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Excerpt from: Footprint Handbooks:
The Abaco islands (pop: 10,034 1990 census), are a chain of islands
and cays within the Family Islands, are covered in pine forests,
stretching in a curve for 130 miles. Great Abaco covers 776 square
miles and is the second largest island in the Bahamas after Andros.
The main centre on Abaco is Marsh Harbour, of much of Greater
Abaco. The scrub and swamp give the island a rather desolate appearance,
but like many islands, life revolves around the offshore cays
and the coastal settlements. The area south of Marsh Harbour owes
its development and particularly its roads to lumber companies.
The Spanish did not settle, but by 1550 they had kidnapped all the Indian inhabitants for slavery elsewhere and the islands remained uninhabited for 200 years, despite a brief French attempt at settlement in 1625 and visits by pirates and fishermen. In 1783 over 600 loyalists left New York for Abaco, settling first at Carleton (north of Treasure Cay beach but no longer visible) and then moving to Marsh Harbour. Other groups settled further south but all found it hard to make a living on the small pockets of soil and of the 2,000 who arrived in the 1780s, only about 400 (half white and half black) were left in 1790. Wrecking was a profitable pastime and Abaco was ideally placed on a busy shipping route to take advantage of its reefs and sand banks. Sponge, pineapple, sisal, sugar and lumber were later developed but never became big business. Wrecking also declined after the construction of lighthouses. The lighthouse on Elbow Cay at Hope Town was built in 1863, after the wreck in 1862 of the USS Adirondack, despite sabotage attempts by local people. By 1900 Hope Town was the largest town in the Abacos, with a population of 1,200 engaged in fishing, sponging, shipping and boat building. The boats made in Abaco were renowned for their design and the builders became famous for their construction skills. Boats, though made of fibreglass, are still made on Man-O-War Cay today. Inhabitants of Abaco continued to live barely at subsistence levels until after the Second World War, when the Owens-Illinois Corporation revived the lumber business, built roads and introduced cars. An airport was built at Marsh Harbour and banks arrived. When the pulpwood operation ended in the 1960s sugar replaced it but was short lived. Nowadays the major agribusiness is citrus from two huge farms which export their crop to Florida. Abaco has developed its tourist industry slowly and effectively and has a high employment rate. Marsh Harbour: The town straggles along the flat south shore of a good and busy yachting harbour. It has the major airport about three miles from the town and is the commercial centre of Abaco. As you drive in from the airport you pass government offices, supermarkets and lots of churches and liquor stores. |
