Part 16

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.

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.

By 1745 the road was known as the Ferry Road, and in that year a Committee of the Assembly was appointed to enquire into matters respecting it.

In 1748 the Assembly again considered the state of the Ferry Road, and passed “An Act to empower Commissioners to keep the Ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike, between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s, to commence at the expiration of an Act entitled An Act for empowering William Peete, Esquire to keep the Ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s, and taking up runaway negroes.”

In 1758 an Act was passed for “Vesting in Trustees a toll to keep the ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s ...” and a similar Act was passed in 1761.

In 1777 a Committee reported:

4. On consideration of the motion for £4000 to be applied towards carrying on the road from the church in Spanish Town to the church in Kingston, it appears to your Committee, from accounts solemnly attested and rendered in, and also from vouchers produced, that the sum of £2000 granted last session of Assembly, for carrying on the new road from the town of St. Jago de la Vega to the Ferry, in the parish of St. Catherine, and of £2000 for carrying on the new road from the Ferry, in the parish of St. Andrew, to the Town of Kingston, have been all expended on the said roads; your Committee were therefore of opinion, the sum of £4000 now applied for, should be granted: Your Committee have come to two resolutions respecting this road:

1st. _Resolved_: It is the opinion of this Committee that the road between Spanish Town and Kingston is laid out on too large a scale; that therefore, it ought to be contracted that thirty feet in the centre well paved and gravelled (except in the Salina which ought to be paved forty feet) would answer every purpose to the public, and save a considerable expense.

2nd. _Resolved_: It is the opinion of this Committee that the salaries allowed to the Superintendent, and his assistants, amounting to about £900 per annum, are too large; and that, in future, they ought to be reduced.

In 1778 an Act was passed “for explaining and amending the several Highway Laws now in force, and rendering the said Laws more effectual.” It was repealed and expired by 1792.

In 1799 an Act “for continuing the Act commonly called the Highways Act for a certain time longer,” was passed, but expired in 1812.

In 1801 a Highway law was passed, but was repealed in 1805.

In 1802 a law was passed “for rendering more effectual the several laws relating to the public road from the church in the town of Saint Jago de la Vega to the church in Kingston,” and “the Trustees of the Ferry Road” were thereby appointed.

In 1815 an Act was passed giving “fuller powers to the Trustees of the Ferry Road,” as it was found that “the present state of the Ferry Road requires that their powers shall be extended, and that prompt and efficacious means should be used to repair and keep the same in good order especially by causing it to be frequently examined.”

The oldest tablet in the =Church of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale= at Linstead is that of one Elizabeth Burton, who died in 1742. At the time of the threatened invasion by the French in 1805 the Records of the island were removed to this church, and were protected by a militia guard. The said church was blown down by a hurricane in March 1822, and was shortly afterwards rebuilt. A tower was added to the church in 1830.

The church was destroyed by earthquake on January 14, 1907, and was rebuilt of reinforced concrete with eternit roofing at a total cost of £950 and was consecrated in 1911.

Although the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale dates from 1675, when the author of “The Present State of Jamaica” (published in 1683) wrote his work, its church was not one of the seven churches in the island; the nearest church then being St. John’s, Guanaboa Vale, which had been in existence since 1669. The earliest rector recorded was the Rev. Thomas Garbrand, appointed in 1705. In “The Early English Colonies” (1908), by Mr. Sadler Phillips, is given “A List of the Parishes, Churches and Ministers in Jamaica, April 18th, 1715,” in which is included “St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, a church blown down, Mr. Reinolds.” The Rev. James Reynolds had come out in 1709, sent by the Bishop of London, who since 1702 had had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Jamaica. In 1798 the rector was the Rev. William Williamson. In 1820 and for some years after the rector was the Rev. William Buston.

=Williamsfield=, in St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, on the road between St. Mary and Spanish Town, was first settled by Needham, a large proprietor, but was soon purchased by one Harvey from Barbados, who in turn sold it to Daniel Lascelles, brother to the first Baron Harewood. It remained in the Lascelles’ hands for many years. In 1743, Henry Lascelles went to London from Barbados, and being a wealthy man purchased the Harewood estate, carried on business in London as West India merchants with George Maxwell. His son Edwin was created Baron Harewood in 1790.

At a Council meeting held on July 11, 1692, at St. Jago de la Vega (the first held there after the earthquake) it was “ordered that the Councill meet on Wednesday next at Musqueto Point to view and consider of a place in order to the Building a fortification for to secure the Channell.”

