Part 15

=Colebeck Castle=, which stands on a ridge of land on the west bank of the Colebeck gully, about a mile and a half to the north-west of Old Harbour town, overlooking the bay, probably dates from the end of the seventeenth century. It must have been the most imposing building of the kind erected in Jamaica. It was evidently at one time partially destroyed by fire. It is rectangular in plan, about 114 feet wide and 90 feet deep, consisting of four three-storied, square, tower-like buildings at each corner, rising to a height of about 40 feet, connected by two-storied arched arcades, consisting on two sides of three arches, on the other sides of five arches. The windows on the ground floor are circular. The walls are formed of stone, filled in between with rubble, with brick quoins and window facings, and are about 2 feet 6 inches thick; at every fourth or fifth course is a course of larger sized bricks. The inside walls have been coated with plaster work. Some of the lintels of doors and windows still remain, and are of bully-wood, as good as when they were first put up. A concrete terrace ran around the castle, with steps at front and back.

Parts of a projecting wall—at a distance of about 114 feet from the castle on each side, enclosing a square of about 300 feet—about 12 inches thick, still remain, and show crudely-formed loopholes for firing. In some places there is a drop of from 12 to 20 feet on the outside. At each corner of the outer wall was a substantial building some 60 feet square, and underneath three of them were vaulted dungeons. Two dungeons are no higher than 6 feet, 8 feet wide, and 24 feet long, with only one very small aperture low down at one end. The dungeon at another corner measures 60 feet by 20 feet, and is reached by a flight of twenty steps.

To-day the castle is surrounded by bush, and is the abode of bats and owls. On the surrounding property sugar has given place to tobacco.

From his black marble gravestone on the floor of the south transept in the cathedral, we learn that “Collnel John Colbeck of Colbeck in St. Dorothyes was born ye 30th of May, 1630, and came with ye army that conquered this island ye 10th day of May, 1655, where haveing discharged several honble. offices both civill and military with great applause he departed this life ye 22d day of February 1682.”

He was returned member for Old Harbour in the first Assembly of Jamaica, which met on January 20, 1663–64. In 1664, as Sedgwick had prophesied in a letter to Thurloe, the Maroons proved a thorn in the side of the English settlers. Though the main body under Juan de Bolas had surrendered after the defeat of the Spaniards by Doyley, other parties remained in inaccessible retreats, and, augmented by runaway slaves, gave great trouble by intermittent descents on the planters in the interior. Foremost amongst these were the Vermaholis negroes. After the death, in action, of Juan de Bolas, who on surrendering had been made a colonel of the Black regiment, Captain Colebeck, in March 1664, was employed to endeavour to quell them. “He went,” Long tells us, “by sea to the north side, and having gained some advantages over them, he returned, with one who pretended to treat for the rest. This embassy, however, was only calculated to amuse the whites, and gain some respite; for they no sooner found themselves in a proper condition, and the white inhabitants lulled into security, than they began to renew hostilities.”

In the survey of Jamaica sent home by Modyford in 1670, under St. Katherine’s parish we read: “John Colebeck (812 acres); Capt. Colebeck and inhabitants (1340 acres).”

In the third Assembly, which met on February 1, 1671–72, Colebeck’s name appears among the representatives of St. Catherine as “Major John Colebeck for Bowers,” Bowers being the district in which Colebeck Castle stands. On February 14 following “the Gentlemen of the Assembly in a body came to the Council and informed the Governor [Sir Thomas Lynch, Lieutenant-Governor] of the sickness of their Speaker, Captain Samuel Long, who recommended unto them Major John Colebeck, with whom they went back to their House and immediately returned their thanks to the Governor for his proposing so fit and able a person to be their Speaker.”

Colebeck remained speaker of the Assembly until Samuel Long was re-elected in May 1673; but on Long’s election to the Council, Colebeck was passed over for the speakership, and Beeston was elected.

