Island story

The story of Harbour Island

A small island with a long memory, from its first people to the pastel cottages of Dunmore Town.

Where it began

Long before the cottages

The Lucayan people lived in the Bahamas first. In the 1600s, English settlers from Bermuda arrived looking for religious freedom, and some later moved to Harbour Island.

Dunmore Town takes its name from Lord Dunmore, who was governor in the late 1700s.

Photo: Historic Dunmore Town Colonial-style Harbour Island home with white fence

Through the years

A timeline

The Lucayans

The Lucayan people were the first to live in the Bahamas, long before any Europeans arrived. Their world was built around fishing, farming and canoe travel between the islands.

The 1640s

In 1648 and 1649, English Puritans known as the Eleutheran Adventurers arrived from Bermuda looking for religious freedom and settled on nearby Eleuthera. Some soon moved to Harbour Island, drawn by its sheltered harbour.

Late 1700s

Dunmore Town takes its name from Lord Dunmore, a governor of the Bahamas in the late 1700s. He is a controversial figure, and many islanders have mixed feelings about the name.

Shipbuilding and sugar

By the 1800s Dunmore Town was a shipbuilding centre, and ships built here sailed the region until World War II. Sugar refining and rum making were part of everyday island life too.

Prohibition and rum

From 1920 to 1933 the United States banned alcohol, and the nearby Bahamas became a busy stop for liquor headed to American shores. Rum making was especially popular on Harbour Island, where skilled shipwrights and sailors were already at home on the water. In 1922 a four-masted schooner of nearly 700 tons, built by Sonny Jenks, was launched from the island.

Today

Tourism is the island's key industry now. Visitors arrive by water taxi and small boat, supplies come in by barge, and roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people call this remote island home.

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