And on August 8 it was “ordered that a fortification be made at Mosquito Point, of the ground &c. fitt to erect the same and that Charles Bouchier, Esq. goe and veiw the same and draw out Plott thereof and the same Returne to this Board.” This was the origin of =Fort Augusta=.

Long gives the following account of the fort in his time. He makes a strong attack on the policy of fortifying a place which he designates a “still unfinished battery stuck into a quagmire at the entrance of Kingston Harbour,” and says that the immense charges incurred on its behalf had by 1757 helped to cripple the island financially. He says:

This fort mounts eighty-six large guns, kept in excellent order. It contains a large magazine, a house for the commandant, barracks to contain three hundred soldiers, with all convenient offices, and casemates. It was projected to mount one hundred and sixteen guns; but it is not yet compleated. The walls and bastions are built upon piles of the palmeto or thatch-pole tree, which is endued with the property of lasting in water without being liable to erosion by the worm. These were driven down through the loose land, until they reached a firm bed. If the same precaution had been used in constructing the houses of Port Royal, it is probable that the greater part of the town would have survived the earthquake. This fort contains an hospital, besides habitations for the officers, and is looked upon to be an healthy garrison. The neck of sand which joins it to the main is not above fifty or sixty feet wide in most places, and so low, that an enemy could not carry on approaches, on account of the water rising near the surface; and it is flanked by a lagoon, or inlet of water from the harbour, of some extent; for these reasons, and because the ships, in passing up the channel towards Kingston, must come within point-blank shot of a whole line of guns, a governor of this island pronounced it impregnable both by land and sea.

During a storm in 1744 a new fort begun at Mosquito Point was entirely destroyed.

The present fort was erected on Mosquito Point in Kingston Harbour in 1753. On September 13, 1782, the magazine, with three hundred barrels of powder, blew up. Amongst the military tombs is that to Major John Sankey Darley, 2nd W.I.R., who was killed in a mutiny of the West India Regiment there in May 1808. Recruits of the 2nd West India Regiment, Chamba and Koromantyn negroes, mutinied on parade, aided by some of the older men. The Lieutenant and Adjutant Ellis was killed on the spot, and Darley died of the wounds he received. The general officer commanding, Carmichael, got into conflict with the House of Assembly by directing his officers not to answer any questions that that body might put to them with reference to the occurrence. Darley was brother to Alderman Darley of Dublin, of Orange notoriety. Carmichael died in 1813 while governor of British Guiana.

=Rodney’s Look-out= on the Heathshire Hills was shaken down by the earthquake of 1907. It was erected by Rodney while he was admiral on the Jamaica station, (1771–74), for the purpose of keeping a look-out to windward. =Port Henderson= hard by, is named after a former owner, John Henderson, colonel of militia, who was presented at Court in February 1784. He died at his estate in Scotland in 1811. It was founded in opposition to Passage Fort, as it afforded better accommodation for ships.

Towards the close of the nineteenth century it was the site of a temporary laboratory of marine zoology for students of the Johns Hopkins University.

=Lawrencefield= is said to have been the residence of Sir Henry Morgan, governor of Jamaica (1673–82). =St. Jago Farm= is said to be the site of the residence of Sasi, the last of the Spanish Governors. =Government Pen= was the residence of former governors, and is frequently mentioned in Lady Nugent’s “Journal.” At Caymanas is an Arawâk kitchen-midden·, at Mountain River, St. John’s, some Arawâk rock-carvings, and at Goat Island (in Old Harbour Bay) is a cave with Arawâk remains. At Point Hill are some old barracks which are now used as a police station.

=Keith Hall= is probably named after Sir Basil Keath, governor in 1774–77, and =Sligoville= after Peter, Marquis of Sligo, governor in 1834–36.

III KINGSTON

That there was a collection of houses on or near the spot where Kingston now stands, some years before its formation into a town and parish, is evident, but it is also evident that Gardner’s application of the name to “the little village of Kingston” in 1673 is based on imagination. In the map of Jamaica in “The English Pilot” of 1689 in the inset of “the draft of the Harbor of Port Royal” is marked Liganea, with seven small houses and one larger one where Kingston now is, and one larger one half-way to The Rock.

In the “Present State of Jamaica,” published in 1683, occurs the following description of the village:—“At Liguania, the inside of the harbour, opposite to Port Royal, about two leagues, is several houses, some of them very handsome, and well built, which place in time is like to become a pretty town.”

