Part 26

In 1723 the receiver-general was authorised to raise a sum of £1500, to be applied: £1000 in purchasing lands, &c., provided by Act 9 Geo. 1, c. 8, and to provide each newcomer (man or woman) that should come over and settle within twelve months with two barrels of beef and one barrel of flour to be delivered at Port Antonio free of all charges as a means of support until the lands allotted to them should be planted with proper provisions, and until the same were grown up and become fit for use—and also to provide proper necessaries and conveniences for the newcomers travelling to the land where they were to settle.

To encourage new settlers and on account of the distance from the supreme court (then held in Spanish Town), persons settling were freed from all suits, actions and arrests, and public taxes, for three years.

All these Acts and the facilities and encouragements apparently proved ineffectual to settle the parish, and in 1725 an Act was passed and the privileges of the previous Acts extended to all inhabitants of the island as well as newcomers.

In 1730, the Crown having purchased the remainder of Lynch’s Island, the twenty acres originally allotted for a town and fortifications were vested in the Crown as they were found necessary for building wharves and stores and for careening men-of-war.

In 1733 an Act was passed for cutting a road from the breastwork, building a defensible house, and prohibiting the sale of rum in Titchfield. Breastwork (about one and a half miles from Port Antonio) is still a local name on the Golden Vale road.

In 1743 settlers in Portland were granted the same privileges as persons settling at Manchioneal and Norman’s Valley in St. Thomas-in-the-East, by Act 9 Geo. 2, that is; their passages were paid and that of their slaves not exceeding twenty, and the receiver-general was to subsist them and their slaves for twelve months on the following scale: each white person, four barrels of beef and 400 lb. of biscuit or bread; each slave a barrel of herrings and 400 lb. of biscuit or bread—the number of slaves not exceeding twenty. Every settler was entitled to a grant of land: for himself, thirty acres; for his wife, fifty acres; for each child, twenty acres; for every other white, fifteen acres; for each slave, ten acres; not to exceed in the whole 300 acres. He was exempted from taxes for five years, but had to commence settlement within three months from the date of his patent.

This Act was limited in its duration, and subsequently expired.

Long tells us that under the inducements of the laws passed between 1736 and 1752, in sixteen years, one hundred and eight families and fifteen artificers were introduced into Portland and elsewhere at an expense of £17,898, but that many of them failed for lack of capital.

In 1780 all the restrictions, conditions, penalties and forfeitures imposed on settlers by the several Acts from 1721 to 1776 having failed of their end, these Acts were repealed, and lands were to be held free from such restrictions, &c., and thereafter grants were to be made free therefrom—with a proviso excepting persons who had within four years before evaded the condition of their grants.

From this date legislation with a view to settle the parish appears to have been discontinued, as no more Acts with that object are to be found in the statute book.

In 1722 it was enacted that fifty acres at a certain place named Pattison’s Point and thirty acres on Ruther’s or Lynch’s Island should be allotted for a town, and that two hundred and fifty acres adjoining should be a common belonging to the said town or towns.

[Illustration:

PORT ANTONIO IN 1770

From an engraving ]

By an Act of 1725 (an explanatory Act for the further encouraging the settling the parish of Portland) it was enacted that for enlarging the said town of Titchfield which had sprung up, fifty more acres should be added to the town and one hundred acres should be added to the common. By 1785 it appeared that divers people unlawfully encroached on the common of 350 acres, and the land had become of little or no use or profit to the town and the benefit was in danger of being entirely lost to them. Certain trustees were appointed by act 26 Geo. 3, c. 7 (an Act for vesting the common lands of the town of Titchfield in the parish of Portland, in trustees, for the purpose of raising a fund for erecting and maintaining a free school in the said town; and for other purposes therein mentioned), for the direction and management of a free school to be erected in or near the town of Titchfield, to be maintained and endowed from the proceeds of the 350 acres of common land. The object of the trust was to provide instruction for youths, without charge to their parents, in reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, mathematics, &c., and the masters were to be of the Church of England. The school was open to children of the island generally, but those of the inhabitants of the town of Titchfield were to have the preference.

The school was in active operation from its foundation to the year 1855, when it appears to have been closed in consequence of a report made on its “state and condition” by Henry Laidlaw, stipendiary magistrate, in pursuance of a commission entrusted to him by the Governor, and because of the trust having been thrown into Chancery by reason of having incurred debts amounting to nearly £300, for which judgment was obtained against the trustees in the Grand Court of October 1852, in the case of “Anderson Charles _vs._ the Trustees of the Titchfield Free School Trust.”

From the revelations laid bare in Laidlaw’s report, and from the tenor of a resolution passed at a meeting of the trustees held on January 3, 1853, it may be gathered that the trust at this time was in a very bad state.

In 1883 a scheme was drawn up by the Jamaica Schools Commission, by which the management of the trust was vested in the Schools Commission and a board of local managers appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the Schools Commission, and in 1903 the Titchfield lands were vested in trustees appointed by the Governor.

=Olivier Park= in Port Antonio was named after Sir Sydney Olivier, when he was Colonial Secretary; =Carder Park= after a benefactor to the town.

The fruit trade, which was opened up in Portland in the year 1868, has made Port Antonio a town of considerable importance.

The Maroon settlement, called =Moore Town=, named after Henry Moore, Governor in 1760–62, is nine miles from Port Antonio on the banks of the Rio Grande.

There are at =Low Layton=, 150 feet above sea level, the remains of an extinct volcano.

Manchioneal was the scene of some of the exploits of “Tom Cringle,” recorded in his Log; and the great house on =Muirton= is said to be the one to which he was taken on his arrival from Cuba with yellow fever.

=Darlingford=, an extensive coco-nut plantation belonging to the heirs of Sir Charles Darling, a former Governor of Jamaica, stands around the village of Manchioneal.

At =Spring Garden= is a ruined fort, said to have been erected against the buccaneers. Sir Thomas Modyford, Governor from 1664 to 1670, is probably commemorated in =Modyford’s Gully= at Dry River in St. George. =Balcarres Hill= is perhaps named after Alexander, Earl of Balcarres, Governor in 1795–1801, but Crawford Town was so called before the Earl of Balcarres came to the Island. =Seaman’s Valley= is said to have derived its name from the destruction of a party of seamen by the Maroons.

In 1842 the portion of the original parish of St. George to the west of the little Spanish River, together with part of the eastern portion of St. Mary, was taken to constitute the separate parish of Metcalfe. On the reduction of the number of parishes in 1867 this parish of Metcalfe fell to St. Mary, and the parish of St. George as reduced in 1842 fell to Portland.

VII ST. MARY

The parish of St. Mary was probably so called from the port, Puerto Santa Maria, thus named by the Spaniards, now known as Port Maria: but Roby points out that Modyford’s daughter’s name was Mary, and it was immediately next to the parish of St. George, the name of her husband being, as we have seen, George Nedham. It includes the former parish of Metcalfe, as well as a part of the old parish of St. George.

At =Gray’s Inn=, near Annotto Bay, are to be found remains of an old Spanish house, one of the few left in the island. The Maroon Town of =Scott’s Hall= is situated behind Castleton Gardens on the Junction road, from Kingston to Annotto Bay.

The account of the defeat of Sasi by Doyley at Rio Nuevo, now on Spring Valley, will best be told in the account of St. Ann amongst Doyley’s other operations.

At =Decoy= on the borders of St. Catherine is the tomb of Sir Charles Price, Bart., called the Patriot, for many years speaker of the Assembly. The property has now been divided up. The tomb is illustrated in Hakewill’s “Picturesque Tour of Jamaica.”

The following is a copy of the lengthy inscriptions. The Latin inscription is on the top, the English round the sides.

HIC JACET CAROLUS PRICE BARONETTUS MULTIS VIR ORNATUS VIRTUTIBUS IN OMNIBUS ENIM VITÆ OFFICIIS ITA SE PROBAVIT UT ET CIVIBUS ET SOCIIS

GRATISSIMA ESSET EJUS INTEGRITAS ET FIDES. MEMORIÆ TANTI VIRI CAROLES PRICE FILIUS NATU MAXIMUS ET QUATUOR SOLUS SUPERSTES FORTUNÆ ET HONORIS UTINAM AC VIRTUTUM HÆRES HOC MONUMENTUM POSUI.

Though thou hast past the murky road Which Cato, Raleigh, Sidney, trod Yet still thy name and deathless praise By Poets sung in artless lays Or by tradition handed down To latest ages shall be known With tears of unaffected joy, Each parent teach his fav’rite boy How you withstood your country’s foes And o’er their spleen triumphant rose Although ‘twill hardly be believed That such a Patriot ever lived.

This truly great man was born on the 20th August 1708. Having finished his Classical Education in some of the best private schools in England, his academical at Trinity Colledge in the University of Oxford and taken the tour of Europe he returned to this his Native Country in the month of January 1730.

On the 13th March 1732 he was elected a Member of the Honourable House of Assembly, of which on the 18th March 1745 he was chosen Speaker.

On the 3rd of August 1748 the House came to the following Resolution:

Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That Charles Price Esq. have the thanks of this House for his candid and impartial behaviour in the Service of this Country as Speaker of the Assembly, and that as a farther acknowledgement of his said Service:

Ordered:—That the Receiver-General do purchase a peice of Plate for the said Speaker of the value of Two hundred Pistoles to be made in such Form and Shape as the said Speaker shall direct.

December 19th 1760 the House came to another Resolution:

Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That Charles Price, Esqr. Speaker of the Assembly hath supported that High Office with great Dignity, Impartiality, and Integrity, and that the thanks of the House be, and they are hereby given to the said Charles Price, Esqr. for his faithful discharge of the High Office of Speaker, and as a further Testimony of the Sense this House entertains of his Conduct in that Office that a peice of Plate of the value of Two Hundred Pounds sterling be presented to him.

Ordered:—That Robert Graham Esq. the Receiver-General, or the Receiver-General for the time being do pay to the order of Charles Price Esq. the sum of two hundred pounds sterling to be laid out in the purchase of a Peice of Plate and that this or any future Assembly will make the same good to him.

[Illustration:

TOMB OF SIR CHARLES PRICE ]

On the 11th day of October 1763 his seat was vacated at his own request, and the House came to the following Resolution:

Resolved Nemine Contradicente: That the Thanks of this House be given to the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. for his steady, faithful, and impartial Discharge of the high and important Office of Speaker of the Assembly for a long series of years, throughout the whole course of which he distinguished himself in the most conspicuous manner, and approved himself a dutiful and loyal subject to His Majesty and a true lover of this Country by supporting on every Occasion the Honour and Dignity of the Crown and the Rights and Privileges of the People, and as a farther testimony of the high sense and approbation this House entertains of his conduct in that Office and Services to the Public that he be presented with a Peice of Plate of the value of five hundred Pounds sterling.

Ordered:—That Malcolm Lang Esqr. Receiver-General or the Receiver-General for the time being do pay to the Order of the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. the sum of Five Hundred Pounds sterling to be laid out in the Purchase of a Peice of Plate, and this or any future Assembly will make the same good to him.

Ordered:—That Mr. Speaker do transmit to the Honourable Charles Price Esqr. a copy of the foregoing Resolution and Order, in a Letter of thanks agreeable to the above Resolution, and expressing likewise their Concern for the great loss the Country hath sustained by his Resignation occasioned by his ill state of Health.

In the year 1768 as an additional Testimony of the Approbation of his Conduct and in Reward of his great Merit, His Majesty King George the Third in a manner, the most distinguishly honourable, it being unsolicited, was most graciously pleased to create him a Baronet of the Kingdom of Great Britain, an Honor, which though he did not live many years to enjoy, he might justly be said to enjoy with honor.

In the offices also of Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature, Custos Rotulorum of the Parish and Precinct of St. Catherine, and Major-General of all the Horse and Foot Militia in the Island, he eminently distinguished himself in the service of his Country.

“His Life was gentle, and the Elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world This was a Man.”

In the “Columbian Magazine,” Kingston, 1796, occurs a poem on “The Decoy”:

Dedicated to Sir Charles Price, Baronet, by his Son, the Hon. Charles Price Esq. Speaker of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica.

To dust and suffocating heats, Well pleas’d, we bade adue; To taste your garden’s rural sweets,[9] And pay respects to you.

Peace to this calm, sequester’d seat, Where art and nature vie, To decorate your lov’d retreat, And charm the mental eye.

But who its beauty can disclose, Who paint its gay array? What friendly muse will interpose And aid an artless lay?

From this sweet spot; when æther’s clear, Rich culture breathing round, “Cuba’s” blue distant hills appear,[10] The prospect’s utmost bound.

Whilst you such constant care employ, And genuine taste impart, No wonder it should thus Decoy, And captivate the heart.

Yet, tho’ the scene does greatly please, You greater joy dispence, Conversing with convivial ease, And solid, sterling sense.

Far from the world’s alluring ills And folly’s wide controul, Here candid Contemplation fills And elevates your soul.

Footnote 9:

This delightful spot, to which art and nature seemed to have conspired, in imparting the brightest touches of beauty and sublimity to the surrounding scenery, is situate in the higher part of the St. Mary’s Mountains, and at present in possession of Henry Archbould, Esq. It was denominated the “Decoy,” from the various attractions it possessed, and the interest it maintained in the breast of its numerous visitors. The garden is represented as the burial-place of that respectable but unfortunate family the Prices.

Footnote 10:

From its elevated situation, the island of Cuba is said to be distinctly seen in a clear day; a prospect, however, commanded by many other mountainous settlements on that side of the Island.

In the same magazine appears a poem by Sir Charles Price entitled “Resignation.” One of the twelve verses may suffice:

It was Heaven’s Almighty decree, You will say, then, why should I repine? Tho’ in this we perhaps may agree, Have you ever felt anguish like mine.

Long says of St. Mary: “The weather in this parish is extremely wet during great parts of the year, and so cold, that few if any of the houses are unfurnished with a chimney.” In writing of the Decoy he says:

One of the greatest curiosities in this parish is the Decoy, the seat of Sir Charles Price, Bart. It is situated on part of the range of mountains which border on St.-Thomas-in-the-Vale. The house is of wood, but well finished, and has in front a very fine piece of water, which in winter is commonly stocked with wild-duck and teal. Behind it is a very elegant garden disposed in walks, which are shaded with the cocoanut, cabbage and sand-box trees. The flower and kitchen garden are filled with the most beautiful and useful variety which Europe, or this climate produce. It is decorated, besides, with some pretty buildings; of which the principal is an octagonal saloon, richly ornamented on the inside with lustres, and mirrors empanneled. At the termination of another walk is a grand triumphal arch, from which the prospect extends over the fine cultivated vale of Bagnals quite to the North-side sea. Clumps of graceful cabbage-trees are dispersed in different parts, to enliven the scene, and thousands of plantane and other fruit-trees occupy a vast tract, that environs this agreeable retreat, not many years ago a gloomy wilderness.

He further tells us that Price constantly resided on this property, and in truly Jamaica old-time fashion kept open house: “Few gentlemen of rank, whether of the army or navy, on service here, quitted the island without having passed some of their time at the Decoy.”

Sir Charles Price, the first baronet, was a grandson of Francis Price, a captain in the army of Venables at the capture of the island, who married the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Rose, also one of the army. His son, Colonel Charles Price, who died in 1730 and lies buried, as we have seen, in the church of St. John, Guanaboa Vale, was the father of the first baronet. Sir Charles Price was a native of Jamaica, and “endued with uncommon natural talents, which were improved by education, and polished by travel in the early part of his life”: these abilities and his personal wealth gained for him considerable influence in the island. He was member of the Assembly for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale 1732, for St. Catherine in 1752–66, and St. Mary 1756–61, and again for St. Catherine in 1766, was speaker in 1746, and from 1756 to 1763.

