Spring Creek Harbour

A former trading and fishing town.

Spring Creek Harbour was a small town, a village actually, located at the mouth of the Spring Creek in Spring Creek Bay.

Founding

Spring Creek Harbour originated as a watering hole for passing sailing ships en route to the big harbours in the new world. The creek water was fresh and of good quality, and the bay was navigable for even the larger ships. So when the first explorers reported the value of the location, it became marked on all the important navigational charts. The area around Spring Creek Harbour wasn't of any particular interest, and it was far from other trading hubs. Therefore, it didn't spawn a permanent population till about a hundred years later, when a farmer decided to settle in the rocky lands and sell the passing ships his produce.

The farmer didn't manage to grow much crop or raise big cattle in the rocky lands, his main produce was chicken, and chicken products egg and feather, also goats thrived well, and the cheese was happily bought by the ship's Purser. The small patches of nice earth they managed well enough to have some vegetables for their own consumption. Some other people joined him and small village emerged. Together, they had the manpower to clear a bit more land to make it suitable for farming. To make best use of the land, the houses where scattered around on the most rocky patches and pathways bend and turned around the little farming plots.

The river was small and had a pebble base and the shores where sand and rock mix. Not really suitable for taking ships any bigger than rowing barges inland or even landing them onshore.

First Decline

With the rise of steam power on ships, the ships stopped coming for fresh water, as they could make this onboard now. And the little village that had grown up from selling produce to the passing ships dwindled. The ship suppliers who sold rope, sail and woodworks left first. The ship repair service soon after. With those gone, the loggers who managed to haul timber out of the difficult hilly and rocky surrounding lands had no market for their work, and they left to offer their trade elsewhere.
The farmers held out; they continued just working their patches of land and kept feeding themself. Stubborn by default.

Fishing

Trout has been introduced into the new world somewhere during the colonisation age, and it spread along the coast. Trout also found itself swimming up the Spring Creek, where they loved the cold fresh water and the pebble river bed, and it became a popular breeding ground for the fish species.

In 1812 AD the Lord of Mirateia bought the rights to fish in the bay and on the whole river. The lord invested in a few river boats that could go upstream all the way to where the Trout favoured to bread. And he started fishing them. With his boats, he brought the fish back down to Spring Creek Harbour. This is also when the town's name got the -harbour suffix. Before, it was just known as Spring Creek.

The Lord of Mirateia build cold storage warehouses along the river in town, to store the caught fish until a ship came by to load it all, and sell it at the market. His investments payed off and he soon build a mansion for his family a small distance from the river up a hill. From where you could see over the small town, and he soon became the first official mayor of Spring Creek Harbour, a function he would hold until his death.

The lord was a smart man, and build his warehouses and his mansion on the most rocky patches, as not to disturb the sparse farming places. The free roaming goats and chickens los a bit of space, but with the additional logging that was done to build the buildings of the fishing enterprise, they got all the space they needed.

The influx of business brought life back to the town, and the farmers got neighbours again. Craftsmen serving all the aspects of the small fishing industry, staff for the manor house of the lord and even a pub established.

Founding Date

First known mention on chart 1702

Type

Village

Population

0

Related Historical Events

• 250
  Missing crew

Fate

Ruined

The Narwhal came swiftly alongside the much bigger Sunset Dawn. The crews greeted eachother as old friends, which they where. They had occasionally run into each other at Armani's Warehouse. But had both happily hunted on their own account.

But now on the otherside of the Caribbean the Narwhal had come for them, that was clear. "A Letter from Armani's cousin." The new captain said, with that he handed Rose an sealed envelope.

Rose was enchause to open it, as there was only one who would sent her a message via Armani and have the Narwhal chase after them.

It was dated two weeks a go, a small ping of pain went trough Rose her gut as she read on:
'Found them, meet at the Drop.' BSN.

A message from Michael the Boatswain. Whom had been chasing their attackers for a month now.

"Do you need any stores?" She asked the crew of the Narwhal.
-"No we are good."
"At least stay for dinner. You must miss the creations of Alejandro.

When dinner was done Rose ordered full sails, and they made for Oranjestad as fast as possible.

Mansion

Read more

The mansion of the Lord of Mirateia wasn’t an extensive building by manor house standards, but for Spring Creek Harbour, it was huge. It had two full floors above a semi-basement. This semi-basement was first intended to be a full basement, but the labourers grew tired of mining out the space for it and decided to elevate the entire house by 1.2 meters. The building is topped by a steep angled roofed which could easily be passed off as another floor. It stood proudly over the village, where the majority of the buildings were wood with a thatch or sod roof, of a single level construction. Some were made of stone, or had a stone foundation. But none had a full second floor.

The building was wider than it was deep and all the rooms were arranged side by side with a corridor connecting them along the back.The ground floor held in the centre the entrance, a reception room, a dining room, in the left wing. And a library and a day room, in the right wing. As well as the main stairs and hidden service stair case. On the second floor there were eight similarly sized bedrooms.

