The Front Street You Never Knew
Long before the pastel storefronts and cruise ships, Front Street was a very different world.
Here is how the story began……
From 1612 to 1815 the Capital of Bermuda was St. George’s with its deep harbor and maritime history. However, in the late 1700s ship owners and merchants began to favor the central location and deep-water potential of Hamilton Harbour.
In 1790, the government purchased 145 acres of land for the township of Hamilton, making Front Street the first surveyed road.
Hence, in 1815 the Capital moved to Hamilton. The Cabinet Building (completed around 1833) and other administrative buildings were constructed shifting the street’s identity from purely commercial to the seat of British colonial government.
During the later years of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Front Street became a major hub for Confederate blockade runners – fast, low-profile steamships designed to evade Union naval patrols. At the time, much of the Confederacy’s military supplies and manufactured goods came from Europe. Bermuda, particularly Hamilton Harbour, served as an important transshipment point where cargoes were transferred to smaller, swifter vessels capable of slipping through the Union blockade along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and other Southern states.
After the ships had delivered their cargo to the US, they were then filled with cotton to come back to Bermuda for transshipment to the larger ocean-going ships back to Liverpool, England (the cotton mills area of Britain).
Prior to the 1883 visit of Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, Front Street was defined more by commercial activity than by tourism or retail shopping.
However, widespread coverage of her visit helped spark American interest in Bermuda as a nearby winter playground, setting in motion the gradual transformation of Hamilton – from the frantic energy of the blockade-running era to the beautifully colored waterfront we recognize today – marking the city’s true coming of age.