Part 30
“During one of these visits he got into a dispute with the redoubtable Hutchinson about a boundary-line between their properties, Hutchinson claiming some portion of land which Dr. Hutton asserted was his own. This caused great bitterness of feeling on Hutchinson’s part towards Dr. Hutton; and one evening as the doctor, who was colonel of militia for the parish of St. Ann, was riding home from muster at Moneague with his black servant man following on foot, carrying his sabre and other accoutrements, Hutchinson overtook the man and took away the sabre from him, saying, ‘You can give my compliments to Dr. Hutton and tell him I have got his sabre.’ Dr. Hutton appeared to have taken no notice of this. Some months later Dr. Hutton made arrangements to go to England. His wife and one of his children—a little girl of about eight years of age—were in Jamaica with him, and Mrs. Hutton went to the adjoining parish of Clarendon on a visit, intending to meet her husband in Kingston, and return with him to England. The little girl, Mary Hutton, was left with her father at Bonneville; and Dr. Hutton set out one morning on horseback on his journey to Kingston, little Mary being carried by one of his servants in attendance before him on horseback.
“Dr. Hutton intended to pursue the route now usually taken from Pedro through Moneague and St. Thomas-ye-Vale to Spanish Town, and on to Kingston; with this exception that the public road from Pedro to Moneague in those days lay across the hill from Grier Park, where they were met by Hutchinson and a following of his slaves. He rode up to Dr. Hutton, who was unarmed, and attacked him fiercely, the weapon he used being Dr. Hutton’s own sabre which he had stolen. He struck the doctor such a severe blow on the head with this sabre that the latter fell senseless from his horse. Hutchinson made off with his servants, and Dr. Hutton’s terrified servants carried him back to Bonneville, where he stayed for a few days until he partially recovered, when, without venturing to travel by the same road he had at first intended to take, his servants took him across the hills to join his wife in Clarendon and they and their little girl went on to Kingston together. Dr. Hutton laid information there about Hutchinson; but as he was unable through the cruel blow he had received to remain in the Island to prosecute the matter, no steps appeared to have been taken. Dr. Hutton proceeded to England still suffering much from the wound in his head, and when he got there had to undergo the operation of trepanning, and wore a silver plate in his head until the day of his death. Dr. Hutton remained in England for about a year or more, and on his return to Jamaica tried to get Hutchinson arrested; but such was the terror he inspired, that the doctor found it hard to get anyone to take the warrant. At last a white soldier named Callender agreed to go, and with some others proceeded to Edinburgh Castle. As soon as Hutchinson found what was their errand, he fired at Callender and shot him dead on the spot. The others fled, and Hutchinson was again left unmolested for a short while. But this crime committed before white witnesses could never be passed over, and a strong body was sent to arrest him for the murder of Callender. He was overpowered and taken to Spanish Town jail. The castle was searched and forty-three watches were said to have been found there, besides quantities of clothing and many other articles, showing that Hutchinson had committed most, if not all, of the murders with which he was popularly credited. His unfortunate slaves, to whom, as may be supposed, he had been friendly, came now gladly and told all that they knew about his proceedings, and showed what he used to do with the bodies of his victims, which had hitherto been a puzzle.
“Not far from Edinburgh Castle House, in a small wood, was a sink-hole with a large mouth and supposed to be bottomless. To this sink-hole the bodies of Hutchinson’s victims were carried by the slaves on a plank in the dead of night, and one edge being placed at the edge of the hole, the other was raised and the body shot down never to be seen again by human eyes. Many of his victims were persons against whom he had no grudge, and murder was evidently a mania with the wretched man. Edinburgh Castle overlooked the road, and it was Hutchinson’s playful little practice to stand at one of the loopholes and fire at any solitary white traveller who might be passing. As he was a dead shot they never lived to tell the tale. His negroes would then bring the body to the house, where after being rifled of whatever valuables might be on it, it was kept until night and then disposed of in the manner already stated. It was said by these slaves that once a young man—a stranger to his reputation—being ill in the road, called up and asked for hospitality, which was at once accorded to him; Hutchinson showing him every kindness and administering remedies kept him for some time until the young man was able to proceed on his journey. Hutchinson then took his station at his loophole, and as the young man turned into the road, shot him dead and disposed of his body as usual. Many such tales were related by the slaves, but a coloured person’s evidence was not admitted in those days; and so Hutchinson was tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of Callender only.