In the fourth Assembly, May 10, 1673, Colebeck was again returned under the general head of St. Catherine as chosen specially for Bowers. In the next Assembly, which met on February 13, 1673–74, his name appears as one of the three representatives for St. Catherine generally, the return omitting the former distinctions of one member for St. Jago, another for Sixteen Mile Walk, and a third for Bowers. In the sixth Assembly, April 26, 1675, he was elected for the newly formed parish of St. Dorothy, and continued until his death to represent that parish in every successive assembly, viz. on April 9, 1677, when he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel; on September 6, 1677; September 2, 1678; August 19, 1679, when he had attained his colonelcy; and finally on March 19, 1680–81.

In a “Brief Account of the Government of Jamaica,” drawn up in 1680, his name appears fourth on the list of justices of the peace for Precinct IV (St. Catherine’s, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, and St. Dorothy’s), coming after those of Byndloss, Ballard and Long.

In 1679 he was one of a committee of fourteen of the Council and Assembly for the Defence of Jamaica, who signed specific recommendations to the governor for strengthening the breastwork, arming the new works, and providing four fire-ships.

[Illustration:

COLEBECK CASTLE ]

On February 17, 1682, the Lords of Trade and Plantations agreed to recommend, and the King approved, Colonel John Colebeck to be of the Council of Jamaica, in the room of Colonel Whitfield deceased, but he had died before the decision reached Jamaica. His will, dated February 20, was proved on March 15, 1682–83. He does not seem to have had relations for whom he cared, for he named none. He left all his estate, real and personal, to his executors, Hender Molesworth and Samuel Bernard (to each of whom he gave £40), to hold for payment of his just debts and legacies. He bequeathed money to purchase a ring to each of Sir Thomas Lynch, Robert Byndloss and Sir Henry Morgan. He left £20 to Henry Howser, the rector of St. Catherine, to preach his funeral sermon. He left £10 each to Dr. Ross and Edmund Duck, the Attorney-General, and £300 to Mrs. Ann Ash; and to every one of “ye Gentlemen of Councill each a ring of 30/- price. To ye church of St. Dorothy’s ye charge of glassing all ye windows and putting in iron barrs.”

After his death, the name of Colebeck does not appear in Jamaica history. As his arms are not given on his tombstone, there is nothing to show whether he came of the Bedfordshire or the Lincolnshire branch of the family; but there is a tradition in the Colbeck family that a member of the Lincolnshire branch at Louth was transported to the West Indies for cutting down an elm tree; that he acquired a fortune, and that his estate went into Chancery.

The principal reminiscence of the great earthquake of 1692 which overthrew Port Royal is the =Tomb of Lewis Galdy=, which is on the opposite side of Kingston harbour, at Green Bay, where at one time many naval officers were interred. On a brick tomb rests a white marble slab with Galdy’s crest and arms. The arms are a cock, two mullets in chief and a crescent in base. The crest, on an esquire’s helmet, is a plume, and the motto “Dieu sur tout.” The following is the inscription:

Here Lyes the Body of LEWIS GALDY, Esq., who departed this life at _Port Royal_ the 22nd December 1739. Aged 80. He was Born at _Montpelier_ in _France_, but left that Country for his Religion and came to settle in this _Island_, where he was swallowed up in the Great Earthquake in the year 1692 and by the Providence of God was by another Shock thrown into the _Sea_, and miraculously saved by swimming until a boat took him up: He lived many years after in great Reputation, Beloved by all who knew him and much lamented at his death.

Lawrence-Archer, in recording this inscription, adds: “Mr. Galdy probably exaggerated the circumstances of his escape, especially as there was no one left to contradict his statement.” There must have been at the time of his death many persons living who could have borne witness to Galdy’s escape. Galdy probably did not write his own epitaph. Moreover, if Lawrence-Archer had experienced an earthquake himself he would not have been so ready to scoff; and the following contemporary accounts all tend to prove the truth of the monumental inscription. In the earthquake of 1907 there were many escapes almost as miraculous as Galdy’s.