On the map which accompanies the “State of Jamaica under Sir Thomas Lynch” (included in the “Laws of Jamaica,” published in London in 1684) the place where Kingston now stands is marked “Beeston.” The original owner of the land was Colonel Samuel Barry, who patented it in 1664 and later sold it to (Sir) William Beeston, who, coming to Jamaica in 1660, represented Port Royal in the first House of Assembly, and was lieutenant-governor of the island from 1693 to 1700, and Governor till 1702: but there is on the map a mark for a “towne” on the harbour to the west, between “Beeston” and Hunt’s Bay, where Greenwich now is.

The site of Kingston was not the first chosen by the English for the commercial capital of the island. Port Royal, as we have seen, flourished as such until 1692, in which year occurred the great earthquake which destroyed that place and caused the death of 3000 of its inhabitants. That dealt it a fearful blow.

On June 24, 1692, a little more than a fortnight after the earthquake which destroyed Port Royal, the Council ordered a “survey of 200 acres of Colonel Beeston’s land in St. Andrews where the Council have resolved to build a new town,” and four days later the Council ordered that £1000 should be paid to Beeston, who was at the moment in England, for the 200 acres: but this was apparently _ultra vires_ on the Council’s part, as they had no power to originate money votes. The first traceable reference to the place by name occurs in the Council minutes of July 21, 1692, when regulations for building “the new town of Kingston in St. Andrews” were drawn up, and it was resolved that every purchaser should within three years build a house worth £50 on forfeiture of that sum. Such forfeiture, it was later decided, should go towards founding a hospital.

The following occurs in the Council minutes for August 9, 1692:

Ordered that no freeholder of Port Royall have laid out for him above one lott by the sea side.

Ordered that none of the Inhabitants of Port Royall have laid out for him above one lott.

Ordered that all the freeholders of Port Royall have laid out for them in the said Towne the same quantity they had on Port Royall provided it Exceed not three lotts.

Ordered that all the freeholders that had land bounding upon the North sea side on Port Royall be Preferred to the sea side land and that their lotts be first cast.

Ordered that all the lotts for the Towne of Kingston be cast on once and that if Claimers doe not appear for all the said land that then blankes be cast to Coll^{ll} Peter Beckford and Coll^{ll} Nicholas Laws or be disposed of by them to the next Pretenders.

Ordered that for every lott of land there be reserved to their Maj^{ties} Tenn Shillings a year as an anuall Quitt Rent.

Ordered that the chiefe Justice be desired to order the Drawing of Conveyances for the severall parcells of land laid out in the said Towne.

Ordered that the forfeiture of fifty pounds for not building a house upon the Premises of the Value of fifty Pounds within the time appointed by this Board shall be applied to the building of an Hospital in the said Towne.

Ordered that the Councill meet at the house of Mr. Ann. Lowder in the Towne of Kingston on Tuesday next to Receive the claims of the freeholders and Inhabitants of Po^t Royall & all others that are Desireous to Erect and build in the said Towne & that notice be given thereof accordingly.

After the Calamity of the Earthquake we had appointed a place for y^e building of a Towne w^{ch} we then thought by its Scituation would have been equall if not Exceeding Port Royall where we had ordered all ships and vessells arriveing here to unlade and also ordered the severall offices to settle there for Enterey of the same—

But may it pleas y^r Lordships Since to o^r no small greif we are made sensible of the unhealthyness of the place. By the great Mortality that there happened & finding a Greater difficulty then we Expected in fortifying the harbour Have been forst to order the withdrawing of those offices to the Remains of Port Royall where there is firme Rock enough left for fortifying that neither the Earthquake nor the sea hath distroyed or made Unhabitable.

On August 16 the Council itself met at Kingston. Orders were given for the erection of a market to be held daily, Edward Yeamans to be clerk. Thomas Clarke was provisionally appointed naval officer and collector of customs, and Deodatus Stanley was appointed bellman of Kingston. Kingston was not represented in Sir William Beeston’s first Assembly, which met in 1693; of his second, which met in the following year, the names of the members are not recorded; so it is impossible to give the names of those who probably represented the new town for the first time. But in Beeston’s third Assembly, which met on March 5, 1694–5, Kingston was represented by Josiah Hethcott, James Bradshaw and Samuel Foxley. Of these Bradshaw was a relative (probably son) of the regicide of that name. According to a document in Fulham Palace, recently quoted by Mr. N. Darnell Davis in “Notes and Queries,” “in 1723–4 Bradshaw, the son of President Bradshaw, came frequently to Liguania and received the sacrament there.”

A letter, dated Port Royal, July 3, 1693, quoted by Sir Hans Sloane in his account of the great earthquake already alluded to, contains the following information about Kingston: