Part 34

In the history gallery of the Institute of Jamaica are photographic reproductions of paintings of five members and connections of the Scarlett family: Robert Scarlett of Duckett’s Spring, and Elizabeth Anglin his wife; Mary Anglin, mother of Elizabeth Anglin, and Philip Anglin Scarlett, the eldest son of Robert; and his fourth son, Sir William Anglin Scarlett, chief justice of Jamaica. The slave boy who holds the game bag in the portrait of Robert Scarlett was called Oliver, and was entailed very strictly on his master’s death.

[Illustration:

ROSE HALL ]

=Grove Hill= house is mentioned in “Tom Cringle’s Log.” =Rose Hall=, about 10 miles from Montego Bay, is one of the finest examples of Jamaica architecture of the old time. It was erected in 1760 at a cost of £30,000 by George Ash, the second husband of Rose Kelly (b. 1724). Her fourth husband was the Hon. John Palmer. It is said to have been the scene of a tragedy in the eighteenth century, when the owner, Annie Mary Paterson, wife of John Rose Palmer, grand-nephew of the Hon. John Palmer, was murdered by her slaves; but the occurrence more probably took place at Palmyra hard by. In 1831 the great house at Rose Hall was unoccupied and one wing had been removed, while a gable end is all that remains of the other. =Adelphi= (formerly called Stretch and Set) is said to have been the first spot on the north side at which religious instruction was given to the slaves. At =Running Gut= estate are monuments of the Lawrence family, _e.g._ Benjamin Lawrence (d. 1776). The Lawrences for many years owned property from Little River to Montego Bay. The last portion was sold in 1910. =Spring Mount= estate has monuments of the Heath family, and =Catherine Hall= estate has tombs of Stone, Barnett, Ross, and others. =Cinnamon Hill= is interesting as being the home of the Barretts and the Moultons, from whom descended the poetess wife of the poet Robert Browning. =Carlton= formerly belonged to an old Scottish family, the Gordons of Earlston, well known by readers of Crockett’s books, and part of the property is still called Earlston. At =California= and =Williamsfield= are Arawâk kitchen middens; at =Tryall= an Arawâk kitchen midden and cave, indicating the existence at one time of an important Indian settlement; and at =Kempshot=, the site of the observatory of the government meteorologist, there is an Arawâk rock-carving. =Brandon Hill= has a curious cave; this was the town house of the Hon. John Palmer, of Rose Hall. There is another cave at =Seven Rivers=, near Cambridge, with stalactites. =Miranda Hill= has Spanish remains. =Seaford Town=, in St. James, is named after Lord Seaford, who there established a settlement of German immigrants from Hanover. Some account of his family is given in the chapter on St. Mary.

XI HANOVER

Kingston and Port Royal excepted, Hanover is the smallest parish in area in the island. When it was formed the Assembly wished to call it St. Sophia in honour of the mother of George I, but in this it was overridden by the Council, and the name was chosen with reference to the reigning family in England. In the “Jamaica Almanac” for 1751 it is called, German fashion, Hannover.

In the =Church of Lucea= is a monument to Sir Simon Clarke, 7th baronet (d. 1777) by Flaxman. The inscription runs: “In this church is deposited the mortal part of Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., who was born in this island A.D. 1727, and died on the 2nd of November, 1777, having that day completed his 50th year.” His father, the sixth baronet, represented St. John in the Assembly in 1731, and St. Mary in 1732 and 1736, and was called to the Council in 1739. Sir Simon, the seventh baronet, represented Hanover in the Assembly in 1760 and 1772. By his wife, Anne Haughton, eldest daughter and co-heir of Philip Haughton, he left two sons, Philip Haughton and Simon Haughton. Sir Simon Peter, the fifth baronet, was an officer in the royal navy in 1730, but was transported for highway robbery to Jamaica, where his uncle held the office of patent clerk of the Crown.

Martin Rusea, a French refugee, in grateful recollection of the hospitality manifested towards him on his arrival and settlement in the colony, left by his will, dated July 23, 1764, all his real and personal estate, which afterwards realised £4500 currency (£2700 sterling), for the establishment of a free school in the parish of Hanover.

The devise was disputed, but in 1777 an Act was passed (18 Geo. 3, chap. 18) settling the trust and establishing an undenominational school, which has been maintained since in Lucea. It is at present situated in the old barracks, and is known as =Rusea’s School=.

Trinity Chapel, Green Island, has the tomb of Hugh Munro (d. 1829); at Orange Bay estate is the tomb of Colonel James Campbell (d. 1744) and others of the family, including one to John Campbell, custos of the parish (d. 1808, aged 76) “erected by his dutiful and affectionate nephew, John Blagrove, Esq.,” the John Blagrove, alluded to in the account of Cardiff Hall, in St. Ann, to whom Campbell owned his indebtedness for much financial assistance in his will, and to whom he left his estates under certain conditions. He manumitted certain of his mulatto slaves and left them money to purchase negroes to assist them in carrying on their business. In a codicil he states:

It is my will and desire also that the place of my interment should be about 20 feet in direct line from the front Bow windows of the Hospital [for the completion of which he made provision] and that a sun-dial be erected over my grave. The Sun Dial 18 inches in diameter to be supported by both hands upon the head of a Leaden figure of a Negro man with a bandage about his waist Kneeling upon the right knee, placed upon a platform laid with Bristol Flags, six feet square and 18 inches higher than the ground round about, so that it requires three steps of Bristol Flags six inches high and 18 inches wide to get up to the platform, and this will effectually prevent the Cattle and Horses while pasturing from rubbing against it, and putting it out of plumb.

At =Haughton Court Mountain= is the tomb of Christopher Crooks (d. 1762). The tomb of John Pearce is on the parochial road between Hopewell and Welcome; he was murdered by the slaves of the adjoining estate on December 30, 1831. =Salt Spring= estate burial-ground has a monument to John Campbell (d. 1782); =Haughton Court= burial-ground has tombs of Colonel Richard Haughton (d. 1740), Jonathan Haughton (d. 1767), and others of the family who came to Jamaica from Barbados; =Fat Hog Quarter Estate= burial-ground has tombs of Philip Haughton (d. 1765) and others of the family; and at =Point Estate= burial-ground are tombs of David Dehaney (d. 1701) and others of the family. =Haughton Hall=, =Rhodes Hill=, =New-found River= and =Kew= are all places with Arawâk kitchen-middens. At The Bluff, Round Hill, is a stone to James Reid (d. 1772). =Cousin’s Cove= is interesting as being the property which caused Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, its present owner, to visit Jamaica in 1914 on account of a lawsuit connected with it.

=Shettlewood=, originally belonging to an owner of that name, was for many years, with Montpellier, the property of the Ellis family. In the closing years of the nineteenth century extensive tobacco-growing experiments were carried out, but were ultimately abandoned. Both pens of recent years have had many head of imported Indian cattle placed on them.

XII WESTMORELAND

Westmoreland, which became a parish in 1703, was probably so called because it is the westernmost parish in the colony.

The chief town was formerly called Queen’s Town (now Cross Path) and contained a church and many inhabitants, but in 1730 Savanna-la-Mar (“the plain by the sea”) rose into fame.

Its sad fate in the hurricane of 1744 can never be remembered without horror. “The sea bursting its ancient limits overwhelmed that unhappy town and swept it to instant destruction, leaving not a vestige of man, beast, or habitation behind. So sudden and comprehensive was the stroke,” says Bryan Edwards, “that I think the catastrophe of Savanna-la-Mar was even more terrible, in many respects, than that of Port Royal.”

The “Spanish road from Bluefields Bay to Martha Brae, by the head of the Great River,” as Long wrote, is said to be still in existence.

The old parish =Church of Savanna-la-Mar= was pulled down in 1904 in order that a new and more suitable building be erected in its place. The old building took the place of what must have been the first parish church erected there late in the seventeenth century or early in the eighteenth century.

The church stood somewhere along the sea beach. It was destroyed in the storm on October 3, 1780. For some years services were held in a temporary building, and in 1797 the foundation-stone of the second church was laid, but it would seem that it was really intended to be a temporary structure. It was opened for divine service in 1799, so considering that it was a wooden building it had done good service. While excavating, the old foundation-stone was discovered, and in it was inlaid a brass plate in a fine state of preservation, bearing the following inscription:

Deo Juvante Hoc primum Saxum Templi hujus Parochiæ Westmoriæ Jamaicensis Ornatissimus Georgius Murray, Arm. Custos Rotulorum (Attendentibus Multis Parochianis præclaris) Collocavit Die quarto Mensis Junii Natatis Auspicatissimo Annoque Regni tricesimo Septimo Georgii Tertii Salutis humanæ 1797. Thoma Stewart, Rectore Hugone Fraser, Architecto D. G. C. L. Robertson, Sculpt.

