IV St. Andrew
The parish of St. Andrew was originally called Liguanea, and the name still lingers round the plain. It now consists of what before the passing of law 20 of 1867 comprised the parish of Port Royal and the parish of St. Andrew, less the parts known as Smith’s Village, Hannah’s Town, Fletcher’s Town, and the town of Port Royal. There are no towns in St. Andrew; the principal villages being Halfway Tree, Gordon Town and Stony Hill.
The earliest known reference to Halfway Tree on record occurs in the minutes of the Council of January 4, 1696, when “the Governor acquainted the Board that he had been informed that Mr. Redman Maccragh, Mr. Henry Archbold, and others had assembled together att halfeway tree in the parish of St. Andrews and had obleiged severall of His Majesty’s subjects passing that way to drink a health to the late K. James, which was lookt upon by the Board to be a great misdemeanour,” and it was ordered that all persons concerned should appear before the Board the next Council day; but this apparently they discreetly abstained from doing.
It derives its name from a cotton tree dating from the conquest, which existed as late as 1866. Richard Hill, in an article which was published posthumously in the “Victoria Quarterly” in 1890, said:
“I visited Halfway Tree on Sunday the 25th November, 1866. When I first saw the cotton tree at the junction of the four roads through the plain of Liguanea from which Halfway Tree receives its name, it had nearly lived out its time. It is of that lofty straight-stemmed variety of Eriondendron which originally growing among some clustering trees had overtopped them and had spread its horizontal arms out above them at about some fifty or sixty feet in elevation from the root. Four or five of these arms yet remained with a few scattering stems on which a few straggling leaves vegetated. An age of surface rains rushing to the sea three miles away had removed all the soluble earth from the platform roots, so that they made arched resting places, where the marketers coming from the mountains would rest themselves in groups for they had reached the Halfway Tree.... At the time of the conquest of the island 200 years ago, the Halfway Tree was one of those tall and solitary cotton trees of the Liguanea Plain.”
It is to be regretted that no illustration exists of this interesting tree, which has perished since Hill wrote. It stood near the present church, where the original road (now known as the old Pound Road) going from Passage Fort, the landing-place from Port Royal, direct towards the mountains, was cut by the road that went from Spanish Town to the plain of St. Andrew.
Long the historian says: “The village of Halfway Tree is situated... at the intersection of the three roads which lead to Spanish Town, St. Mary, and St. George,” and this probably is the origin of the name.
The ascription of the name to the half-way position for the troops between Greenwich on the Harbour and Stony Hill is evidently wrong, as the troops were not placed at Stony Hill till 1799.
The Old Burial-Ground, Halfway Tree, is the name usually given to the disused graveyard on the road between King’s House and the Constant Spring road, where the Waterloo road crosses it on its way to the foot of the hills. Standing on land falling away towards Sandy Gully, it is said to be the site of the first church erected by the English in St. Andrew, one of the seven parishes into which the island was originally divided by Sir Thomas Modyford in 1664; but there are now no evidences of the foundations to be seen.
In 1682 Sir Thomas Lynch sent home to the Bishop of London a detailed account of “this infant church” in Jamaica. Of Halfway Tree he wrote: “On the north side of Port Royal harbour lies St. Andrews, where Mr. Cellier, a Swiss, is minister. It is the pleasantest part of the Island, with an ordinary church and a pretty parsonage house. The minister has £100 a year, he is an honest man and well beloved. Colonel Beeston can tell you about him.”
The second church was erected near where the present fabric stands; the foundation stone being laid on January 12, 1686, according to the following extract from the early vestry minutes:—“1686, January 12, Prayers at the old church and a sermon from Gen. ch. 28, v. 16, 17. The first brick of the new church laid by the Rev. Mr. Zeller, the second by Col. Sam. Barry.” The building of this church had evidently been contemplated for some time, a previous entry, under date July 28, 1684, reading “Agree about building the new intended Church.” James Zellers, a Swiss by birth, came out to Jamaica in 1664 and was at once appointed to St. Andrew, which parish he served for thirty-six years. Colonel Barry, who owned Cavaliers, was one of the largest landowners in the parish. The second church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1692. In “The Truest and Largest Account of the Late Earthquake in Jamaica... written by a Reverend Divine there... London, 1693,” it is thus referred to: “From thence it is but a short way to Ligania, the first and principal place for Planting, (whereunto my own parish is immediately the next) which for the most part imitating, if not Exceeding the stateliness of Port Royal, is now, together with its fine New Built and not yet finished Church, buried in the same Ruines with the Houses.” This old ground was used for interment long after the present church was built; in fact, as late as 1862.
The registers of the church of St. Andrew at Halfway Tree, dating back to 1666, are the oldest in the island. They contain many records of interest. Unfortunately, the entries for the early years are only a transcript of about the middle of the eighteenth century, the same handwriting extending to the year 1741. The first entry of baptism extant is that of Grace, daughter of Edward Onion, under date June 10, 1666. The earliest marriage is that of John Wilson and Anne Zeale on June 7, 1666; and the first death Arabella Joanes, on July 4, 1666.
Amongst those who lie in the old burial-ground are George Bennett, of Dorsetshire family, “who came here a soldier under General Venables”; Henry Dakins, who died in 1683; Major Samuel Guy, who died in 1736; and “Edward, the soven (sic) of William and Anne Beeston, who dyed this 5th day of August, 1678, being above the age of... months,” and “Henry the sonne of William and Anne Beeston who dyed the first day of May, 1677, being about the age of 14 months.”
Sir William Beeston was governor of Jamaica from 1693 to 1701. His daughter Jane married firstly Sir Thomas Modyford, the fifth and last baronet, and secondly, Charles Long, of Longville, son of Samuel Long who came out with Penn and Venables as secretary to Cromwell’s Commission, and rose to fame. With his friend Beeston, Samuel Long was sent home a prisoner by the Earl of Carlisle, but they successfully vindicated the privileges of Jamaica. Edward Long, the historian of Jamaica, was grandson of Charles and Jane Long.
The wall of the churchyard no doubt dates from early in the eighteenth century, as appears by a further extract from the vestry minutes, under date “1706, February”: “Ordered that both these churchyards [the new and the old] be walled in.”
The vestry minutes are copied from a reference in the “Morning Journal” of June 18, 1858, contributed by Mr. Livingston.
The Parish Church of St. Andrew, commonly known as Halfway Tree church, is, after the cathedral at Spanish Town, the most interesting, from an historic point of view, of all the churches in the colony.
The vestry lost no time in rebuilding after the earthquake had destroyed the first church, for we learn from the vestry minutes, under date July 5, 1692; “Ordered that a new church be forthwith built on the church land at Halfway Tree of the figure of the late new church, and a house for the Minister 50 feet front from out to out, 16 feet wide from in to in, 9 feet high a brick and half thick.”
The building was apparently so far completed as to receive monuments on its walls by the following March, for that is the date of the one which records the death of Frances, wife of Sir Nicholas Lawes, a successful planter, and a wise and beneficent governor in times of great misfortune. Lawes himself was buried in the church of the parish, the interests of which he did much to further, but his tomb is not now to be found. His name still lives in Laws street, Kingston.
The following further extracts from the vestry minutes are interesting: “1697, order for building a Vestry room and hanging the Bell”; “1699, April 29, Bargain about a Steeple”; “... December 22, Order for pewing the Church.”
The church was finally completed in 1700. In 1701 Sir William Beeston and his wife gave, as we have seen, a site in Kingston for the erection of a church in that town, and in the year following, namely, on January 13, 1702, the Vestry of St. Andrew ordered “That the benches belonging to the church be given to Kingston for the use of their church.” On October 25, 1703, it was ordered “that the tyles be taken off the roof of the church, and that it be covered with shingles instead thereof”; and in 1705 that the ceiling, &c., be plaistered. Richard Hill is probably in error in saying that “the then existing church shattered and blown down in the hurricane of 1712 and 1722 was succeeded by the present edifice,” but one’s later day experience of hurricane and earthquake have shown that these and the work of “restorers” make sad havoc of the historic evidence offered by monumental inscriptions. In 1685 it was decided to order a communion service from England, but the oldest chalice and flagon in the church bear the date 1700, and the mark, B.O., of John Boddington (who made a communion flagon which is at North Cerney in Gloucestershire).