“This story of Hutchinson and his crimes and connections has been variously told. In Mr. Bridges’ ‘Annals of Jamaica,’ another version will be found. This was owing to Mr. Bridges having sent for an old Bonneville slave and obtaining from him the story as it was current among slaves. But as I have told it, I think it is fairly correct, allowing for the lapse of years. The little Mary Hutton—who was an eye-witness of Hutchinson’s attack on her father, married in England, and was Mrs. Potenger—lived afterwards at Bonneville for many years. One of her daughters was my grandmother, and from my late great-aunt, Miss Elizabeth Potenger, another of her daughters, I have often heard the story related to her by her mother.
“ANNIE E. CORK. “Great-great-grand-daughter of Dr. Hutton.
“_December 1897._”
George Wilson Bridges was rector of St. Ann from 1823 till 1837, when, on losing four daughters by a boating accident in St. Ann’s Bay, he left Jamaica never to return. In his story he appears to have confused Callender with Dr. Hutton, and makes him manager of a neighbouring property. The statement in the account given above, that Hutchinson was “overpowered and taken to Spanish Town jail” is incorrect. Hutchinson, when he saw that the authorities were determined to arrest him, escaped south to Old Harbour and put out to sea in an open boat, where he was captured by one of Rodney’s officers, acting under his directions. He was hanged in Spanish Town on March 16, 1773.
Bridges states that Hutchinson left a hundred pounds to erect a monument to his memory, and that he (Bridges) saw the following autograph writing:
Lewis Hutchinson—hanged in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on the sixteenth morning of March, in the year of _his_ Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three.—Aged forty years.
Their sentence, pride, and malice, I defy; Despise their power, and, like a Roman, die.
Of his life little is known. In the St. Ann Vestry Records (February 5, 1768) his name appears on the jury list for the parish. In 1771 he was called upon to supply slave labour for mending the road passing Edinburgh Castle to Pedro River. In 1773 the “Estate of Lewis Hutchinson” was returned at twenty-four slaves and ninety-three head of stock; but it does not appear whether he had heirs or whether it went to the Government.
On December 2, 1773, the House of Assembly resolved: “That the thanks of the House be given to Sir George Brydges Rodney, baronet, rear-admiral of Great Britain, vice-admiral of the red, and commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s squadron on this station, for the essential service rendered to this Island by his ready and effectual assistance of the civil power, at the instance of his Majesty’s Attorney-General, in apprehending Lewis Hutchinson, since executed for murder, and that Mr. Speaker do transmit the same to the Admiral, in the most acceptable manner.”
And it was further resolved: “That as a testimony of the approbation of the House, respecting the behaviour of Mr. George Turnbull (an officer in his Majesty’s Navy, employed by the Admiral to take and secure the said Lewis Hutchinson), and of the spirit and address with which he executed that charge, the Receiver-General to pay to the said Mr. George Turnbull, or his order, the sum of £50 sterling, to be laid out in the purchase of a gold-hilted sword; and this or any future assembly will make the same good; and that the admiral be desired to signify, to the proper department of state, the sense the House entertains of Mr. Turnbull’s merit on that occasion.” An account—basing his undoing on a quarrel with a neighbour named Callender over a jackass—is given in the “Columbian Magazine” for June 1797, published in Kingston.
