There is a beach a few miles west of Cane Bay on the north shore of St. Croix that is inaccessible due to
impassable rocks, both on the shore and the water. For as long as anyone living on the island can remember, on moonlit
summer nights when the wind is still, one can clearly hear music and singing coming from this beach for a great
distance.
Historical musicologist Mathieu LeGrange heard this music in the early 1950s and spent years developing special
equipment to capture it in a recording. (LeGrange, as chance would have it, is the direct descendent of “Wilde
Mutt” LeGrange, the notorious pirate captain who frequented the north shore of St. Croix in the early 17th
century.) On July 17, 1959 at 10:42pm, Mathieu LeGrange left Christiansted harbor in a small sailcraft intending to
make the recording. He was never seen again.
On July 17, 2022, a watertight canister washed onto the shore of Christiansted harbor. It was found to contain a set
of reel-to-reel tapes and a single photograph. Several of the tapes were labeled and dated July 17, 1959. Handwriting
analysts have confirmed that the writing is that of Mathieu LeGrange. These are some of the recordings that were
on those tapes.
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