On June 9, 1741, the churchwardens were ordered to send to Great Britain for a “Pulpit Cloth with Cushions and other necessary ornaments for the Pulpit, Reading Desk, and Communion Table, of crimson, with a plain gold fringe, and six dozen hassocks.” The edifice was somewhat damaged in the hurricane of October 20, 1744; and on November 3 following the churchwardens were ordered to agree with workmen to put the church immediately in repair and secure the windows with substantial shutters on the outside. In 1760 orders were given for the importation of an organ, and on July 1, 1762, Messrs. Freeman and Dixper were employed to take down the old organ and to put up and tune the new one for £80.
For many years the church remained, as it was built, a plain unattractive structure, by men who had the fear of earthquake and hurricane before them. In 1879–80 extensive restorations were carried out; the Campbell memorial chancel was added, extensions were made to the north and south ends of the transept, and at the west end so as to connect nave and tower, and the ceiling was removed.
In 1904, in order to provide extra accommodation, a south chancel aisle, designed with deep-mullioned, unglazed window-openings, so as to exclude sunlight and yet admit fresh air, was added in memory of the late rector, the Rev. H. H. Isaacs. And in 1909 extensive repairs, involving the pulling down of the shattered tower, the space occupied by which was thrown into the nave, were rendered necessary by the earthquake of 1907.
The first rector, James Zellers, was appointed to St. Andrew on June 9, 1664, and since that date the parish has been served by but sixteen rectors, giving an average of upwards of fifteen years for each incumbent—not a bad record for a “pestilential climate,” as that of Jamaica was formerly called.
In this connection it is of interest to note that a recent member of the congregation worshipped in the church for upwards of seventy years, for a large part of which time he was verger. Stephen Dale, who was born in the parish of Manchester in or about 1806, came to St. Andrew as a slave on Cassia Park, a property near the church, when a young man, and lived in Halfway Tree till his death. Though pensioned as verger in 1896, he still, to the advanced age of 106, in 1912, played his part in collecting the offertory at the Sunday services, and performed other duties in connection with the church. He remembered that he was thirty-two years of age at the time of Emancipation.
Of the monuments by far the most interesting from an art point of view is that formerly on the south wall of the chancel, now on the north wall of the nave, to James Lawes. One of the best pieces of iconic sculpture in the island, it is by John Cheere (miscalled Sheere by Lawrence-Archer), the brother of Sir Henry Cheere (b. 1703, d. 1781), at first a pupil of Sheemakers, and afterwards employer and instructor of Roubiliac.
Sir Henry Cheere was the chief of the statuaries of his time, working in marble, bronze, and lead to meet the demand for garden decoration. He executed numerous monuments for Westminster Abbey. In 1760 he was chosen by the County of Middlesex to present a congratulatory address to the King on his accession. Knighted on that occasion, he was created a baronet six years later. In 1755 he drew up the first proposals for the formation of the Royal Academy. All we are told of John Cheere is that he was “also a statuary and probably a partner in his brother’s works.”
Of James Lawes almost all there is to tell is stated in Latin on his handsome monument. He was baptized in 1697, married in 1720, and was member of the house of Assembly for St. Andrew in 1721, and for Vere in 1722. He was called up to the council in 1725. He died in 1733. He had a dormant commission, but never acted as governor. His widow re-married, in 1742, William Home, eighth Earl of Home, governor of Gibraltar. His epitaph, translated, runs as follows:
In this neighbourhood lie the remains of the Hon. James Lawes: he was the first-born son of Sir Nicholas Lawes, the Governor of this island, by his wife Susanna Temple: he married Elizabeth, the only daughter and heiress of William Gibbon, Esquire: then in early manhood, when barely thirty-six years of age, he obtained almost the highest position of distinction amongst his countrymen, being appointed Lieutenant-Governor by royal warrant; but before he entered on his duties, in the prime of life—alas!—he died on the 29th day of December, A.D. 1733.
In him we lose an upright and honoured citizen, a faithful and industrious friend, a most affectionate husband, a man who was just and kind to all, and distinguished by the lustre of genuine religion. His wife who survived him had this tomb erected to perpetuate the memory of a beloved husband.
His arms are painted on the monument: “Or, on a chief azure, three estoiles of eight points or. On an escutcheon of pretence, or, a lion rampant sable debruised of a bend gules charged with three escallops, or.”
He was probably born at Temple Hall, where his father, governor of the colony from 1718 till 1722, introduced towards the close of his life, in 1728, the coffee plant into the island. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Temple, of Francton, Warwickshire, and Temple Hall, in St. Andrew, sister of “La Belle Temple,” of de Grammont (wife of Sir Charles Lyttelton, governor of Jamaica), and widow of Samuel Bernard, speaker of the Assembly. She was the fourth of Sir Nicholas Lawes’s five wives, all widows when he married them.
Other interesting monuments in the church are those to Zachary Bayly, uncle and patron of Bryan Edwards, the historian, who wrote his flowery epitaph typical of the time; to Admiral Davers, who was one of the principal actors in the quarrel between Sir Chaloner Ogle and the governor, Trelawny, an echo of the jealousy of Wentworth and Vernon, which was a factor in their deplorable failure at Cartagena; and to General Villettes (by Sir Richard Westmacott), commander of the forces and lieutenant-governor, to whom there is a mural tablet in Westminster Abbey; and in the churchyard is the monument of Christopher Lipscomb, first bishop of Jamaica.
The earliest dated tomb is that to Edward Harrison, of the year 1695. The latest monuments of importance erected in the church are those in memory of Sir James Fergusson, who was killed in Kingston by the earthquake of 1907, and lies buried in the churchyard; and a brass tablet to the memory of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a former governor.
The number of naval men buried here is somewhat remarkable for an inland church: Admiral Davers (d. 1746), Dr. Charles Mackglashan, R.N. (d. 1834), Commodores Pring (d. 1846), Peter McQuhae (d. 1853) and Cracroft (d. 1865), Admiral Holmes (d. 1761), Captains Renton (d. 1747–8), Shortland (d. 1827) and Morrish (d. 1861).
Amongst military men are General William Anne Villettes (d. 1808), Lieut.-Col. Augustus Frederick Ellis (d. 1841), Lieut.-Col. Charles Markham (d. 1842), and Major-General Lambert (d. 1848).
The old chandelier, at the west end, dating from the year 1706, the gift of Nicholas Lawes, is a good example of English brass work of that period. The copy of the royal arms, also at the west end, dates from the time of Queen Anne, as the initials A. R. testify. The tattered flags of the 3rd West India Regiment told of a time when there were more battalions than there are now. Laid up on the disbandment of the regiment in 1870, they were on July 31, 1912, removed from the church to the recently erected garrison chapel at Up-Park Camp.
The registers contain many records of interest. In the early years occur the well-known names of Brayne, Beeston, Barry, Elletson and Lawes.
Between 1671 and 1691 Colonel Samuel Barry had four children baptized; Colonel William Beeston, five; and Roger Elletson (who married Anne Hope on May 6, 1680), six.
The Robert Beckford who, on June 6, 1688, married Anne Prenyard, must have been a member of the well-known family, possibly a brother of Colonel Peter Beckford, the president of the council.
Amongst the baptisms are recorded those of Robert Charles Dallas, the author of “The History of the Maroons,” on Christmas day, 1756; of William, son of Lieut.-Col. John Dalling, afterwards governor of the island, in 1771; and of Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Despouches and Sir Hyde Parker, vice-admiral of the red, in 1797.
Slaves were often baptized en bloc. In 1780 four negroes “the property of the Dutchess of Chandos” were baptized on February 8. On May 5, 1790, five slaves, the property of Simon Taylor, the wealthiest man of his time, were baptized; and on September 9, 1803, eighteen slaves on Mona estate; and on July 15, 1815, twenty-nine male adults, twenty-seven female adults, eight male and nine female children slaves were baptized on Fair Hill plantation.
The good people of Kingston not infrequently came to St. Andrew to be married, e.g., on September 12, 1792, Robert Hibbert, Esq., Jun., of the parish of Kingston, married Elizabeth Jane Nembhard, of the same parish. Another interesting marriage that took place in St. Andrew was that of Philip Livingston of Kingston, merchant (the eldest son of Philip Livingston, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776), to Sarah Johnson, of the parish of St. Andrew, on June 29, 1768. Apparently, also, sometimes burial services were conducted in St. Andrew prior to entombment elsewhere. Under date November 5, 1702, is recorded the death of “Admiral John Bembo,” whose tombstone is in Kingston parish church. He had died at Port Royal on November 4. There is an old tradition that Benbow was buried at Greenwich, then a naval station on the harbour to the west of Kingston. This would be compatible with the entry in the Halfway Tree register, as Greenwich was and is in the parish of St. Andrew; but James Knight, who was member for Kingston in 1722 and following years, says, in a manuscript history of Jamaica in the British Museum, “He was buried the day following [his death] in the church at Kingston, greatly lamented by all ranks of people.” It is strange, therefore, that his burial should be recorded in the register of St. Andrew. It may be that when two rectors took part in the burial service each recorded it.
Amongst other interesting items in the burials we read: “1772, Nov. 6, Mrs. Clies, mother-in-law to Sir George Bridges Rodney, Bart.” She was the mother of Rodney’s second wife, Henrietta. Her husband was John Clies, of Lisbon.
The following is a complete list of the rectors of the parish:
| July | 1664 | to 25th May | 1700 | Rev. James Zellers |
| 1700 | to 5th July | 1710 | Rev. John Moodie | |
| 1710 | to 22nd Oct. | 1714 | Rev. George Wright | |
| 1714 | to 25th March | 1738 | Rev. John Carey | |
| 1738 | to 26th April | 1747 | Rev. Alexander Inglis | |
| 1747 | to 25th Oct. | 1760 | Rev. George Eccles | |
| 1760 | to 13th April | 1768 | Rev. Gideon Castelfranc | |
| 1768 | to | 1782 | Rev. John Pool, LL.B. | |
| 1782 | to May | 1813 | Rev. John Campbell | |
| 1813 | to 8th Dec. | 1858 | Rev. Alexander Campbell, M.A. | |
| 1858 | to | 1860 | Ven. Archdeacon Richard Panton, D.D. | |
| January | 1861 | to | 1870 | Rev. William Mayhew, M.A. |
| October | 1870 | to August | 1872 | Rev. George Taylor Braine, B.A. |
| August | 1872 | to Oct. | 1878 | Ven. Archdeacon Duncan Houston Campbell, M.A. |
| March | 1879 | to 22nd Sept. | 1900 | Rev. Hubert Headland Isaacs M.A. |
| January | 1901 | Rev. Edward Jocelyn Wortley |
Amongst interesting houses are Lundie’s Pen, Halfway Tree, a typical eighteenth-century Jamaica house, but altered after the earthquake of 1907—it bears date September 3, 1767. King’s House, which was formerly the residence of the Bishop of Jamaica, was purchased for £5000 as an official residence of the governor, on the removal of the seat of government to Kingston in 1872. A dining-hall and ballroom were added later. It was wrecked by the earthquake of 1907, and was rebuilt in 1909 from designs by Sir Charles Nicholson. In it are two full-length portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds of George III and Queen Charlotte, copies of the portraits which were painted in 1779 and for which Reynolds received £420. Reynolds made it a condition of his acceptance of the presidentship of the Royal Academy that he should be allowed to paint portraits of the king and queen. The portraits were presented to the Royal Academy by the king. Thirteen pairs of copies were painted. Copies are in the possession of the Earl of Malmesbury at Heron Court; at the Viceregal Lodge, Dublin; at Hatfield House; at Cobham Hall; at Knole; the Senior United Service Club, London; and the Cutlers’ Company; and the pair mentioned above at Jamaica. The king is seated in his robes, with the sceptre in his right hand; in the background are a canopy and the aisles of Westminster Abbey. The queen is seated on a throne, with a sceptre on a cushion in front. She is clad in a gold-embroidered dress, with lace sleeves, and ermine train and robe.
At Halfway is King Edward’s Clock Tower, erected as a memorial by public subscription in 1913.
The Stony Hill Barracks (dating from 1799) are now used as an Industrial School. In 1844 they were unoccupied, and the Assembly suggested that they should form a lodging for the convicts which, it was proposed, should tunnel Stony Hill. Amongst the tombs is one to the memory of an officer of the York Chasseurs who fell in a duel in 1818.
During the latter years of the eighteenth century the Jamaica naval station was one of very great importance to the British Empire. The North American (with which it was later united) was then considered a fine station for making prize-money, but the West Indies was, to use Nelson’s own words, “the station for honour.” Earlier in the century, however, riches had been added to honour for those who held command at Jamaica.
In addition to the naval station at Port Royal (where the commodore on the station till recently resided at Admiralty house), there were for many years to the west of Kingston a dockyard at Greenwich (with a depot for military stores, and a hospital, as well as a cemetery attached) which was the point of embarkation for the naval authorities; and a pen residence for the commander-in-chief near Kingston, known as Admiral’s Pen. At times the admiral on the station had a house in the hills, and there was at one period a naval convalescent hospital (now called The Cottage) in the St. Andrew mountains.
The earliest record of a suggestion for a permanent residence for the admiral on the station is to be found in the will of Zachary Bayly (the uncle of Bryan Edwards the historian) who offered Greenwich Park, situated between Admiral’s Pen and Greenwich, near Kingston, to the government “for the use and residence of a Governor, or of the Commander-in-chief for the time being, of His Majesty’s ships of war employed or kept upon this station,” at a reduction of £1000 sterling on a just valuation. This offer, which Bryan Edwards, as executor, made to the House of Assembly in 1770, was not accepted.
But in 1773 the House resolved “that a sum not exceeding £2500 (currency) be laid out in purchasing the house and pen in the parish of St. Andrew, where Sir William Burnaby, Admiral Keppel, and Admiral Parry formerly lived, to be annexed to the Government for the use of the Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s ships of war on this station.”
Admiral’s Pen was bought on January 13, 1774, by Jasper Hall, et al., commissioners for purchasing a pen for the admiral on the station, from John Dalling, et ux., for the sum of £2500 (currency). This was Lieut.-Colonel Dalling, who was then lieutenant-governor. Its purchase was no doubt due to Rodney, who was then the admiral on the station. As he left, however, in that year, Gayton, commodore at Jamaica in 1776–78, was probably the first admiral to inhabit it as an official residence. Gayton was followed by, amongst others, Sir Peter Parker, Joshua Rowley, Gardner, Affleck, Sir Hyde Parker, Lord Hugh Seymour, Sir J. T. Duckworth, Dacres, Cochrane, Douglas and Popham. In November 1829 Admiral Fleeming reported that Admiral’s Pen was “ruinous and uninhabitable.”
On May 20, 1863, Thomas Cushnie, for the Executive Committee of the Government, bought it for £600 (sterling). It is now used as a Union Poorhouse for Kingston and St. Andrew. Its whitewashed walls and stones along the drive recall the coastguard stations of England, and keep alive the memory of its connection with the navy of Great Britain at a period of some of its brightest achievements.
To Admiral’s Pen in 1780 Nelson was brought, after a short sojourn at Port Royal, on his return from the San Juan expedition, and, weak from fever and dysentery, was tenderly nursed by Lady Parker and her housekeeper, Mrs. Yates, while even the admiral himself took his turn in sitting up with the patient. We are told that Nelson’s aversion from taking medicine was so great that they had to send it to him by the hand of the admiral’s youngest daughter. On June 11 Nelson went up to the admiral’s hill residence, or “Admiral’s Mountain,” as he calls it in a letter to his friend Hercules Ross.
Lady Nugent, in her “Journal of a Voyage to and Residence in the Island of Jamaica,” refers to the Admiral’s Pen more than once. On September 13, 1804, when Sir John Thomas Duckworth was admiral, she writes:
Breakfast at 8, as usual. Have at 11 a second breakfast of fruit, wine, cake, etc., and at 12 all set off for the Admiral’s Penn; Lady M[argaret Cameron, wife of the Governor of the Bahamas], her young people, and myself, in the sociable, with our two black postillions in scarlet liveries, but with black ancles peeping out of their particulars, and altogether rather a novel sort of appearance, to Europeans just arrived. General N. and Mr. Cameron in the curricle. Aides-de-camp, servants, etc., in kittareens, and on horseback; and all arrived in grand procession at the Admiral’s at about 3. Refreshments were ready, and then we all creolized till 5 o’clock. A large party, of the Navy chiefly, at dinner. Cards; and to bed soon after ten.
The banquets and other ceremonies that have taken place within the walls of Admiral’s Pen must have been excelled in splendour only by those of King’s House, Spanish Town, in its palmiest days.
“Long before Kingston had been settled as a town,” says the late Mr. G. F. Judah in his “Rock Fort, Fort Castile, Fort Nugent” (Kingston, 1906), “Rock Fort, with its surroundings then lying in both the old parishes of Port Royal and St. Andrew, had acquired a name and reputation of its own.”
Though not one of the earliest spots to be defended in Jamaica under British rule, Rock Fort, at Harbour Head (not to be confounded with Rocky Fort on the Palisadoes), which commands the approach to Kingston from the east, or windward as it was commonly called in the days of sailing-ships, came into importance before the close of the seventeenth century. It was first fortified as a protection against the threatened French invasion from San Domingo, under Du Casse in 1694; and enlarged and strengthened from time to time. It was manned in 1865, when it was feared that the rising in St. Thomas would spread to Kingston. Near Rock Fort is the site of a Naval Watering Place, established by Admiral Vernon in 1739–42, where Rodney later added a conduit, still to be seen, for the conveyance of fresh water from the spring to the shore. Sir James Castile, a native of Barcelona but a naturalised Englishman, who had come to Jamaica as agent for the Assiento Company of Spain, which had the exclusive right to import slaves and other objects from Africa to the Spanish West Indies, and to which was joined the Royal African Company of England, received his letters of naturalisation in March, 1684–85; and in the July following he acquired land in Port Royal, where he established offices for his company, which he could not have done had he been an alien. In 1690 he purchased 300 acres of land in the old parish of Port Royal (now St. Andrew), near Harbour Head, and in the following year he acquired one hundred more in St. Andrew near by. In September 1693 letters patent were issued by the governor, Sir William Beeston, authorising Castile “to enclose his dwelling house at Three Rivers in the Parish of St. Andrews, with imbattled walls for the security and defence of his said house and plantation and negroes and the parts adjacent, against their Majesty’s Enemys”; and thus arose Fort Castile, about a mile and a quarter beyond Rock Fort. In the June following, under fear of French invasion, with the defences of Port Royal ruined by the recent earthquake, Colonel Lawes “drew lines and secured a narrow pass to the eastward of Kingston,” and this became Rock Port, and Du Casse was led to make his attack to the west of St. Jago de la Vega at Carlisle Bay. Sir James assisted not only at Rock Fort, but also at his own dwelling; “having garrisoned and provided his house, which was well walled and guarded for a defence, they built a regular fort on the parade.”
In 1702 Castile petitioned the House of Assembly in respect to the great charge he had been put to in building Fort Castile, and the House voted him £500 in compensation. He died in 1709, and in 1711 his widow petitioned for consideration in view of the fact that for five years the fort was occupied by her Majesty’s forces, “during which time it ran greatly to ruin.”
From that time nothing is recorded of Rock Fort till 1753, when £300 was voted for its defence (£7000 being voted for Mosquito Point, afterwards called Fort Augusta); and thence onwards it is frequently reported on by the various committees appointed from time to time to report to the Assembly on the state of the fortifications and barracks of the island; and in 1755 £5000 was voted to be expended on Rock Fort. The following account of it is given by Long:
It consists of two bastions, mounting twenty-one guns (twenty-four pounders), and furnished with a small powder-magazine, and other habiliments of war necessary for its defence. Upon the face of the hill is a little battery of six guns, with traversed lines that lead up to it. Outside the walls is a wet ditch, sunk lower than the surface of the water in the harbour; so that it may be occasionally filled. The fort is provided also with a drawbridge towards the Eastern road; casemates for lodging the men; and a house for the officers. It is too small to admit a garrison of more than seventy men: nevertheless, governor Kn[o]l[e]s was so confident of its strength, that he maintained that it was capable of standing a siege against ten thousand. It defends the access towards the town from the Eastward, and would undoubtedly prove a great security against an attack from that quarter; for the only way leading to it is narrow, and confined a considerable length in a straight direction, exposed to the whole fire of the fort, without a possibility of annoying it: nor could trenches be formed, to carry on a regular approach, as the road is all the way a shallow sand close by the water’s edge. A guard of soldiers is always kept here; but the fort is said to be very unhealthy to the men and their officers. The cause of this has by some been imputed to their drinking from a brackish stream which runs near it. Others ascribe it to the extreme heat reverberated down upon them from the hill, which rises like a wall above the fort. And some have thought it proceeded from a lagoon, which lies near the mouth of Mammee River, about three miles to the Eastward. To corroborate the latter opinion, is alleged the instance, mentioned by Lind, of Whydaw-castle, on the coast of Africa; which has been rendered more unhealthy than the Negroe-town in its neighbourhood by a flight of circumstance unattended to at first. It is built on a small spot of ground, which the sea breezes cannot reach without passing over a little, inconsiderable brook of water, which produces some aquatic plants always covered with a putrid slime. It is certain, from constant experience, that places adjacent to a foul shore, or stagnant waters, near the coast in the West Indies, are invariably unhealthful. But, whatever be the cause, it deserves a minute enquiry of gentlemen of the faculty, in order to its discovery; to the end that, if it arises from some local evil, that cannot be remedied, the men might be lodged at night in convenient huts, erected for them upon the hill-side; by which means all of them, except those on immediate duty in the fort, might enjoy a purer air, especially in those hours when a depraved air is found to be most pernicious; for this is a post of so much importance to the Town, that the men stationed here ought neither to be disheartened by apprehensions, nor disabled by sickness, from doing their regular duty. The assembly having lately granted 1500l. for erecting barracks at this fort to contain two hundred men; if the situation be properly attended to, the result will shew, whether the unhealthiness of the garrison has been owing to a pestilent quality in the air, or some other cause.
It is interesting to read Long’s reference to the lagoon, having in view the unpleasant experiences which Kingston has had in recent years from the smell of the Yallahs ponds from time to time, notably in 1906.
In 1805 fear of French invasion was very real in Jamaica, martial law was proclaimed, and in December (before the news of Trafalgar reached the island) a law was passed for purchasing Castile Fort and certain lands (118 acres) surrounding it, for completing the works of that Fort, and for putting the same on the Island establishment under the name of Fort Nugent, in honour of Lieutenant-General George Nugent, then lieutenant-governor. The martello tower hard by must have been built about the same time. In 1865, owing to fear of a descent on Kingston by the rioters of Morant Bay, the fort was manned by volunteers.
The view of the old guns lying about in picturesque confusion, shown in the sketch (on the previous page) copied from a photograph taken in 1908, no longer exists, as the fort has since been reconstructed.
When the lands on the plain of Liguanea were divided amongst themselves by Cromwell’s army of occupation, that part on which the Constant Spring estate stands fell to the lot of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Archbould, a member of the first Council nominated in 1661. He married in 1668 (he was her third husband and she was his second wife) the mother of Sir Nicholas Lawes (afterwards governor of the colony), but died in the following year, she surviving him twenty years. His son, Colonel Henry Archbould, who had sat for St. George from 1680 to 1688, was elected member of the Assembly for St. Andrew in 1701–2. His wife, Joanna Wilhelmina, was sister to the wife and cousin of Sir Henry Morgan (buccaneer and governor of Jamaica) and sister to the wife of Colonel Robert Byndlos, chief justice. She obtained a patent of naturalisation in August 1685. The second Colonel Archbould died in 1709, and was buried in Halfway-Tree church. The first Colonel Archbould’s second son, Major William Archbould, was member for St. Andrew in 1688. James Archbould, the son of his second wife, was member for St. Andrew in 1702–4, but sat for St. David in 1713.
In 1759 a private Act was passed (we read in Feurtado’s “Official and other Personages of Jamaica,” 1896) for the sale of certain lands in Liguanea belonging to Henry Archbould, late of the said parish, deceased, for payment of £8000 with interest, devised by the will of the said Henry Archbould, to his daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Archbould, and for other purposes.
In 1765 Constant Spring estate with some mountain land adjoining, called Snow Hill, was (the writer was informed by Mr. G. F. Judah) sold by Henry Archbould to Daniel Moore, who had in the previous year provisionally leased the property. Daniel Moore, member of the Assembly for St. Andrew from 1768 to 1781, who had done a thriving trade in prizes and prize money in those privateering days, and was latterly joined in business by Jasper Farmer, died in 1783–4, and his properties formed part of his residuary estate. After his death there was a suit in Chancery, “Maitland vs. Moore et al,” and in 1785 Constant Spring and Snow Hill, with its slaves and other effects, were sold under a decree of the Court at Riley’s tavern in Kingston for £33,000 current money of the Island. It became afterwards the property of George Cuthbert (who administered the government of Jamaica in 1832), who mortgaged it for £77,000 to Alexandre Lindo, a retired merchant; the latter sold the mortgage debt in 1810 to his son, Abraham Alexandre Lindo, the proprietor of Kingston Pen.
It was during the ownership of Daniel Moore in 1770 that an Act was passed empowering him to bring, by means of a tunnel through the mountain range and an aqueduct, the water of the Wag Water (the Agua Alta of the Spaniards) to his estate, which means now serve in part to supply the town of Kingston with water. It was entitled “An Act to enable Daniel Moore, Esquire, to take up a sufficient quantity of water for turning mills for grinding sugar-canes, out of or from Agua Alta River, commonly called Wag Water River, in the parish of St. Andrew; and to convey the same to his works on the plantation in the said parish, called Constant Spring.”
In 1898 the original brick-lined tunnel, which is about half a mile in extent, was straightened in parts, and converted into a concrete pipe of six feet diameter. The proposal to supply Kingston with water from the Wag Water was first made, it is interesting to note, as early as 1798.
In 1811 there were on the estate 401 slaves and 22 head of stock.
As the result of legal proceedings of a protracted character the estate about 1832 became the property of Mrs. Jasper Farmer Cargill (née Jane Marston), when there were 312 slaves and 31 head of stock; the only estate in the lowland district of St. Andrew with more slaves being Hope.
It later passed into the hands of Chrystie and Porteous, merchants of Kingston, the memory of this ownership still living in the title Porteous’s Pen, applied to a lower and now distinct part of the property. In the ‘seventies it was owned by a Captain Carson, a son of a member of the above-named firm.
In the year 1888 the American Hotels company was formed in Jamaica, principally with Jamaica capital, and properties were acquired and two or three hotels were started, Constant Spring amongst the number. When the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891 was in preparation, the Government, thinking there was not enough hotel accommodation, passed the Hotels Companies law, and the directors of the Constant Spring hotel, as it was not paying as well as was anticipated, mortgaged it to the Government, to whom they subsequently handed it over. Golf links and tennis courts now usurp the place of cane-fields. The hotel since that date afforded a pleasant temporary home for numberless visitors to the island.
At the commencement of the nineteenth century Constant Spring estate was the place selected for his experiments in the improvement of the manufacture of sugar and rum by Dr. Bryan Higgins (miscalled “Wiggins” in Gardner’s “History of Jamaica”), the celebrated physician and chemist, who came to Jamaica in 1797 at the instance of the West India Committee (as related in the issue of the “Circular” for November 6, 1906).
On March 4, 1801, the House of Assembly resolved, “That a Committee be appointed to visit Constant Spring estate in Liguanea, on Monday, the 9th instant, to inspect what improvements Dr. Higgins has effected there in the manufacture of sugar and rum, and to report their opinion thereon to the House.”
On the 13th of that month the Committee made a lengthy report, in which it stated that:
“As Doctor Higgins has exemplified practically what theoretically he has detailed in print, the Committee deem it unnecessary to lay before the House in their report a more particular account of what they have seen and so satisfactorily approve.
“That the Committee lament that they have to state to the House that the infirm state of Doctor Higgins’s health obliges him to return to England this year; his assiduous and indefatigable exertions, both of body and mind, in the public service ever since his arrival, of which every gentleman with whom he has by turns resided is a witness, have been too much for his weak frame and advanced years, and render the change of climate necessary.”
“The observations and Advices for the Improvement of Muscavado Sugar and Rum by Bryan Higgins, M.D.,” was published in the “Columbian Magazine” in Kingston in 1798.
Constant Spring forms part of the scene of a tale by Captain Brooke-Knight, entitled “The Captain’s Story, or Adventures in Jamaica Thirty Years Ago,” which appeared in the “Leisure Hour,” illustrated by (Sir) John Gilbert, in 1859–60, and was afterwards published in book form with the same illustrations about 1880, under the title “The Captain’s Story, or Jamaica Sixty Years Since.” At the time of the story (1832) Constant Spring, which is in it called “Running Water,” was, as is mentioned above, the property of Mrs. Cargill; and Judge Jasper Farmer Cargill figures in the work as Mr. Jasper. The author, Captain Brooke-Knight, who appears as Lieutenant Brook, married Miss Marston.
The original Constant Spring works stood to the east of the new main road to Stony Hill, about seven miles from Kingston, just below the aqueduct. They were later removed to the other side of the road lower down the hill, near the end of the car line, where they still stand in ruins; and traces of the stone guttering connecting the old works with the new may still be seen on the east side of the main road. The late Dr. Cargill stated (in an article on “The Captain’s Story” which appeared in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica” in 1896) that the great house stood a little below the aqueduct. Mr. Soutar, however, says that the house at Spring Garden was the original great house. The remains of a substantial though short flight of stone steps (marking, Mr. Soutar says, the old still-house) exist to-day just above the reservoirs, commanding one of the finest views to be obtained on the higher slopes of the plain of Liguanea. These old aqueducts, which enhance the beauty of many a Jamaica landscape, besides telling of the day when sugar was king, afford the best examples of architecture to be found in the island.
It was at Constant Spring hotel in 1894 that “Alice Spinner” wrote a “Study in Colour,” one of the best pictures of negro character sketched by an English pen; and the hotel figures in the story as Summerlands Hotel, where “no ill-cooked stew or muddy coffee could rob the glorious mountains of their jewelled peak.”
Olivier Road, near Constant Spring, helps to record the fact that Sir Sydney Olivier, when colonial secretary, lived near by. It is the only publicly-given name after a colonial secretary.
Although of late, writers, misled by Anthony Trollope’s doubting reference to the story, and by a misreading of Froude’s words, have attempted to prove that “Tom Cringle’s Log,” a work which brought literary fame to Michael Scott at a bound, was probably written in Glasgow in the intervals of business, and although it is possible he may have rewritten in that city the chapters to suit the pages of “Blackwood,” there seems very good evidence still obtainable that the original studies of Jamaica life and character, which have delighted three or four generations of readers, were actually written in Jamaica.
Michael Scott, who was born at Cowlairs, on the outskirts of Glasgow, on October 30, 1789, was the son of Allan Scott, a Glasgow merchant and owner of a small estate at Cowlairs. After being educated at the high school and the university of Glasgow, he came in 1806 to Jamaica to manage several estates. Four years later he entered in Kingston a business the nature of which compelled him to travel frequently both by sea and road. He visited the neighbouring islands, especially Cuba and the Spanish Main, and the experiences of tropical scenery and nautical life thus gained formed the basis of his “Log.” In 1817 he returned to Scotland, and in the following year he married Margaret, daughter of Robert Bogle, of Gilmore Hill, a merchant in Glasgow. He returned to Jamaica immediately afterwards, but left the island finally in 1822, and, settling in Glasgow, became a partner in his father-in-law’s firm, Bogle, Harris and Co., of Glasgow, and Bogle, Douglas and Co., of Maracaybo. He died in Glasgow on November 7, 1835. It was in 1829, we learn from Mowbray Morris’s introduction to the edition of 1895, that the “Log” began to make its appearance in “Blackwood’s Magazine” as a disconnected series of sketches, published intermittently as the author supplied them, or as the editor found it convenient to print them. Blackwood, while keenly alive to their value, was urgent, we are told, with the author to give these sketches some connecting link, which, without binding him to the strict rules of narrative composition, would add a strain of personal and continuous interest to the movement of the story. The young midshipman accordingly began to cut a more conspicuous figure; and in July 1832 the title of “Tom Cringle’s Log” was prefixed to what is now the eighth but was then called the eleventh chapter. Henceforward the “Log” proceeded regularly each month, with but one intermission, to its conclusion in August 1833; and in that year it appeared in volume form in Philadelphia, in what was probably an unauthorised edition. Mowbray Morris gives 1834 as the year of its first appearance as a book; the “Dictionary of National Biography” says 1836; Allibone gives 1833. Both the “Log” and its successor, “The Cruise of the Midge,” were highly praised at the time, and Coleridge, in his “Table Talk,” called them “most excellent.” Scott so successfully concealed his identity that he was dead before his authorship of “Tom Cringle” was known. It was attributed to Captain Chamier, to Captain Marryat, and to Professor Wilson, to whom it was ascribed in a German edition published at Brunswick in 1839. From internal evidence it is clear that the events in this story synchronise, if they are not identical, with Scott’s own travels.
Anthony Trollope, who visited Jamaica in 1859, tells us, in his “West Indies and the Spanish Main,” that “Nothing can be grander, either in colour or grouping, than the ravines of the Blue Mountain ranges of hills. Perhaps the finest view in the island is from Raymond Lodge [sic], a house high up among the mountains, in which, so local rumour says, ‘Tom Cringle’s Log’ was written.” Trollope misrepresented the case and misled later writers when he used the expression “so local rumour says,” for he heard the story from the then owner of Raymond Hall, Captain Hinton East, as Captain East’s daughter, the late Mrs. Marescaux, one of the two ladies whom Trollope mentions as accompanying him on his ride to Newcastle, well remembered, and told the present writer.
Mowbray Morris says that “the tradition seems to have died away before Froude’s visit,” but the reason why the historian did not mention it is probably because he never heard it. Raymond Hall is the great house on Maryland coffee estate. Situated in the Blue Mountains at an altitude of about 3000 feet, some eleven miles from Kingston, it has been in the possession of the East family for upwards of 200 years. When Scott was here it was in the possession of Sir Edward Hyde East. In the returns of properties given in the “Jamaica Almanac” for 1840, Maryland is recorded as being 1265 acres in extent. In 1845 it had increased to 1700.
Mr. Hamilton, the original Aaron Bang in the “Log,” was, at the time when Michael Scott was in Jamaica, planting-attorney to Sir Edward Hyde East for Maryland; he resided at times at Kingston, at Raymond Hall, and in St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. At all three places his friend Scott was wont to stay with him. Hamilton was known among his friends as (Aaron) Bang from his fondness for practising with firearms, and until the hurricane of 1886 there stood in front of Raymond Hall a cabbage palm, the stem of which was riddled with shot, it is said, from Hamilton’s gun. Under this tree Scott wrote his studies of Jamaica life and scenery. So Captain East, who came out in 1836, only fourteen years after Scott had left, was informed.
An orange tree under which Scott, as he relates in his “Log,” made love to his cousin Maria, stood till quite recently at the back of the house. Mrs. Marescaux remembered the old estate carpenter, Stackpole by name, who was wont to show where Scott wrote, and where Hamilton fired at the cabbage palm from an old sofa which the writer saw resting in the same corner at Raymond Hall. The house was much shaken by the earthquake of 1907.
The following is Scott’s description of the house and its view:
“The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about 3000 feet above the level of the sea, and half-way up the great prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range, which rises behind and overhangs the city of Kingston.... Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains—those nearest us, covered with laurel-looking coffee-bushes, interspersed with negro villages hanging among the fruit trees like clusters of birds’ nests on the hill-side, with a bright green patch of plantain suckers here and there, and a white-painted overseer’s house peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the guinea-grass pieces. Beyond these stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea covered with luxuriant cane-pieces, and groups of negro houses, and guinea-grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes; and smaller towns of sugar works rose every here and there, with their threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the plain receded the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became sterile, hot and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a whale from out the sealike level of the plain; while to the right of it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or place d’armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot, sandy streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up-Park Camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and eastward of the town. Through a tolerably good glass the church spire looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall cocoanut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons with their teams of eighteen and twenty oxen looked like so many centipedes. At the camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine-pounders on each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots.”
Michael Scott is now chiefly remembered in connection with a cotton tree at Camp by the barracks, and one on the Spanish Town road, half-way from Kingston.
The following is the passage from “Tom Cringle’s Log” which has made the cotton tree at Up-Park Camp famous:
“I had occasion at this time to visit Up-Park Camp, a military post about a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regiments of infantry and a detachment of artillery were stationed.
“In the forenoon I walked out in company with an officer, a relation of my own, whom I had gone to visit; enjoying the fresh sea-breeze that whistled past us in half a gale of wind, although the sun was vertical, and shining into the bottom of a pint-pot, as the sailors have it.
“The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry situation (although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to windward of it, over which the sea-breeze blew, but this I did not see), considerably elevated above the hot, sandy plain on which Kingston stands, and sloping gently towards the sea. They were splendid, large, airy, two-storey buildings, well raised off the ground on brick pillars, so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the surface of the earth and the floor of the first storey, as well as through the whole of the upper rooms....
“This superb establishment stood in an extensive lawn, not surpassed in beauty by any nobleman’s park that I had ever seen. It was immediately after the rains when I visited it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in detached clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of them, a large umbrageous wild cotton tree, which cast a shadow on the ground—the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead—of thirty paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind, for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour, were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town Road, twenty feet through of solid timber; that is not including the enormous spurs that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots that strike deep into the earth and form stays, as it were, to the tree in all directions.
Our object, however—publish it not in Askalon—was not so much to admire the charms of Nature as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah cigar in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected. The shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh breeze was rushing, almost roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and everything around was green, and fragrant, and cool, and delicious—by comparison, that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for eighty degrees. The branches overhead were alive with a variety of beautiful lizards and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and playing at bo-peep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild pine (a sort of Brobdignag parasite that grows like the mistletoe in the clefts of the large trees), to which they clung, as green and shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little heads over to peer at us; while the red-breasted woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark for all the world like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the top-sides for the dry rot. All around us the men were lounging about in the shade and sprawling on the grass in their foraging caps and light jackets, with an officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering. about, bearding Phœbus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow as it skimmed past; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle were browsing the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath the trees....
“At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner, when we adjourned to the mess-room.”
Up-Park Pen, on which Up-Park Camp now stands, was conveyed to King by the trustees of Sir Alexander Grant in 1784. In 1793 the Assembly deducted lodging allowance previously made to the army because of the new barracks at Up-Park. In 1819 the Assembly in response to a request for a water-supply resolved that it “does not feel justified in making an extraordinary grant for the troops at Up-Park, a post entirely under the control of the British Government.” In the following year Wolmer’s Pen adjoining was purchased by the Treasury as it had a well. In that year the officer commanding asked for six mules to carry water; but the House was obdurate, “the barracks at Up-Park not being under the control of the House.” For a similar reason Up-Park was not included in the official list of “Forts, Fortifications and Public Buildings” for many years. The history of the West India regiment, closely associated with Up-Park Camp, is extremely interesting. It dates back to the American War of Independence when a British expedition from New York captured the State of Georgia. As a result, black and white loyalists flocked to the British camp where they were formed into corps of which the South Carolina was one. This regiment took an active part in the war, and in 1780 was converted into a cavalry regiment which at the close of the war was stationed in Jamaica under the command of Lord Charles Montagu.
The regiment at this period consisted of both black and white soldiers, and on the general disbandment of provincial corps in 1783, the white members were compensated with grants of land, and the black formed into a foot regiment in combination with black mechanics, under the name of the “Black Carolina Corps.” War broke out with France in 1793 and at that time various black corps were formed in the West Indies, all of which took an active part in the fierce fighting that took place during the succeeding years in those islands. With one of these corps, the Royal Rangers, the South Carolina Regiment was amalgamated in 1795 under the title of “Whyte’s Regiment of Foot.” In the West Indies, however, these regiments were called the West India Regiments, “Whyte’s Regiment of Foot” receiving the title of “The First West India Regiment.”
This regiment, which is now the only British black regiment surviving, has a magnificent record. It took part in the Ashantee wars of 1864 and 1873–74 and was especially complimented by Sir Garnet Wolseley on its behaviour; and in all punitive and other expeditions associated with African colonisation, its members have maintained its reputation for soldierly qualities of the highest order. It is interesting to note that in 1815 the regiment was strengthened by the Bourbon regiment of French emigrés which had been disbanded at the outbreak of the French Revolution. The present Zouave uniform of the corps was adopted in 1858 at the suggestion of Queen Victoria.
The first reference to a West India regiment in the Jamaica Almanacs is in 1802, when the second is recorded, and so continues to 1809; then till 1813 the fifth is recorded: in that and the following years the second and seventh were also at Up-Park. Then the second occurs down to 1842, being accompanied by the third in 1841 and 1842. A new chapel erected to replace the one destroyed by the earthquake was consecrated in May 1912, and in 1915 four windows were put in to replace those (lost with the old chapel) which had been erected to the memory of officers and men of the 2nd W.I.R. who fell in the Ashantee war of 1873–74.
Plum-Tree Tavern, which stands on the junction road between Kingston and Annotto Bay, and seven miles distant from the former, is of interest as having been the scene of one of the last duels fought in Jamaica.
The late Dr. Cargill, in his article entitled “A few Words about ‘The Captain’s Story’” in “The Journal of the Institute of Jamaica” for July 1896, says: “A very amusing duel (almost the last fought in Jamaica) took place near ‘Running Water’ [Constant Spring Estate], and was omitted from the ‘Captain’s Story’ by request of the parties concerned. As they are all dead and gone there is no reason why it should not now be related. My uncle, Dr. John Marston and a Captain Peel, R.N., went to a party and were requested to sing. Captain Peel sang first, and then Dr. Marston was asked to sing the same song that Captain Peel sang, but got more applause. Peel conceived himself insulted and called out Marston. They fought at ‘Plum Tree.’ I have the pistols, Wagdon and Barton’s hair-triggers. They fired and missed, but Marston’s shot hit a tree and glanced off on to the forehead of a Mr. Berry (a book-keeper) who had hidden in the bush to see the fight. Dr. Marston had to leave the battlefield to attend to Berry, who was supposed to be killed. In the meantime ‘Mrs. Jasper’ (my mother) heard of the duel and came down to Plum Tree and prevented further hostility. Mr. Berry only died a few years ago. He had the mark of Dr. Marston’s bullet in the space between the eyes. I have often seen the wound, which had broken the outer table of the bone there.”
Unfortunately old Plum-Tree Tavern was wrecked by the hurricane of 1903, and little more than the lower walls now remain to bear witness to old-time life in Jamaica.
A fort on Bridge Pen (formerly Berthaville) and, at the foot of the Long Mountain, now a ruin, was probably erected as a protection against rebellious slaves marching on Kingston.
At Garden House, Gordon Town, Hinton East (receiver-general of the Island, 1779) gathered together a collection of rare and valuable plants which were purchased by the Government in 1792–3, as is mentioned in the Introduction. The house of Hope Tavern was destroyed by the earthquake of 1907; the foundations still stand above the Hope river just beyond Papine on the way towards Gordon Town. In the old days it was the place where travellers to the Port Royal Mountains and the Blue Mountains exchanged buggies for saddles. Cherry Garden was once the residence of George William Gordon, who will be found mentioned elsewhere.
The estate at Hope, now a botanical garden, formerly belonged to the Duke of Buckingham. In “Notes in Defence of the Colonies,” by a West Indian, 1826, we read:
A decrease is not from premature mortality arising from slavery, for slaves live to great ages in Jamaica: eighty and one hundred years old are as common on estates as in any country of the same latitude, or more so; and I saw a few years ago a negro from the Hope Estate in St. Andrew’s, belonging to the Marquis of Buckingham, one hundred and forty-five years old. He had walked seven miles that morning, and his faculties were perfect, except his sight. Admiral Douglas had a painting taken of him, by Field8 of the Royal Academy, who was out here, which I saw.
The Jamaica College at Hope, which was established under law 34 of 1879 as the Jamaica High School, became the inheritor of the Walton foundation in St. Ann of the year 1802, which may therefore be taken as the date of its foundation. A college, called University College, was opened in connection with the school in 1890, but by law 26 of 1902 the college and school were amalgamated. During its existence thirty students passed through the college, and four students took the London B.A. degree, and one the M.A., without leaving the island. Amongst its alumni are several well-known teachers now working in Jamaica.
At Matilda Corner, near Hope, is a Drinking Trough, erected in 1914 by his widow to the memory of Sir Charles Frederick Lumb, puisne judge of the colony from 1892 to 1909, showed a keen interest in the welfare of animals.
The Mico College was erected in 1896 on land in St. Andrew to the north of the racecourse. This building was wrecked by the earthquake, rebuilt in 1909, and again destroyed by fire in 1910: it was rebuilt as it now stands in 1911. The origin of the charity is of some historic interest.
Jane Robinson, widow of Sir Samuel Mico, an alderman of the city of London, of the family of Micault of the Isle de France, amongst numerous other bequests in her will, dated July 1, 1670, made the following:
“And whereas I haveing a great kindness for Samuel Mico, my deere husbande kinsman son of John Mico of Croscombe in the county of Somersett and well knoweing that my deere husband with myself had thought of marrying him to one of my neeces and when and as sune as he shall marrey such nece of mine viz: one of the daughters of my brother-in-law Andrew Barker or my brother William Robinson aforemencioned then and not before or otherwise, I give and bequeath to him two thousand pounds lawful money of England, and on the forementioned condition I give and bequeath to him a farm called the Littell Parke which I bought or purchashed in the names of my brother Andrew Barker and my brother William Robinson of the Right Honourable the Marquis of Worcester in the manner (sic) of Crookham scituate lyeing and being in the severall parishes of Chatcham in the countey of Barke and Kingscleare in the countey of Southampton now in the tenor or occupation of Thomas Browne and when the aforesaid Samuel Mico shall have given a full discharge according to law when he comes to one and twenty years of age to the executors of my deere husband for his estate in thare hands then I give him one thousand pounds of lawful money of England and if hee doe not to thare satisfaction I then give it to redeeme poor slaves in what manner my Executors shall think most convenient and I give to Samuel Mico aforesaid my deere husband’s picter set with diamonds and I give him my crimson damaske bedd with all that belongs to that sute and my great Lucking Glace and my marbell tabell when he comes to the age of one and twenty yeares he dying before that age I give them to my two Executors.
“But if the above Samuel Mico do not marry one of my neces aforesaid my will is if he be a civel man and doe marrey into a good family and has a porchone with her answereable to his estate and has a sonne that lives to the age of a man I then give him the Littell Parke in the manner of Crookham in the parish Chactham in the County of Barkes and Kingscleare in the county of Southampton. But if he have no sonne I give it to his brother Richard Mico sonne if hee have any if he have no sonne then to my two executors I give it.”
After further bequests she turns to her nephew.
“And furthermore I doe hereby declare that whereas I gave Samuel Mico aforesaid two thousand pounds when he had married one of my neeces he not performing it I give one of the saide thousand pounds to redeem poore slaves which I would have put out as my Executors thinke the best for a yeerely revenue to redeem some yeerely, and if the aforesaide Samuel Mico marry one of my neeces I then give him my best Pearl Necklace and all my plate that I doe not give away by this my will.”