The ruins of Edinburgh Castle still stand on a rising piece of ground near the main road, which it commands, running from St. Ann’s Bay to the south side of the island. It was a small two-storeyed rectangular building with two loopholed towers, circular in plan, at diagonally opposite corners. A doorway was at one side of the front angle, and another at the side to the east near the front tower. There are evidences of there having been a fireplace on each story of the front tower, and of a series of spiral steps in the back tower. The adjacent ruins to the west are said to mark the site of the slave quarters.
Mr. R. F. Perkins, who went down the sink-hole some years ago, wrote as follows:
“Sir Henry Blake with two or three others, I among the number, went down it. It is 265 feet deep from its edge to the point where a stone dropped down would first strike, and it slopes down for another ten feet or so, where it stops. The ground around the top of the hole slopes rapidly down to its edge, and the bottom is wider than the top; the sides of the hole are of nearly vertical rock.
“All this refers to the hole known as ‘Hutchinson’s Hole,’ which local tradition connects with the murderer. Hundreds of people have visited the place and rolled down stones, so it is possible that any remains might well have been covered. We did not find a vestige of anything connected with the atrocities. From more recent investigations I believe that ‘Hutchinson’s Hole’ is not the hole at all. It is about a quarter of a mile away from the castle, to the south; and there is another far less formidable one quite close, that, I should not be surprised to find, has some hidden entrance from the castle.”
Sir Henry Blake wrote as follows:
I had, of course, heard the accounts of the various murders committed by the notorious Hutchinson, and I determined to ascertain the depth and details of the cave, which is in limestone formation, and to see if any remains of bones, arms, &c., could be found.... On July 22, 1895, I was lowered to the bottom and examined the cave, or “Swallow Hole,” carefully. The opening at the surface was 15 feet by 8 feet. The cave was, in shape, somewhat like a champagne bottle, 270 feet deep, and 70 feet by 50 feet at the bottom, which was formed by a level mass of stones of all sizes. There were no bones to be seen; but remembering the time that has elapsed since the notorious Hutchinson held the country in terror, bones, if any, may well have been covered to a considerable depth by the stones flung down by curious visitors, and the stones and rubbish from the adjacent fields flung into the pit by the inhabitants.
The old tavern at =Moneague=, which was represented by Duperly in 1844, has been succeeded by the Moneague hotel. A reference to the early taverns of Jamaica will be found in the Introduction.
As we have seen in the Introduction, in the eighteenth century there were many forts around the coast of Jamaica, as protection against privateers. St. Ann had her fair share of such forts, of which remains still exist. There was one at =Mammee Bay=, two miles east of St. Ann’s Bay, where the St. Ann volunteers repelled an attack by pirates in 1795; another between Roaring River bridge and =Ocho Rios=, close to the main road, dating from the eighteenth century; two at =St. Ann’s Bay=—one, erected in 1777, now used as a slaughter-house; =Windsor Fort=, erected in 1803; and Dry Harbour, existing in 1777. In 1737 an Act was passed to enable the inhabitants of the parish of St. Ann to build a barrack at or near the head of the Rio Bueno, which divides the parish of St. Ann from the parish of St. James. Other places of historic interest in the parish are: =Priory=, nine miles west of St. Ann’s Bay, where are the ruins of an old church, the oldest tomb being dated 1750; best known during the incumbency of Bridges the historian, who resided at one time at =Tydenham=, which was purchased by the vestry as a rectory in 1817. At =Dixon Pen=, in the Pedro district, there are remains of a very old building said to have been the residence of a Spanish governor of the island. At =Green Park=, near Claremont, is said to be the house mentioned in Scott’s “Cruise of the Midge.”
At =Geddes=, about five miles from Claremont, there is a curious slave punishment cell, with holes in one wall, through which it is possible the hands of the prisoner were fastened.
[Illustration:
MONEAGUE TAVERN IN 1844
From a daguerreotype by Adolphe Duperley ]
At =Rio Hoe=, properly Rio Hoja, two miles south-east from Moneague, was the last settlement of the Spaniards prior to their departure from the Island. At =York Castle=, in the Pedro district, was held from 1576 to 1900 the Wesleyan High School for boys, which during that period contributed eight of the Jamaica scholars. The =Dry Harbour Caves=, on Hopewell and Cardiff Hall, are about a mile and a half from the village of Dry Harbour. They inspired a poem entitled, “The Grotto of Melancholy,” in “A Short Journey in the West Indies,” published in 1790. =Moseley Hall Cave=, on Guy’s Hill, on the border of St. Mary and St. Ann, has fine stalactites, which were much visited in former times. =Llandovery Falls= are natural waterfalls on the Llandovery; a view of them is reproduced on one issue of the Jamaica penny postage stamps.
[Illustration:
PUNISHMENT CELL, GEDDES ]
=Metcalfe Ville= is named after Sir Charles Metcalfe, mention of whom has been made in the chapter on Kingston.
=Walton=, near Moneague—where a lake appears at intervals after very heavy rains, is the site of an old military barracks, also the original site of the Jamaica High School, now the Jamaica College at Hope, in St. Andrew. Here also is a lake which appears at intervals after very heavy rains.
Charles Drax, by will dated 1721, directed
that a charity school should be established in the said parish of St. Ann for maintaining and educating eight poor boys and four poor girls belonging to the said parish as well as for other charitable purposes: And, as an endowment to the said charity, the testator made subject and liable all that his estate in the said parish of St. Ann, called Shelton; and if that estate be found insufficient, his will was, that all his, the testator’s, other estates should be made liable for the deficiency.
It appears from the report that William Beckford, the well-known author of “Vathek,” had obtained possession of Drax Hall, the principal property, in a manner “that excited the indignation of every honest man who became acquainted with the transaction.”
Protracted legal proceedings resulted in Beckford having to disgorge £5200. A free school, commenced by the vestry of St. Ann in the old court house in that parish in 1795, was in 1802 by an Act of the legislature (43 George 3, c. 32) endowed with the sum obtained from the Drax bequest and called Drax’s Free School; and trustees, consisting of the president of the Council, the speaker of the Assembly, and representatives of St. Ann, were appointed. In 1806 the trustees of this school purchased Walton, the buildings on which had originally been erected as barracks. In 1807 they expressed their willingness to surrender their charge for the public good, and new trustees (embodying many of the old members) were appointed (by 48 George 3, c. 25), and the name of the school was changed to the Jamaica Free School. At its formation the school was thrown open to the island, ten nominations to the school being reserved for the parish of St. Ann in view of the bequest, and thirteen being for the other parishes on the nomination of the Governor, this privilege being transferred by Sir John Peter Grant in later days to the custodes of the thirteen parishes; and on the school being removed and merged into the Jamaica High School, which was opened in the newly constructed buildings at Hope in 1885, after a short sojourn in Barbican great house hard by, the same course was followed, the thirteen open scholarships being awarded by the Jamaica Schools Commission, as the trustees and board of management of the College.
The old Jamaica Free School, like other schools in the island at that period, was somewhat overweighted by trustees, consisting as they did of the Governor, the president and members of the Council, the speaker and members of the Assembly, the chief justice, the Attorney-general and others. In the case of the Jamaica Free School their duties were not onerous. The law enforced their meeting only “once in every year, during the annual session of the Legislature of this Island, in the town of Saint Jago de la Vega, for the purpose of examining into the state of the said free-school, &c.”
