In Memory of Scrap Iron

William Colebrooke (Scrap Iron) in December 2007


We received the news on Saturday that our friend, William Colebrooke (also known as Scrap Iron or Old Iron), died the week before. Scrap Iron was born in Red Bays and was the last of the Black Seminoles on Andros Island. He had no children and to my knowledge, was never married. After spending his teens and early 20s working as a migrant laborer in the US, he decided to stay on the island full-time where he worked as a sponger and fisherman. When the sponge beds were devastated by a hurricane, Scrap Iron began making baskets - the biggest and strongest on the island. James introduced me to him for the first time in 2002; Scrap Iron was sitting on the side of the road in front of his hut weaving a giant circular mat. "No one buys dem." He told me then. "Dey's too big to take home, so I'm gonna stop makin' dem." Two years later, when we lived on Andros, he was weaving and had created his largest basket ever.



Scrap Iron Weaving in 2004


In 2005, he exhibited this and other baskets at the University of Florida and sold some of the pieces he thought would never find their way off-island. Our last visit with Iron was in 2007, he had aged significantly and lost weight. He must have been in his late 70s at the time. He wasn't weaving any longer and was getting by on fish, conch and iguana - living a quiet life in his hut in the bush of Andros Island.

Henry Wallace and Scrap Iron after returning to Andros from their Florida adventure in 2005