Samuel Mico was by the terms of his aunt’s will given the option of marrying any one of the six nieces of Lady Mico-Jane, Mary and Elizabeth Robinson, and Jane, Mary and Elizabeth Barker; the Jane in each case being apparently the most desirable bride from a monetary point of view as being god-daughter of his rich aunt: and of these Jane Barker was the favourite, unless Lady Mico in her bequest took into account the respective wealth of the two families, for there is evidence in Lady Mico’s will that Jane Barker’s father was not opulent. Apparently not one of the six pleased him; nor could he be induced to change his mind by the promise of his aunt’s best pearl necklace and the unbequeathed portion of her plate. Thus the £1000 went to the redemption of “poore slaves,” i.e. Christians held in captivity by the Moors of Algiers, in aid of whose release benevolent persons were at that time wont to make bequests.
In the seventeenth century pirates, mostly from Algiers, swarmed along the coasts of the Mediterranean sea, and numberless captives were taken as slaves and detained as such in Algiers and Barbary.
During the latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier part of the nineteenth century both France and England had done much to put a stop to piracy in the Mediterranean, and when in 1816 Algiers was taken by Pellew and the slaves, some three thousand in number, mostly Spanish and Italian, were liberated, there no longer existed an outlet for the special benevolence on their behalf of Lady Mico and other philanthropists.
In the year 1827 the Court of Chancery referred the matter of the Mico bequest for the redemption of poor slaves to Lord Henley, Master in Chancery, to devise a scheme for the application of the money according to the will of the foundress; and if the Master should find that the same could not be executed according to her will, then “as near its intent as possible,” regard being had to existing circumstances.
In the meantime Lady Mico’s £1000 had increased—partly by the re-investment of the unused income, partly by the realisation of a material profit on an investment in London property—to upwards of £120,000, giving a yearly income of £3625, and nobody knew what to do with it; but a matter very “near its intent” was already before the public.
While the name of William Wilberforce in England will ever be honoured as the prime mover in the abolition of the curse of the Slave Trade, the completion of his life’s work by the abolition of slavery in the British colonies proved too heavy for his age-enfeebled shoulders. This great undertaking he consigned in 1821 to the care of an earnest colleague, Thomas Fowell Buxton; and it was under this younger champion’s leadership of the forces of Emancipation and through his indefatigable efforts that the inevitable day was hastened, when, in Jamaica, the flag of Great Britain floated—as in every portion of the far-extended British dominions—over none but freemen.
The Emancipation Act came into force on August 1, 1834, and on July 29 of the following year the Master of the Rolls made an order confirming the scheme prepared by Buxton and Stephen Lushington, by which the Lady Mico Charity was founded, for giving Christian education to the coloured population of the British colonies. It was eminently fitting that to Buxton and Lushington, with others of kindred spirit, should be trusted the administration of the fund to confer the blessings of education upon the freed people of the British West Indies.
The institution in Jamaica, where the trustees have finally concentrated their efforts, was at first locally looked after by a board of visitors. This in 1882 was replaced by a board of directors. Each year some twenty-four students leave its walls to take up the work of education.
The burial-grounds of interest are the Newcastle Burial Ground, containing military monuments, inter alia a monument to officers and men of the 36th Regiment who died there and at Stony Hill of yellow fever in 1856; and the rare instance of musical notation on a tomb. The oldest tomb is dated 1844. The Jewish Burial-Ground at Hunt’s Bay, the wall of which was destroyed by the earthquake of 1907, has its oldest tomb 1678; at the Up-Park Camp new burial-ground the oldest tomb is dated 1836; and at the disused graveyard the oldest one is dated 1819, a year during which yellow fever proved very fatal to the troops. The principal monument in May Pen Cemetery, the general burial-ground for Kingston, is the simple obelisk erected in 1909 to the Unknown Dead who perished in Kingston in the earthquake of January 14, 1907.
The Kitchen-middens worthy of note are Norbrook, near Constant Spring; Belle Vue, in the Red Hills; Hope, near the old tavern; and Long Mountain (on the top and on northern slope): Dallas Castle Cave and Bloxburgh Cave have Arawâk remains. The latter was discovered in 1895, and gave an impetus to archæological research.
Silver Hill, near Newcastle, contains the Jamaica Spa, a mineral spring of great value; it was once in great request, but is now not used. The Cane River Falls are famed for their beauty. They were the haunt of “Three-fingered Jack,” who was captured in 1781, and later formed the hero of a transpontine melodrama; various editions of the play having been issued.
Hagley Gap is named after Hagley in Worcestershire, the home of William Henry Lyttelton, governor in 1762–66. It is interesting to note that Mr. Jekyll in his “Jamaican Song and Story” informs us that he was told locally that it was so called because it was “a hugly place”!
Catherine’s Peak (often miscalled St. Catherine’s Peak), near Newcastle, was named after Catherine Long (sister of the historian, and wife of Henry Moore, lieutenant-governor) who in 1760 was the first lady to ascend that peak.
Gordon Town was formerly the property of a family of that name; but was not, as some suppose, connected with George William Gordon, of Morant Bay fame.
Dallas Castle (which still survives as a district in St. Andrew) was owned by a scion of the family of Dallas, in the state of Alabama, whose descendants played their part in Jamaica history.
Manning’s Hill in St. Andrew Hills, and Salt Hill, Morce’s Gap, and Hardwar Gap (usually miscalled Hardware Gap), in the Blue Mountains, recall the names of former owners. Edward Manning, a wealthy merchant, who represented Kingston in the Assembly for many years. John Morce was at one time sergeant-at-arms of the Assembly and also deputy postmaster. John Hardwar was auditor-general in 1782.
The Scarletts were amongst the earliest settlers in Jamaica. On April 24, 1673–74, Colonel Samuel Barry and Captain George Nedham took to the Council from the Assembly, with four other bills, a bill for compensating the loss of “Mr. Nicholas Scarlett, received by the pursuit of the rebellious negroes at Legonea.” This was read three times and sent to the Assembly with these amendments: “In the sixth line after ‘be it enacted by the Governor and Council’ add ‘and the representatives of the Commons of this Island now assembled and by the authority thereof, that the said Nicholas,’ &c....” On May 17 it passed the House. A similar bill was No. 14 on the list of forty bills brought out by the Earl of Carlisle. It was voted “not to pass” on October 11, 1678, the Committee’s reasons against it being: “Because Mr. Scarlett hath been in England since, and when the former Act was first made it was intended to continue only during the residence here, and, that if notwithstanding any further consideration ought to be had it were better that the entire sum were given, rather than to enlarge anything upon the revenue.” What relation Nicholas Scarlett was to Francis Scarlett is not evident. He is not mentioned in the latter’s will.
Captain Francis Scarlett, the son of Benjamin Scarlett, of Eastbourne in Sussex, came out with Penn and Venables, but as his name is not mentioned in the “perfect list of all the forces under the command of His Excellency General Venables, taken at muster, March 21, 1654,” he presumably must then have held rank below that of captain. He patented lands on the Wag Water in the 28th year of Charles II, and bought neighbouring land in the vicinity of the present Temple Hall Estate. In the “Survey of the Island of Jamaica” sent home by Modyford in 1670 he is put down as owning 1000 acres in St. Andrew, in which parish there were then 194 families, and people, “by estimation” 1552. Only five men—Archbould, Hope, Howell, Parker (his neighbour), and Tothill were larger landowners in the parish than Scarlett at that time. He was recorded as Captain Francis Scarlett, member of the Assembly for St. Andrew in 1680–81; his co-member was Colonel Samuel Barry. He returned to England, and died unmarried in Eastbourne. He left his estate to his nephew William Scarlett, of the Middle Temple. A William Scarlett, of Port Royal, merchant, named as one of the Commissioners to take the evidence of certain witnesses in the Chancery suit of Elizabeth Smart versus John Parnaby in 1685, may be identical with him. It is interesting to note that one of his executors to whom he left legacies was Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu of London, Agent for Jamaica in England.
The first William Scarlett was succeeded by his only son William. This William (the second) was married in 1705 in the parish church of St. Andrew to Judith, daughter and co-heiress of Gideon Lecount of St. Jago de la Vega. She must have been very young, for she was not of age three years later. He and his wife sold the Wag Water estate, some of it to Sir Nicholas Lawes, the rest to James Herbert of St. Andrew, planter, and from that time onwards the fortunes of the Scarletts were connected with the western parishes of the Island.
Notes
8. There was never a member of the Royal Academy of this name. The painter referred to was probably R. Field of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who exhibited a portrait in 1810.