Which may be thus translated:

Thanks be to God, the Hon. George Murray, Esquire, Custos, in the presence of many distinguished parishioners, laid the foundation-stone of this Church of the Parish of Westmoreland, in Jamaica, on the fourth day of June, on the hallowed birthday and in the thirty-seventh year of the reign of George III, and (in the year) of man’s salvation, 1797. Thomas Stewart, Rector. Hugh Fraser, Architect. To the glory of God.

C. L. Robertson engraved

[this plate].

The accompanying list copied from an old bible once in the possession of a former beadle, W. Robertson, gives the following rectors:

Rev. John Dickson From 1739 Died July 23, 1747 Rev. John Pool From 1747 Died Dec. 1766 Rev. Thomas Pollen From 1767 Died 1768 Rev. William Bartholomew, A.M. From July 1768 Died Sept. 15, 1780 Rev. Hanford Left Dec. 1793 Rev. Thomas Stewart From Dec. 17, 1793 To Sept. 15, 1815 Rev. Edmund Pope, LL.D. From Sept. 15, 1815 To July 9, 1820 Rev. James Dawn, A.M. From July 16, 1820 Died Jan. 25, 1822 Rev. W. W. Baynes Left Jan. 25, 1823 Rev. John McIntyre Left Dec. 1, 1827 Rev. Thos. Stewart, D.D. Left Dec. 6, 1847 Rev. Wm. Mayhew, M.A. Left Nov. 13, 1860 Rev. Daniel Fidler, B.D. Died Apr. 11, 1863 Rev. Josias Cork Left Sept. 21, 1870 Rev. Henry Clarke } To Oct. 1872 Rev. Edward Clarke } Rev. Henry Clarke Till April 1894 Archdeacon Henderson Davis, F.K.C. Died Jan. 1915

The new building is a stone structure with a clerestory of wood. It is in length 105 ft. 3 in.; width 56 ft., with an apse 13 ft. 6 in. by 23 ft. It is dedicated to St. George. The foundation-stone was laid on St. George’s Day, 1903, and the building was consecrated St. George’s Day, 1904.

Where =Bluefields= now stands once stood probably the township of Oristan, one of the three principal early “cities” formed by the Spaniards in Jamaica, named after a town in Sardinia when that island was under the crown of Spain. Except for Sevilla (St. Ann’s Bay), Bluefields was the only town mentioned in the description of Jamaica supplied by Gage to Cromwell. It was connected by road with Mellila (near Montego Bay) on the north, and with Esquivel (Old Harbour) to the east. It had been deserted by the founders as a place of settlement prior to 1655, although it was adopted as a temporary place of residence by a number of Spaniards in 1657, before they were finally driven off the island. Of it Blome writes in his “Description of the Island of Jamaica, with other Isles and Territories in America” (1672):—

“_Orista_ reguards the _South-Sea_, in which are many _Rocks_, and amongst their _Banks_, some _Isles_, as _Servavilla_, _Quitosvena_ and _Serrana_, where _Augustin Pedro Serrano_ lost his _Vessel_, and saved onely himself, and here in a solitary and lone Condition passed away 3 Yeares; at the end of which time he had the company of a _Marriner_ for 4 _Years_ more, that was likewise there _Ship-wrackt_, and also alone saved himself.”

The Serrano above mentioned was a Spanish hidalgo, a passenger in one of the plate fleets during the reign of Charles V, whose ship was wrecked on the island. When, after his sojourn there, he reached Spain, Serrano was sent into Germany to tell his experiences to the Emperor, who gave him an order on the mines of Peru for four thousand eight hundred ducats, but he died on his way to Panama.

Ruins of Oristan existed when Leslie wrote in 1739. In the Assembly convened in October 1664, Bluefields was represented by James Perkman and Christopher Pinder; but at the next election (January, 1671–72) the district was called St. Elizabeth.

