Times of the Islands Summer 2023

astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Origin and family
John Ney Reynolds was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1828.
There he married a woman named Bridget (last name
unknown). They had at least one child, Leonore (Norah),
before they moved to the Turks & Caicos Islands. Leonore
was born in 1860.
It is not certain when John and Bridget Reynolds
moved to the Turks & Caicos Islands, however it was at
least by 1865 because by then Reynolds was in the salt
business at East Harbour (now Cockburn Harbour) on
South Caicos Island.
John and Bridget had seven children that survived
childhood and were alive when John Reynolds wrote and
signed an addendum to his Will in February 1890. The
children: Mary, Leonore (Norah), Eleanor, Alice, John N.
Jr., Robert, and Henry were mentioned in this addendum
as was Grace, a daughter by John’s second wife.
John married Elizabeth A. S. Adams of the Turks &
Caicos Islands in 1872, just a year after Bridget’s death.
They had a daughter, Grace or Gracie, as she was called,
in 1880.
Salt proprietor and merchant
By 1865, John Reynolds was in the salt business at East
Top: This picture postcard presents a view of East Harbour (Cockburn
Harbour) on South Caicos Island circa 1907.
Above: By the time Bridget died in 1871, she had at least seven children
who reached adulthood. She was only 33 years old when she
died. If Catherine Elizabeth Reynolds (listed above Bridget in the St.
Thomas Registry of Deaths) was her daughter, did both perish from
a disease such as typhoid?
Harbour. His business interests there eventually included
the Victoria Salina, which was probably the largest salt
pond on the island, and a company store that catered to
his salt workers.
Reynolds paid his employees with copper tokens that
could only be exchanged for goods in his store. Although
66 www.timespub.tc