In “The Truest and Largest Account of the Earthquake in Jamaica, June the 7th, 1692, Written by a Reverend Divine there to his friend in London” (London, 1693) it is stated:

You would admire at the Goodness of God in the Preservation of the residue; some were very miraculously delivered from death, swallowed down into the Bowels of the Earth alive and spewed up again, and saved by the violent Eruption of Water through those Gaps; some (as they say themselves, if they were alive at that time to know what was done to them) were swallowed up in one place, and by the rushing of Waters to and fro by reason of the agitation of the Earth at that time, were cast up again by another Chasm at places far distant.

This account is corroborated by the contemporary account given by Captain Crocket, writing from Port Royal on June 30, 1692. He says:

Several People were Swallow’d up of the Earth, when the Sea breaking in before the Earth could Close, were washed up again and Miraculously saved from Perishings; Others the Earth received up to their Necks, and then Closed upon them and squeez’d them to Death; with their Heads above ground, many of which the Dogs Eat; Multitudes of People Floating up and down, having no Burial.

Also in “A full Account of the Late Dreadful Earthquake at Port Royal in Jamaica, Written in two Letters from the Minister of that Place” (London, 1692), we read:

But no place suffered like Port Royal; where whole Streets were swallowed up by the opening Earth, and the Houses and Inhabitants went down together, some of them were driven up again by the Sea, which arose in those breaches and wonderfully escaped; some were swallowed up to the Neck, and then the Earth shut upon them, and squeezed them to death; and in that manner several are left buried with their Heads above ground, and some Heads the Dogs have eaten, others are covered with Dust and Earth by the people which yet remain in the Place to avoid the stench.

Also in a letter, dated Jamaica, September 20, 1692, quoted by Sir Hans Sloane:

The Earth when it opened up and swallowed up people, they rose in other streets, some in the middle of the Harbour, and yet saved; though at the same time I believe there was lost about 2000 Whites and Blacks.

Elsewhere in the same letter it says:

She [the anonymous writer’s wife] told me when she felt the House shake, she run out, and called all within to do the same: She was no sooner out but the Sand lifted up; and her Negro Woman grasping about her, they both dropped into the Earth together; and at the same Instant the Water coming in rowled them over and over, till at length they catched hold of a beam, where they hung, till a Boat came from a Spanish Vessel and took them up.

And again, in a letter of July 3, 1693, “Some were swallowed quite down, and cast up again by great Quantities of Water; others went down and were never more seen. These were the smallest openings: Others that were more large swallowed up great Houses, and out of some gapings would issue great Rivers of Water, spouted up a great height into the Air, which seemed to threaten a Deluge to that part of Port-Royal.”

But the most detailed account of all is given in “A Natural History of Nevis and the rest of the English Leeward Charibee Islands in America. With many other Observations on Nature and Art. In Eleven Letters from the Rev. Mr. Smith, sometime Rector of St. John’s, at Nevis, and now Rector of St. Mary’s in Bedford; to the Rev. Mr. Mason, B.D., Woodwardian Professor, and Fellow of Trinity College, in Cambridge, 1745.”

One Mrs. Akers of Nevis was a native of Port Royal in Jamaica, and lived there in the year of our Lord 1692, when the great earthquake made such a dismal havoc and destruction, as will hardly ever be forgotten by the inhabitants of that Island. She told me, ‘That the earth opened wide, swallowed her with many others, and then immediately closed up again’; she said she was in a state of insensibility during her short stay there. It could not exceed the tenth part of a minute before it opened once more to vomit some of them up again. I asked her what might be her thoughts of the matter just the moment before the Earth swallowed her down; and she answered, that imagining herself upon the brink of a boundless Eternity, she put up a short ejaculation to Almighty God, begging him to pardon her Sins, and to receive her Soul. The Hiatus she fell into was all Water, so that being very wet she received no other harm, excepting in one of her Cheeks, which grated a little against something that did but just draw blood. This water Hiatus closed again the next moment, catching hold of some people by a Leg, of others by the middle of the Body, and of others some by the Arm &c., detaining them in dismal torture, but immovably fixed in the ground, till they, with almost the whole Town besides, sunk under Water; which happen’d within three minutes after she had got safe on board a Ship then riding at anchor in the Harbour.

Galdy was an affluent merchant of Port Royal, churchwarden from 1726, and member of Assembly for St. Mary, 1707; for Port Royal, 1708–09; for St. George, 1711; for Port Royal again, 1716; and for St. Anne, 1718. He enriched himself by the slave trade, as factor for the Assiento.

Until about the middle of the last century various inns and posting-houses, or taverns, as they were generally called, were kept in Jamaica. Some were rendered unnecessary by the advent of the railway, and some were superseded owing to the more rapid travelling rendered possible by better roads.

Of these the =Ferry Inn=, formerly the halfway house between Kingston and Spanish Town, has survived hurricane and earthquake, only to live on its departed glory, and no longer as a tavern.

In 1677 “An Act for the Ferry between St. Catherines and St. Andrews” was passed, of which the preamble runs:

Whereas William Parker, of the parish of St. Andrews, Esquire, hath at his particular Charge found out and made a very convenient Way between the Salt and Fresh River in the Parish of St. Andrews and St. Catherines, which will be of great use and advantage to the whole Island, in causing a more near and easie Correspondence with the several Precincts and whereas the said William Parker hath likewise set up and erected a Ferry for the better Accommodation of the said Passage, and whereas the same cannot be maintained without great and constant charges....

In return for the right to demand Toll over the Ferry, Parker was bound to “compleat the said Way and Passage within twelve months from and after the making of this Act, and that in all places it be not less than eight foot broad.”

This was one of a batch of laws that was not assented to by the King, and included in the laws passed under the Great Seal of England in 1678, and brought out by Carlisle for the Assembly’s acceptance which was refused. It was repeated in an Act of 1683. An Act of 1699, confirmed in 1703, directed the building of a bridge, and the 1683 Act does not appear in subsequent editions of the laws. The Ferry river—once known as the Lagoon river from its source to the Ferry and thence to its junction with the Salt river as the Fresh river—rises at Governor’s Spring in Ellis’s Caymanas and runs into the Salt river; the united stream then runs into the old course of the Rio Cobre just before it enters Hunt’s Bay in Kingston harbour.

[Illustration:

THE FERRY INN ]

By the Act of 1677, “William Parker, his Heirs and Assigns” were “Impowered and Authorized, for the space and term of fourteen years from the making thereof, to ask, demand, sue for, recover, and receive as a Duty and Toll for the Transporting of any Person over the said Ferry, Seven pence half peny; for every Horse and Man, fifteen pence; for every grown Beast that hath no Rider, seven Pence half peny; for every Sheep, Calf, or Hog, sixpence; and that the said William Parker, his Heirs and Assigns, may and shall erect a Tavern or Victualling-house near the said Ferry, and shall not be compelled to renew or pay any License Money for the same.”