Whether Bluefields owes its name, as does its namesake Blewfields in Nicaragua, to the use made of it by Bleevelt, the buccaneer, is merely conjecture. In the map accompanying Blome’s “Description of Jamaica” it is called Blew Fields.

In later days Bluefields has been chiefly noted as the temporary home of the celebrated naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, well known as the inventor of the marine aquarium, whose writings have done much to bring the charms of Jamaica to the notice of students of natural history. While on the one hand he was, as Huxley called him, an “honest hodman of science,” on the other the unacademic freshness of his early habit of mind, which met with the hearty approval of Darwin and Owen, remained through life, and gave, as his son points out in his Life, its pleasant tincture to all his subsequent works; and this is especially noticeable in his “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” “one of the most valuable and best written of his books.” He was not a true biologist; his real work in life was the practical study of animal forms in detail, and his chief attempts at theorising, “Life” and “Omphalos,” were failures. In these days of nature study it may be interesting to quote the following passage from the preface to the “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” written more than half a century ago:

That alone is worthy to be called _Natural History_, which investigates and records the condition of living things, of things in a state of nature; if animals, of _living_ animals:—which tells of their “sayings and doings,” their varied notes and utterances, songs and cries; their actions, in ease and under the pressure of circumstances; their affections and passions towards their young, towards each other, towards other animals, towards man; their various arts and devices to protect their progeny, to procure food, to escape from their enemies, to defend themselves from attacks; their ingenious resources for concealment; their stratagems to overcome their victims; their modes of bringing forth, of feeding and of training their offspring; the relations of their structure to their wants and habits; the countries in which they dwell; their connexion with the inanimate world around them, mountain or plain, forest or field, barren heath or bushy dell, open savannah or wild hidden glen, river, lake or sea:—this would be indeed _zoology_, _i.e._ the science of _living_ creatures.

Dr. Duerdon, in his article on Gosse, which appeared in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica” in 1899, says:

There is no writer who has thrown such a charm around the natural history of Jamaica, or who has contributed in the same degree to make known the various representatives of its topical fauna, as Philip Henry Gosse. Probably no other country possesses such a strictly accurate and entertaining account of the nature and activities of its leading animals, such as they were fifty years ago, as is found in the pages of “A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica.” With its minute and attractively written observations and descriptions of almost everything which could appeal to the eye of a naturalist, Gosse has accomplished for Jamaica what Gilbert White, in his letters of last century, performed for Selborne.

Born in 1810, Gosse was from 1827 to 1835 in an office in Newfoundland; from 1835 to 1838 in Canada. In 1836 he wrote his “Entomology of Newfoundland” (which still remains unpublished); after a sojourn in Canada and Alabama he returned to England in 1839 and sold the MS. of his “Canadian Naturalist,” which had been written on his homeward voyage. He published his “Introduction of Zoology” in 1843. In 1844 he started for Jamaica, where he remained for eighteen months at Bluefields as the paying guest of a Moravian minister and his wife, and collected and sent home specimens of many rare animals. In 1847 he published his “Birds of Jamaica,” and in 1849 a folio volume of plates in illustration. In 1851 he produced his “Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica,” in which he was much assisted by Richard Hill, one of Jamaica’s most talented sons. Several other works followed and added to his reputation. In 1856 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, to the Transactions of which he contributed numerous papers. He died in 1888, after many years of seclusion, at St. Mary’s Church, Devonshire. Gosse’s main purpose in visiting Jamaica was the collection, for dealers at home, of the animals and plants, particularly in such popular groups as insects, birds, shells and orchids. That he was an eminently successful collector in every department may be gathered from the number of objects which he gives in the “Sojourn,” namely: “Mammalia, 41 specimens; Birds, 1510; Reptiles, 102; Fishes, 94; Nests and Eggs, 34; Shells (marine), 1276; (terrestrial and fluviatile), about 1850; Crustacea, 100; Insects (including Arachnida and Myriapoda), about 7800; Echinodermata, 57; Zoophytes, &c., 42; Sponges, 550; Dried plants, about 5000; Living plants (Orchideæ), about 800; Bulbs and Suckers, 932; Cacti, 32; Ferns, 222; other Living Plants and Young Trees, &c., 117; large Capsules and Seed-vessels, 383; Seeds of Flowering Plants, 170 packets; Palm seeds, 14 boxes; Gums, 24 specimens; Woods, 50 blocks.”

