VII St. Mary
The parish of St. Mary was probably so called from the port, Puerto Santa Maria, thus named by the Spaniards, now known as Port Maria: but Roby points out that Modyford’s daughter’s name was Mary, and it was immediately next to the parish of St. George, the name of her husband being, as we have seen, George Nedham. It includes the former parish of Metcalfe, as well as a part of the old parish of St. George.
At Gray’s Inn, near Annotto Bay, are to be found remains of an old Spanish house, one of the few left in the island. The Maroon Town of Scott’s Hall is situated behind Castleton Gardens on the Junction road, from Kingston to Annotto Bay.
The account of the defeat of Sasi by Doyley at Rio Nuevo, now on Spring Valley, will best be told in the account of St. Ann amongst Doyley’s other operations.
At Decoy on the borders of St. Catherine is the tomb of Sir Charles Price, Bart., called the Patriot, for many years speaker of the Assembly. The property has now been divided up. The tomb is illustrated in Hakewill’s “Picturesque Tour of Jamaica.”
The following is a copy of the lengthy inscriptions. The Latin inscription is on the top, the English round the sides.
Hic jacet
Carolus Price Baronettus
Multis vir ornatus virtutibus
In omnibus enim vitæ officiis
Ita se probavit
Ut et civibus et sociis
Gratissima esset ejus integritas
et Fides.
Memoriæ tanti viri
Caroles Price
Filius natu maximus
Et quatuor solus superstes
Fortunæ et Honoris
Utinam ac virtutum
Hæres
Hoc Monumentum
Posui.
Though thou hast past the murky road
Which Cato, Raleigh, Sidney, trod
Yet still thy name and deathless praise
By Poets sung in artless lays
Or by tradition handed down
To latest ages shall be known
With tears of unaffected joy,
Each parent teach his fav’rite boy
How you withstood your country’s foes
And o’er their spleen triumphant rose
Although ’twill hardly be believed
That such a Patriot ever lived.
This truly great man was born on the 20th August 1708. Having finished his Classical Education in some of the best private schools in England, his academical at Trinity Colledge in the University of Oxford and taken the tour of Europe he returned to this his Native Country in the month of January 1730.
On the 13th March 1732 he was elected a Member of the Honourable House of Assembly, of which on the 18th March 1745 he was chosen Speaker.
On the 3rd of August 1748 the House came to the following Resolution:
Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That Charles Price Esq. have the thanks of this House for his candid and impartial behaviour in the Service of this Country as Speaker of the Assembly, and that as a farther acknowledgement of his said Service:
Ordered:—That the Receiver-General do purchase a peice of Plate for the said Speaker of the value of Two hundred Pistoles to be made in such Form and Shape as the said Speaker shall direct.
December 19th 1760 the House came to another Resolution:
Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That Charles Price, Esqr. Speaker of the Assembly hath supported that High Office with great Dignity, Impartiality, and Integrity, and that the thanks of the House be, and they are hereby given to the said Charles Price, Esqr. for his faithful discharge of the High Office of Speaker, and as a further Testimony of the Sense this House entertains of his Conduct in that Office that a peice of Plate of the value of Two Hundred Pounds sterling be presented to him.
Ordered:—That Robert Graham Esq. the Receiver-General, or the Receiver-General for the time being do pay to the order of Charles Price Esq. the sum of two hundred pounds sterling to be laid out in the purchase of a Peice of Plate and that this or any future Assembly will make the same good to him.
On the 11th day of October 1763 his seat was vacated at his own request, and the House came to the following Resolution:
Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That the Thanks of this House be given to the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. for his steady, faithful, and impartial Discharge of the high and important Office of Speaker of the Assembly for a long series of years, throughout the whole course of which he distinguished himself in the most conspicuous manner, and approved himself a dutiful and loyal subject to His Majesty and a true lover of this Country by supporting on every Occasion the Honour and Dignity of the Crown and the Rights and Privileges of the People, and as a farther testimony of the high sense and approbation this House entertains of his conduct in that Office and Services to the Public that he be presented with a Peice of Plate of the value of five hundred Pounds sterling.
Ordered:—That Malcolm Lang Esqr. Receiver-General or the Receiver-General for the time being do pay to the Order of the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. the sum of Five Hundred Pounds sterling to be laid out in the Purchase of a Peice of Plate, and this or any future Assembly will make the same good to him.
Ordered:—That Mr. Speaker do transmit to the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. a copy of the foregoing Resolution and Order, in a Letter of thanks agreeable to the above Resolution, and expressing likewise their Concern for the great loss the Country hath sustained by his Resignation occasioned by his ill state of Health.
In the year 1768 as an additional Testimony of the Approbation of his Conduct and in Reward of his great Merit, His Majesty King George the Third in a manner, the most distinguishly honourable, it being unsolicited, was most graciously pleased to create him a Baronet of the Kingdom of Great Britain, an Honor, which though he did not live many years to enjoy, he might justly be said to enjoy with honor.
In the offices also of Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature, Custos Rotulorum of the Parish and Precinct of St. Catherine, and Major-General of all the Horse and Foot Militia in the Island, he eminently distinguished himself in the service of his Country.
“His Life was gentle, and the Elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world This was a Man.”
In the “Columbian Magazine,” Kingston, 1796, occurs a poem on “The Decoy”:
Dedicated to Sir Charles Price, Baronet, by his Son, the Hon. Charles Price Esq. Speaker of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica.
To dust and suffocating heats,
Well pleas’d, we bade adue;
To taste your garden’s rural sweets,9
And pay respects to you.
Peace to this calm, sequester’d seat,
Where art and nature vie,
To decorate your lov’d retreat,
And charm the mental eye.
But who its beauty can disclose,
Who paint its gay array?
What friendly muse will interpose
And aid an artless lay?
From this sweet spot; when æther’s clear,
Rich culture breathing round,
“Cuba’s” blue distant hills appear,10
The prospect’s utmost bound.
Whilst you such constant care employ,
And genuine taste impart,
No wonder it should thus Decoy,
And captivate the heart.
Yet, tho’ the scene does greatly please,
You greater joy dispence,
Conversing with convivial ease,
And solid, sterling sense.
Far from the world’s alluring ills
And folly’s wide controul,
Here candid Contemplation fills
And elevates your soul.
In the same magazine appears a poem by Sir Charles Price entitled “Resignation.” One of the twelve verses may suffice:
It was Heaven’s Almighty decree,
You will say, then, why should I repine?
Tho’ in this we perhaps may agree,
Have you ever felt anguish like mine.
Long says of St. Mary: “The weather in this parish is extremely wet during great parts of the year, and so cold, that few if any of the houses are unfurnished with a chimney.” In writing of the Decoy he says:
One of the greatest curiosities in this parish is the Decoy, the seat of Sir Charles Price, Bart. It is situated on part of the range of mountains which border on St.-Thomas-in-the-Vale. The house is of wood, but well finished, and has in front a very fine piece of water, which in winter is commonly stocked with wild-duck and teal. Behind it is a very elegant garden disposed in walks, which are shaded with the cocoanut, cabbage and sand-box trees. The flower and kitchen garden are filled with the most beautiful and useful variety which Europe, or this climate produce. It is decorated, besides, with some pretty buildings; of which the principal is an octagonal saloon, richly ornamented on the inside with lustres, and mirrors empanneled. At the termination of another walk is a grand triumphal arch, from which the prospect extends over the fine cultivated vale of Bagnals quite to the North-side sea. Clumps of graceful cabbage-trees are dispersed in different parts, to enliven the scene, and thousands of plantane and other fruit-trees occupy a vast tract, that environs this agreeable retreat, not many years ago a gloomy wilderness.
He further tells us that Price constantly resided on this property, and in truly Jamaica old-time fashion kept open house: “Few gentlemen of rank, whether of the army or navy, on service here, quitted the island without having passed some of their time at the Decoy.”
Sir Charles Price, the first baronet, was a grandson of Francis Price, a captain in the army of Venables at the capture of the island, who married the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Rose, also one of the army. His son, Colonel Charles Price, who died in 1730 and lies buried, as we have seen, in the church of St. John, Guanaboa Vale, was the father of the first baronet. Sir Charles Price was a native of Jamaica, and “endued with uncommon natural talents, which were improved by education, and polished by travel in the early part of his life”: these abilities and his personal wealth gained for him considerable influence in the island. He was member of the Assembly for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale 1732, for St. Catherine in 1752–66, and St. Mary 1756–61, and again for St. Catherine in 1766, was speaker in 1746, and from 1756 to 1763.
He was created a baronet, of Rose Hall, Jamaica, in 1768.
His son, Sir Charles Price, the second baronet, was member of the Assembly for St. Catherine in 1768, for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale in 1779 and 1787. He was speaker in 1763 (when he succeeded his father in that office), 1765, and 1770. In October 1775 he was expelled the house at his own request, and left for England, intending never to return.
In 1786 as he was in financial difficulties the House advanced £5000 on mortgage of the Decoy, but in the following year a new Assembly voted this transaction “unconstitutional and of dangerous example.” He died in 1788 in Spanish Town without issue, and the title became extinct.
Sir Charles Price’s name was for many years associated with a particular species of rat—the largest in the island—known as the “cane-piece rat,” or the “Charles Price rat” on the assumption that it was introduced into Jamaica by him; but Richard Hill, who investigated the matter for Gosse, and obtained the family tradition on the subject from George Price, of Worthy Park, a great-grandson of Sir Charles Price, came to the conclusion that the animal, which Price introduced from South America and in the eyes of the negroes had strong rat characteristics, was no rat. Several were set loose at the Decoy, and at Worthy Park, but they did not survive. They may possibly have been a species of opossum, one example of which recently came to Jamaica in a ship from Costa Rica. To show what a curse rats were to the sugar planters, Beckford records that 39,000 were caught in five or six months on one estate.
At Agualta Vale is the tomb of Thomas Hibbert (d. 1780), who came to Jamaica in 1734.
The following is the inscription:
In a vault near this place lie deposited by his own direction the remains of—Thomas Hibbert, Esq.,—late a Merchant in the Town of Kingston—and proprietor of this and two adjoining Estates. He was the eldest son of Robert and Mary Hibbert, of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, in the Kingdom of Great Britain—from whence he first arrived in this Island in 1734—and after residing in it, with little interruption, almost forty-six years—Died unmarried at this Estate, on the 20th of May, 1780—in the 71st year of his age....
As we have seen, he built Headquarters House, Kingston. He purchased Agualta Vale, containing about 3000 acres, from the heir of one Bendish about the year 1760. The sugar estate was settled in 1771.
Fort George, near Annotto Bay, is now all that remains of the lands of the Ellis family, which once owned numerous properties in the island—Shettlewood Montpelier in St. James, Ellis Caymanas and Crawle Pen in St. Catherine and Nutfield, Newry, Greencastle and Fort George in St. Mary.
The statement often made that John Ellis, the first settler, was an officer in Venables’ army is not borne out by the list of those officers. He is recorded as a captain in 1685. He and his descendants sat in many Assemblies, and intermarried with the Nedhams, Beckfords, and Longs. Charles Rose Ellis was created Baron Seaford in 1826, and his son became Baron Howard de Walden in right of his mother.
George Ellis, the poet, and John Ellis, the naturalist and Agent in England for Dominica, were also members of this family, who have, from time to time, done much for cattle breeding in Jamaica, having been pioneers in importing valuable breeds from Cuba, India, Portugal, and Italy. To George Ellis, chief justice in 1736–39, Jamaica owes the introduction of guinea grass—the seed having been brought from Guinea as food for cage-birds.
At Fort George indigo was cultivated in the early days.
At Dryland, near Woodside, is an example of Arawâk rock-carving (illustrated in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” vol. ii, No. 4). Fort Haldane, situated on a cliff above the coast on Gray’s Charity, a mile west of Port Maria, is named after General George Haldane, Governor in 1759. Prospect, near White River, is an old loopholed house, a good example of Jamaica architecture; and Heywood Hall was the scene of a fight between Koromantyn slaves and the white inhabitants of St. Mary, who defeated them, in 1760.
As early as Slaney’s map of 1678 there was a Christopher’s Cove in St. Mary in addition to Don Christopher’s Cove in St. Ann.
Notes
9. This delightful spot, to which art and nature seemed to have conspired, in imparting the brightest touches of beauty and sublimity to the surrounding scenery, is situate in the higher part of the St. Mary’s Mountains, and at present in possession of Henry Archbould, Esq. It was denominated the “Decoy,” from the various attractions it possessed, and the interest it maintained in the breast of its numerous visitors. The garden is represented as the burial-place of that respectable but unfortunate family the Prices.
10. From its elevated situation, the island of Cuba is said to be distinctly seen in a clear day; a prospect, however, commanded by many other mountainous settlements on that side of the Island.