Annaberg is the remains of one of the 25 sugar factories which were active on St. John. Besides sugar, molasses and rum were also produced by Annaberg. The factory was driven by slave labor until July 1848 when freedom was declared for Danish West Indies Slaves. The name Annaberg means "Anna's Hill" which refers to the infant daughter of William Gottschalk, a plantation owners from St. Thomas. Sugar cane harvesting and processing was backbreaking work.	Ed approaches the factory building.
The remains of the windmill	The soil in the area was very thin and planting was done on hillsides. The hills had to be terraced and the soil fertilized with water, ashes, and dung. The sugar cane had to be then planted and then harvested 12 to 18 months later. Once harvested the cane was brought to the windmill where it was crushed and the juice from it was collected. If there was no wind the cane was crushed on a horse driven mill. After the juice was collected it was then sent to the boiling bench. Roughly three to five hundred gallons of juice could be produced per hour this way
The cane juice was boiled in "coppers" which were heated copper pans. The coppers were heated by fires fueled with dry can stalks. Boiling caused excess water in the juice to evaporate out and impurities could be skimmed off of the top of the pan. The juice was progressively boiled and ladled into smaller and smaller coppers until it was poured off into wooden pans to cool and allow sugar crystals to form. If molasses was desired instead of sugar the juice was removed from the last copper early to prevent sugar crystal formation. The sugar was then placed into barrels called hogsheads which could hold up to 1600 pounds of sugar. Drippings from the wet sugar within the hogsheads were used to produce rum.	A group photo at the ruins