When Bridges wrote his Annals, he said of it:
The total income of the establishment is now about £1700 per annum, which educates, maintains and clothes ten boys, nominated by the parish, and six named by the Governor. In the session of 1825, a grant of £1500 displayed the liberal desire of the public to extend the means of instruction, and dissemination of Christianity, by the addition of a chapel to the establishment. The master’s salary is £300; and he is allowed to appoint an under-master with £150 per annum. Under the management of the late master, the establishment rose to be the first in the Island; public examinations took place twice a year; and besides the objects of the foundation, thirty-one boys were educated there at £70 per annum each. The present master is permitted to hold the curacy of the parish; but the chapel being thirty miles distant, he is under an engagement to the Trustees, not to quit the school, but to pay half the salary of his cure to an officiating curate.
It is a curious record, that the estate of Drax Hall still remains charged with the sum of £500, payable to the same fund, whenever the old Spanish Abbey at Seville d’Oro shall be rebuilt.
In the Wesleyan church, Brown’s Town, are two recently erected memorials to the Rev. W.C. Murray, D.D. (d. 1909), for fifty-one years a minister, and for eighteen years Governor of York Castle, which school, while it existed, did much for secondary education in Jamaica—in the church a mural tablet, in the churchyard an obelisk of granite.
IX TRELAWNY
The parish of Trelawny derives its name from Sir William Trelawny, the Governor, who died in Jamaica in 1772. It was taken out of part of St. James in 1770.
=Falmouth= was a town of considerable importance, and is more regularly laid out than any other town in the island, except Kingston. The court house, a building erected in the days of Jamaica’s extravagance, is lofty and spacious and affords accommodation for nearly all the parochial officers. It contains full-length portraits of General Sir John Keane, lieutenant-governor from 1827 to 1829, and of Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, Governor in 1839–42, the former being a replica of the portrait by Sir Martin Archer Shee in the possession of the family. The =Parish Church= contains monuments to John Hodges, who died in 1787, and James Blake (d. 1753), and to James Stewart (b. 1762, d. 1828), custos of Trelawny, and member of the Assembly for the parish from 1794 to 1822, and from 1826 till his death. The spacious Baptist chapel was erected under the auspices of William Knibb.
=Martha Brae=, one and a half miles inland from Falmouth, is supposed by some to have been the site of the old Spanish settlement of Melilla (which, however, was probably in St. James), which was abandoned soon after its establishment owing to the depredations of the French filibusters. “The secret gold mine” of the Spaniards is said to be in the neighbourhood of Martha Brae. The origin of the name has puzzled antiquaries, but Mr. G. F. Judah a few years ago discovered it in Rio Matibereon recorded in a patent of the year 1674. In the map in “The Laws of Jamaica” of 1683 the Para Mater Tiberen Rio is marked where the Martha Brae now flows.
=Bryan Castle=, where Bryan Edwards’s “History of the British West Indies” was written, was, together with the neighbouring estate of Brampton (now called Brampton Bryan), acquired by him from Zachary Bayly in or before 1792. It is within three miles of the port of Rio Bueno. It afterwards became by purchase the property of Alexander Donaldson, whose estate went into bankruptcy, and is now in the possession of the heirs of Mr. A. W. Gordon. A view of the great house is given in James Hakewill’s “Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica” (London, 1825), the most artistic work ever published on the island. In 1825 the property contained 1402 acres of land, 300 of which were in sugar-canes, 600 in pasture and pimento, and the remainder was occupied by negroes and their provision grounds. The crops had then averaged during the previous twelve years 300 hogsheads of sugar, with the usual proportion of rum, and, in good seasons, 300 bags of pimento. There were employed 165 estate negroes, with the addition of extra labour.
[Illustration:
BRYAN CASTLE ]
The great house is a typical Jamaica house of the period, solidly built, but without any pretensions to architectural beauty, and surrounded on all four sides by the usual verandah. When Hakewill wrote, Edwards’s books and furniture were still preserved in his study upstairs, where he compiled his history. His writing-table is now all that remains. From the only window of the room that was his study an extensive view is obtained across the Bryan Castle works and cane-fields in the foreground, and more cane-fields and woodlands in the distance, to the open sea in the neighbourhood of Falmouth.