holding thirty; is at present water-tight, but will soon want new
shingling, as informed by lieutenant Troah.
_Vere._ The barrack was blown down in the late hurricane but the
parish has agreed with Mr. Pusey for his storehouse in Carlisle Bay,
which is boarded, shingled and in good order and capable to receive
one hundred men.
_St. Elizabeth._ A barrack situate at Black-River; it being a crutched
house, wattled and plastered, injured by the storm, but is now ordered
by the parish to be repaired.
_St. James._ A barrack at St. James, of a hundred feet long and twenty
feet wide, with a stone wall, a framed roof, well shingled, in good
order, which will completely contain fifty men as informed by Mr.
Hall.
_Hanover._ A barrack situate at Lusea-Fort, which will be capable of
receiving fifty men; a crutched house, wattled, plastered and
thatched, in good order; and a convenient house for the reception of
four officers, well shingled and floored.
_Port Antonio._ A barrack in good order, which now lodges one company,
and will soon be in a condition to receive another, by the information
of lieutenant Bailey.
_St. Mary’s._ No barrack built in said parish, but as the Committee
are informed his excellency intends to send some soldiers for their
protection, a barrack is necessary to be forthwith built.
_Old Harbour._ No barrack built, but the parish of St. Dorothy have
hired a house for a detachment of thirty soldiers, as informed by Mr.
Edmund Pusey.
_Spanish Town._ The barrack-house is in good order, the officers’
cook-room wants repairing, the cook-room for the private men is
entirely down, and the palisado enclosure, on the back part of the
out-houses, carried away by the late storm; said barrack contains
sixty men.
The Committee are informed that his excellency intends four companies
of soldiers to be in this town, if proper lodgements were provided for
them; and, as the barrack contains so few, it will be necessary either
to enlarge the present barrack or to buy such house or houses as may
be convenient and sufficient to lodge the aforesaid four companies, as
are intended for this town; but as we are informed that the house
belonging to the estate of the late Colonel Heywood is as proper and
convenient for the purpose aforesaid as any building in this town, and
to be sold, we think proper to lay before the house a plan relating
thereto, as also a plan of a barrack to be built adjoining to the
present barrack, or such other place as shall be judged most
convenient; all which is submitted to the consideration of the house.
_Kingston._ No barracks built, and his excellency is willing to let
this town have one or more companies of His Majesty’s troops was there
proper lodgement to receive them.
_Port Royal._ The barracks in that town being too small for receiving
the number of men intended to be quartered there, your Committee are
informed that said barracks are to be enlarged for that purpose.
And, after some time spent in the Committee, Mr. Speaker resumed the
chair, and Mr. Chief Justice, from a Committee, reported that they had
gone through the matter to them referred, and come to several
resolutions, which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered them
in at the table; where they being again read were agreed unto by the
House, and are as follows:
1. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee, that it be
recommended to the House, to appoint a Committee to bring in a bill
for obliging the several parishes to repair and keep up the respective
barracks already built.
_Ordered._ That Mr. Fuller, Mr. Fearon and Mr. March be a committee
for that purpose.
2. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee, that it be
recommended to the House, to appoint a committee to treat with the
attornies of Abraham Elton and Mary Heywood for the purchase of a
house and footland, late of James Heywood, deceased, for a barrack for
the service of the public.
_Ordered._ That Mr. Arcedeckne, Mr. R. Beckford and Mr. Fuller be a
committee for that purpose.
3. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee that a barrack be
built at Kingston, at the expense of the parish of Kingston.
4. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee that the barrack at
Port-Royal be enlarged.
_Ordered._ That it be an instruction to the committee appointed to
bring in the bill for obliging the several parishes to repair and keep
up the respective barracks already built, to insert a clause therein
to oblige the parish of Kingston to build a barrack at the expense of
the parish.”
We learn from Foster’s “Alumini Oxonienses” that William Dennys, of New
College, a chaplain who took his B.A. degree in 1652, obtained leave of
absence from the parliamentary visitors, for special service at sea in
1654, and died at Jamaica in 1655. He probably came out with Penn and
Venables, and predeceased Thomas Gage who was chaplain to the
expedition.
In 1655, the very year in which the English took the island, Admiral
William Goodson, one of the Commissioners charged with the conduct of
Penn and Venables’s expedition, requested that “some godly ministers
with monies for their maintenance” should be sent out. Two years later
the want of ministers in Jamaica was referred by the Council of State to
the Committee for America for suggestions. It was one of the
instructions to Doyley, when he was made governor in 1661, that he
should give the best encouragement to ministers “that Christianity and
the Protestant religion, according to the profession of the Church of
England, may have due reverence amongst them”; and later in the year it
was resolved that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London
should choose five able ministers to be maintained in Jamaica at the
King’s expense for one year, the governor to provide for their
maintenance afterwards.
In 1664 Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor, stated that there was “but
one church (in the whole island) at St. Katherine’s [at Spanish Town],
being a fair Spanish Church ruined by the old soldiers, but lately in
some measure repaired by Sir Charles Lyttelton; but they are now levying
contributions to raise churches in some of the richest parishes.” There
were then five ministers in the island, Henry Howser (a Switzer) being
at St. Catherine’s.