The Bluefields of to-day differs but little from its condition of fifty years ago. The actual property to which the name is applied was in Gosse’s time in a very advanced ruinate condition, having been thrown up as an estate years before. When he was there the prospect of planters was by no means bright. “In 1844,” he says, “the beautiful sugar estates throughout the Island were half desolate, and the planters had either ceased to reside in their mansions or had pitifully retrenched their expenses.”

A tinted lithograph of Bluefields House and its immediate surroundings forms the frontispiece to the “Naturalist’s Sojourn”; but various alterations have been effected in the house since the drawing was made, and the internal re-arrangements have been so numerous that the actual room used by Gosse—a naturalist’s workroom—cannot now be identified. A view of Bluefields, entitled “The Torch was lying in Bluefields Bay,” also forms the frontispiece to one of the many editions of “Tom Cringle’s Log,” _i.e._ the third volume of “Blackwood’s Standard Novels,” published in 1842. Gosse gave a copy of this work to his young son on his request for information regarding the West Indies. Bluefields River—the “romantic little stream,” as he fondly terms it—still glides and tumbles down to the sea, its waters as pure and fresh as ever and as well stocked with mullet, crayfish, and crabs as when the naturalist wandered along its banks, turned aside its stones or searched its crevices for specimens, or bathed in its enticing pools. The Bluefields hills behind stretch upwards, their sides as thickly wooded as when Gosse first gazed upon them from Bluefields Bay, or, as he himself says of the Peak, “in the rude luxurious wildness that it bore in the days when the glories of those Hesperides first broke upon the astonished eyes of Europeans.”

In August 1694 Sir William Beeston sent home to the Duke of Shrewsbury “A Brief Account of what passed in Jamaica during the preparations and duration of the French attacks on it in 1694.” In it, while telling of the French predatory attacks along the coast before the final landing at Carlisle Bay, he says: “On the Thursday after their arrival at Cow Bay, the wind blew hard and the Admiral’s ship and another were blown off shore to Blackfield Bay at the west end of the Island, where they landed sixty men. Major Andress, who had been left there with a few men, engaged them and there was a small encounter in which we had one man killed and two wounded, and they lost some; but the Admiral firing a gun to recall them they hurried on board, leaving their food and captured cattle behind them, and sailed away.”

Although the word is Bluckfield or Blackfield in the original manuscript (it is printed Blackfield in the “Calendar of State Papers”) there is no doubt that Bluefields is referred to. The Major Andress is evidently identical with Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard Andreiss, who was custos and member of the Assembly for St. Elizabeth, and died at Lacovia in 1710.

Matthew Gregory Lewis—usually known from the title of his most famous work as Monk Lewis—though he only spent a few months in Jamaica, did much for the welfare of the negro population, both by precept and example. On both sides his ancestors had interests in the island. His uncle Robert Sewell died Attorney-General of Jamaica. Another relative and namesake, the Hon. John Lewis, was Chief Justice. The husband of one of his father’s sisters, a Mr. Blake, was a West Indian planter, and his maternal grandmother lies buried in Spanish Town cathedral, while the mausoleum which he mentions as being at =Cornwall= points to a resident proprietorship. Another aunt, it may be mentioned, was married to the ill-fated General Whitelocke, who, after commanding with distinction in 1793–94 the expedition sent by General Williamson from Jamaica to St. Domingo, and elsewhere, was cashiered in 1808 for cowardice in the Buenos Ayres expedition of the previous year.

Lewis was born in London in 1775. His father was the deputy secretary at war, and his mother the youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell, the Master of the Rolls. Much of his life and his inner thoughts may be gathered from “The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis,” published anonymously—by Mrs. Margaret Baron-Wilson—in 1839, based in great measure on the letters which he constantly wrote to a mother whom he adored.

A more precocious child than he was it would be almost impossible to conceive; but at the same time, though least like her in outward appearance of all her four children, he inherited much of the temperament of his mother, a timid and sensitive woman, whose constant companion he was in early life.

Young Lewis’s histrionic talents were early developed, and at Westminster he took part in the school plays. Intended by his parents for a diplomatic career, he afterwards went to Oxford, spending his vacations on the continent in the study of modern languages.