptuous meal, everyone clambered aboard the doctor’s high buggy (driven by Aunt Sophie) and the two-seated Studebaker, described as “yellow straight body and canopy top.”
Their first stop was the Devil’s Hole where they enjoyed fishing with pieces of codfish and no hooks-“Such fun. These big fish weighing 15 to 30 pounds would jump for the bait and then you could drag them halfway out of the water before they let go. Their mouths would open wide enough to swallow a baseball. The turtles also took part. Harriett got one about halfway out. It certainly made a commotion with its flippers.” Back on the road, they headed for Crystal Cave, passing Angel’s Grotto “an opposition place apparently designed to take the curve off Devil’s Hole.”
The cave delighted them all. “It is impossible to describe the place,” the diary says. “The stalactites hang down like icicles from a few inches long to several feet. They are not clear like glass, but are coloured from pink to white and are opaque so that the many electric bulbs which are cleverly placed so that they give a beautiful light through. Some of the thin yellow shells with lights behind look like enormous strips of bacon.”
“We walked around galleries and down steps until we were about 90 feet below the surface. There we came to the finest sight of all. There was beautiful clear water from 20 to 50 feet deep rising and falling with the tide which we crossed on a pontoon bridge viewing the walls about us and on the sides, the wonderful reflection of the lights on the water. Different views would appear by turning the light on and off. This is the grotto in which Annette Kellerman posed as the mermaid in Neptune’s Daughter.”
Finally they dragged themselves from the delights of the underworld-and the cool temperatures— and returned to the surface to ride back to Aldie for yet another party. The Cornishes’ time in Bermuda was getting short, but there was still time for Gilbert Cornish to pay a visit to Hamilton, borrow Archie Mercer’s bike and visit Howard Mercer “who was confined to his home following a mix-up the night before. Coming home with his horse and carriage he had a collision with another carriage along a narrow road. He was pulled over the dashboard. The harness was broken and the horse ran away. He was pretty badly shaken up but is feeling better.”
There were several more visits and swims before the Cornishes packed up the big trunk and a large handbag loaned by Aunt Julia for presents and purchases. Tuesday, August 30 was sailing day, and the baggage went off early. Aunt Julia had ordered a double carriage for the family, and they travelled to Hamilton making a small diversion through Prospect. They were not impressed: “There we saw soldiers in their ‘shorts’ It certainly seems a most undignified uniform for a soldier to wear—broad ‘khaki’ trousers ending above the knee with bare legs for a space until you meet the coarse woollen stockings.”
So much for the famed Bermuda shorts of the future!
Lots of friends came down to the dock to bid the family farewell, the last person of all being Will Zuill, who had to rush aboard the ship itself to say goodbye. The ship arrived in New York on September 1, in pouring rain. “We are all glad to be back, but sorry that our longest and most wonderful vacation has come to an end,” the account ends. “We are looking forward to letters from Bermuda and a visit every now and then from some of our new found relatives and friends.”