Kitchen, storage and other service locations were all situated in the semi-basement.
Two strong chimneys stood proud above the roof, on either wing, covering the fire places in library and day room and reception and dining.

The house tried to represent the manor houses of the European nobles, but where it worked in looks, it lacked in the social life. As Spring Creek Harbour was too remote, the land was not valuable enough to run a full estate. The Lord of Mirateia was very good at managing his affairs, but when he passed away, his children sold the place relatively cheap to his successor of the fishing company. Because that was the only one who wanted to buy it. They did, however, trick him. As they shipped out all furniture, tableware and other items, one might expect to be belonging to a house.

Without the family funds of the Lord, the house declined, repairs where postponed or done badly, and two winters later the snow load made the roof over the right wing partly collapse. After which, the house became abandoned. As it was too expensive to keep living there.

In recent history it was partly repaired by El Patético but they didn’t do any cosmic work so the looks remained that of a haunted ghost house.

Nowadays it is a ruin, where only some walls remain partly standing.

Cold storage

Read more

The cold-store warehouses didn’t have any refrigeration technology, as one might expect now. They were simple thick-walled stone buildings, with an extremely thick thatch roof. The cold was gathered in winter, in the form of ice. The creek and the bay froze over every winter, and the now idle fisherman went onto this ice to carve out blocks they would haul into the warehouses. That because of their construction were very well isolated. The sheer quantity of ice they could pack into this ware houses meant that the temperature stayed below freezing until the end of summer. To achieve this duration of cold, the warehouses where filled with up to three-quarter their capacity with ice. Leaving only little of their space for fish, but this was intended that way.

The ice blocks were first lined along the walls. Stacked to the roof. Any cracks packed with snow. Then rows of block walls created narrow aisles in the warehouses, exactly as wide as the fishing crates. Loos snow was shovelled in between them. This snow was later slowly cleared out as the fish was brought in.

In other parts of the world, ice cellars were in use, but because of the difficult rocky structure of the bottom building, thick walled warehouses were more economical.

Second Decline

After the death of the Lord of Mirateia in 1885 AD, his business fell in the hands of his second in command. His children having no interest in the fishing industry, split the inheritance among them and moved away from Spring Creek Harbour to pursue other interest.

But without the connections of the Lord, the fish brought up less and less money on the market. While the new owners wanted to live the life, the former lord and his family had done. So the result was that a few years thereafter, the company had to postpone paying its employees. Who wheren’t stupid and left Spring Creek Harbour on the next ship to work elsewhere where they actually got payed. They left Spring Creek Harbour to the stubborn farmers again.

Connections

The village was never connected to the road network, nor to the power grid. It was too far away from anything else. And the governments and companies didn't see a profit in connecting Spring Creek Harbour to any network, as there were to little people there.

Rose found Michael and Aleksey in the Last drop, staring at their beer. They seemed mentally dead, they didn't even stare at Ligeia who was singing again, like all men usually do somehow.

"Boats? Did you find Jane and William?" Michael downed his drink first, then looked the Captain in the eyes. Rose nearly stepped back from the pain she saw there.

Crime

Spring Creek Harbour turned into a ghost town. Most houses were empty, left to be inhabited by the local wildlife. There were a few farms left but besides farming for themselves, they had no other way of life. The only visit they town got every year was from the National Revenue Service. Taxes were due ofcourse, even if you didn't have anything.

It is believed that some employees of the Tax Office were the first to use Spring Creek Harbour for illicit activities. Paying off the farmers. Who turned a blind eye, as they finally had someone to sell eggs and goat cheese to again.

Others believed that the Lord of Mirateia already had an illicit side business, but there is not any evidence of that.

The town remained mostly ghostly but the mansion and the warehouses had been built of stone by propper masons and stood the test of time. They were the business hub for several crime operations, some temporarily using it once or twice to smuggle object or people. At somepoint the operations where taken over by El Patético whom turned the village in one of their bases of operations, because of the secluded nature of the bay, it became a regular stop for the Sea serpent.

After they heard the story from the Bosun, the crew had one thing on their mind: Revenge.

The pirates had set sail towards Spring Creek Bay without a proper plan. They had passed a drifting freighter they would normally never hesitate to prey on.

Along the way they came up with an idea, how to sneak up to the village. The boatswain and Aleksey had snuck up on it over land after sailing a dingy close to the bay. But they couldn't get the Sunset Dawn in that way. And for their plan they needed it close.

The Abyssablack fabric, the improved version of Vantablack, they had found last month, and where unable to sell even to Armani due to the extreme military restrictions on the material. Would come in handy now, and with difficulty they managed to cover the complete ship in it. The masts stuck out of course, but the hull was an undefinable black hole from the waterline up.

Two days they waited just hours sailing away from Spring Creek Harbour. They waited for the New moon, when the night would be blackest, and luck was with them it was clouded too.

With just a jib up, they floated into the bay unseen, and then released hell from their cannons onto the remaining buildings.

The sunrise was red that morning for what once was Spring Creek Harbour.

---