He was created a baronet, of Rose Hall, Jamaica, in 1768.

His son, Sir Charles Price, the second baronet, was member of the Assembly for St. Catherine in 1768, for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale in 1779 and 1787. He was speaker in 1763 (when he succeeded his father in that office), 1765, and 1770. In October 1775 he was expelled the house at his own request, and left for England, intending never to return.

In 1786 as he was in financial difficulties the House advanced £5000 on mortgage of the Decoy, but in the following year a new Assembly voted this transaction “unconstitutional and of dangerous example.” He died in 1788 in Spanish Town without issue, and the title became extinct.

Sir Charles Price’s name was for many years associated with a particular species of rat—the largest in the island—known as the “cane-piece rat,” or the “Charles Price rat” on the assumption that it was introduced into Jamaica by him; but Richard Hill, who investigated the matter for Gosse, and obtained the family tradition on the subject from George Price, of Worthy Park, a great-grandson of Sir Charles Price, came to the conclusion that the animal, which Price introduced from South America and in the eyes of the negroes had strong rat characteristics, was no rat. Several were set loose at the Decoy, and at Worthy Park, but they did not survive. They may possibly have been a species of opossum, one example of which recently came to Jamaica in a ship from Costa Rica. To show what a curse rats were to the sugar planters, Beckford records that 39,000 were caught in five or six months on one estate.

At =Agualta Vale= is the tomb of Thomas Hibbert (d. 1780), who came to Jamaica in 1734.

The following is the inscription:

In a vault near this place lie deposited by his own direction the remains of—Thomas Hibbert, Esq.,—late a Merchant in the Town of Kingston—and proprietor of this and two adjoining Estates. He was the eldest son of Robert and Mary Hibbert, of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, in the Kingdom of Great Britain—from whence he first arrived in this Island in 1734—and after residing in it, with little interruption, almost forty-six years—Died unmarried at this Estate, on the 20th of May, 1780—in the 71st year of his age....

As we have seen, he built Headquarters House, Kingston. He purchased Agualta Vale, containing about 3000 acres, from the heir of one Bendish about the year 1760. The sugar estate was settled in 1771.

=Fort George=, near Annotto Bay, is now all that remains of the lands of the Ellis family, which once owned numerous properties in the island—Shettlewood Montpelier in St. James, Ellis Caymanas and Crawle Pen in St. Catherine and Nutfield, Newry, Greencastle and Fort George in St. Mary.

The statement often made that John Ellis, the first settler, was an officer in Venables’ army is not borne out by the list of those officers. He is recorded as a captain in 1685. He and his descendants sat in many Assemblies, and intermarried with the Nedhams, Beckfords, and Longs. Charles Rose Ellis was created Baron Seaford in 1826, and his son became Baron Howard de Walden in right of his mother.

George Ellis, the poet, and John Ellis, the naturalist and Agent in England for Dominica, were also members of this family, who have, from time to time, done much for cattle breeding in Jamaica, having been pioneers in importing valuable breeds from Cuba, India, Portugal, and Italy. To George Ellis, chief justice in 1736–39, Jamaica owes the introduction of guinea grass—the seed having been brought from Guinea as food for cage-birds.

At Fort George indigo was cultivated in the early days.

At =Dryland=, near Woodside, is an example of Arawâk rock-carving (illustrated in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” vol. ii, No. 4). =Fort Haldane=, situated on a cliff above the coast on Gray’s Charity, a mile west of Port Maria, is named after General George Haldane, Governor in 1759. =Prospect=, near White River, is an old loopholed house, a good example of Jamaica architecture; and =Heywood Hall= was the scene of a fight between Koromantyn slaves and the white inhabitants of St. Mary, who defeated them, in 1760.

As early as Slaney’s map of 1678 there was a =Christopher’s Cove= in St. Mary in addition to Don Christopher’s Cove in St. Ann.

VIII ST. ANN