Lady Nugent, in her Journal, mentions visits to the Ferry Inn on three occasions, all in 1803; on February 10, when the Governor’s party breakfasted there prior to the review of the St. Andrew’s militia by General Nugent; on May 27, when “most of our family dined at the Ferry House, on the Kingston Road, and our dinner party was very small”; and lastly, on June 13, when she writes: “13th—Sent carriages, soon after 5, into Spanish Town, for the Murphy family, who slept there. Soon after breakfast, General N. set off with Mr. M. in the curricle, to visit the estates between this and Kingston called the Camoens [Caymanas]. After second breakfast Mrs. and the Misses Murphy with me in the sociable. The rest of the party in kittareens, phaetons, and on horseback, all proceded to the Ferry Inn to meet the Admiral and a large party at dinner. We had sent on to order the dinner, a few days before, and all that Jamaica produces was ready to be served up. The poor Admiral however, was so overcome with fatigue and the heat of the day, that he was quite ill, and obliged to leave the table. In consequence we all separated early. Mr. and Mrs. M. went with the Admiral, and are to be his guests till Wednesday. I took my seat in the curricle with General N., and all our young people went in the sociable; and really if it had not been for Sir J. T. Duckworth’s illness it would have been a merry party. As it was I was much entertained; for the Inn is situated on the road between Kingston and Spanish Town, and it was very diverting to see the odd figures and extraordinary equipages constantly passing—kittareens, sulkies, mules, and donkies. Then a host of gentlemen, who were taking their _sangaree_ in the Piazza; and their vulgar buckism amused me very much. Some of them got half tipsy; and then began petitioning me for my interest with _his Honour_—to redress the grievance of one, to give a place to another, and so forth; in short it was a picture of Hogarth....”

To-day one can drive by the road and meet perhaps only a few drays, laden with wood or guinea-grass for Kingston, or, it may be, bananas or other agricultural produce. Of the “host of gentlemen” one sees nothing. The Ferry was in the early nineteenth century one of the places where tolls were charged. In the “Royal Gazette” for November 17, 1827, the Lease of the Ferry Toll was advertised for tender.

The records of the House of Assembly contain many references to the grants made in aid of roads, their management and the like. It may be interesting to take the history of the Spanish Town road, which until the advent of the railway was the principal, as typical of the rest.

“An Act for the Highways,” passed in 1681 (the third Act passed by the legislature of the colony) provides “That the Highways be sixty foot wide in standing Wood, forty foot where the Wood is only on one side, and twenty-four foot in open ground.”

The early “Act for the Highways” is alluded to in a slightly later Act (passed before 1695): “For making and Clearing a Publick Road from St. Mary’s and St. George’s into the Parish of St. Andrew’s.”

In 1698 Parker was brought before the House for collecting toll at the Ferry although the law had expired. A Committee to whom the matter was referred, reported that they had

examined the business referred to them by the House, concerning the Ferry between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrews and upon perusal of the Patent granted anno 1682, the whole Committee came to this resolution, viz. That the patent was void and the law expired:

Whereupon the said letters patent and the law being read in the house, it was put to the vote, whether the House would concur to the report of the committee of grievances;

Carried in the affirmative.

Michael Holdsworth and John Moone, esquires, ordered to wait on the Governor and acquaint him of the resolution of the House about the ferry, who returning, reported the delivery of the message, and that the Governor said that he hoped the house would take care to make a law that the benefit of the ferry should go to the two parishes, but that he thought it reasonable that the parish of St. Andrew shall have somewhat the more of the benefit, in regard that the road on the other side the ferry is to be maintained by them, which will be chargeable.

Whereupon Michael Holdsworth, Usher Tyrrell, John Walters, John Dove, Emanuel Moreton, William Hall, Jervis Sleigh, and John James, esquires, were appointed a committee to bring in a bill for that purpose.

And in the following year an Act was passed “to oblige the parishes of St. Catherine and St. Andrew to build a bridge over the Rio Cobre.” The bridge was to be at least twelve foot wide.

In October 1723 a Committee of the Assembly, appointed to consider the most effectual means for repairing the public roads, reported:

1. That although the road leading from Spanish-Town to the Parish of St. Andrew were repaired according to the Act of this island directing the repairing the public roads, yet it would be of no effect, unless the Rio Cobre were first cleared.

To which the House agreed....

And a committee was appointed to bring in a bill for repairing the road leading from St. Jago de la Vega to the town of Kingston. The committee was, five days later, ordered to insert a clause for cutting a new channel for the Rio Cobre.