In 1671 Sir Thomas Modyford replied to enquiries of His Majesty’s
Commissioners that: “Their Lordships will find among the statutes with
these presented a law for the maintenance of the ministry; until this
His Majesty was piously pleased to pay five ministers £100 each, but
since they were left upon the charity of the inhabitants, he has
encouraged them to enlarge their payments at St. Katherine’s, where he
lives, from £50 to £140, and at Port Royal £200. At St. Katherine’s, Mr.
Howser, a Switzer, officiates; at Port Royal, Mr. Maxwell, a Scotchman;
at St. John’s, Mr. Lemmings, an Englishman, lately sent by my Lord of
London; and in St. Andrew’s, Mr. Zellers, another Switzer; all these are
orthodox men, of good life and conversation, live comfortably on their
means, and preach every Sunday. Mr. Pickering, of St. Thomas and St.
David’s, at Port Morant and Yallows, is lately dead, and they have none
to supply his place. But, alas, these five do not preach to one-third of
the island, and the plantations are at such distance that it is
impossible to make up congregations; but they meet at each others’
houses, as the primitive Christians did, and there pray, read a chapter,
sing a psalm, and home again; so that did not the accessors to this
island come so well instructed in the article of faith, it might well be
feared the Christian religion would be quite forgot. I have, my Lords,
and shall use all the persuasive means I can to advance this people’s
knowledge of the true God, as also of all Christian and moral virtues.”
In 1675 a Mr. Crandfield reported that there were six churches and four
ministers, and two years later there were but three clergy in the
island. In a MS., once in the House of Assembly Library, entitled “The
State of the Church in His Majesty’s Island of Jamaica,” dated May 1675
(which was allowed to perish after Richard Hill quoted from it in 1864),
it was stated, after enumerating the then stipended ministers of
religion: “All the other parishes on the northside, and St. Elizabeth’s
on the south, are great and ill-settled, without churches, they being
almost planted in Sir Thomas Lynch’s time, who ordered Glebe lands to be
reserved in two or three places in every parish, that in time may prove
convenient.”
In 1677 Howser and Zellers, “His Majesty’s chaplains in Jamaica,”
petitioned that they might receive the pay promised to them, and
declared that “the island, in regard of its great poverty, is not able
to allow maintenance for four chaplains resident there.” In the same
year the Bishop of London represented the ill-usage of ministers in the
Plantations, and their too great subjection to the vestrymen, especially
in Jamaica; and the Lords of Trade and Plantations resolved that the
clergy should, in future, “make a part of the vestry in the regulation
of all matters, except in the settlement of their maintenance.”
In 1681 an Act was passed for the maintenance of ministers and the poor,
and erecting and repairing churches. Ten vestrymen and two churchwardens
were yearly elected by the freeholders of each parish. The law provided
for the keeping of a register of births, christenings, marriages and
burials. Port Royal was to pay £250 to its minister, St. Catherine £120,
St. Thomas, St. Andrew and St. John £100, and other parishes £80. These
stipends were apparently not sufficient inducement, for in 1706 an Act
was passed “for the encouragement of good and able ministers to come to
this island.” The salary of St. Catherine was fixed at £150 (or £250 if
the vestry wished); for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, St. Dorothy, Kingston,
Vere, and Clarendon, it was £150 (or £200), and for the other parishes
(including Port Royal, by reason of its recent disasters) £100 (or £150
if the vestry wished). This system of payment of the rectors by the
parishes was continued till late in the eighteenth century, when they
were placed on the Island Establishment.
In 1682 Sir Thomas Lynch sent home to the Bishop of London a detailed
report of the state of the Church in Jamaica. He says: “At St. Jaga de
la Vega the minister is also a Swiss, Mr. Howsyer; he has £140 a year by
law, and, since I came, £150. He is a reasonable preacher, a good liver,
well esteemed, and very rich. The church is a Spanish church, and the
parsonage good. The parish is called St. Catherine’s.”
When, by an Act passed in 1789, burying in churches was prohibited, on
penalty of £500 imposed on any rector who permitted it, the rectors
received compensation in lieu of fees, the largest amount falling to the
rector of Kingston, who received £100 per annum, St. Catherine being
next with £70.
As evidence of the relative value of the livings in the island at the
time it is interesting to quote from the “Jamaica Magazine” that in
November 1814, “The Reverend Alexander Campbell has been translated from
the living of Kingston to that of St. Andrew’s, vacant by the death of
his father, the reverend John Campbell; the Reverend Isaac Mann to that
of Kingston; the Reverend William Vaughan Hamilton from St. Elizabeth’s
to St. Catherine’s; and the Reverend William Peat from St. Dorothy’s to
St. Elizabeth’s.”
In 1800 Ecclesiastical Commissioners were appointed. But it is evident
that they had not been able to effect much by April 1802, when Lady
Nugent wrote: “I will conclude my tour through the island with a few
remarks. In this country it appears as if everything were bought and
sold. Clergymen make no secret of making a traffic of their livings; but
General N—— has set his face against such proceedings, and has refused
many applications for the purpose. He is determined to do all he can
towards the reformation of the Church, and thus rendering it
respectable. It is indeed melancholy to see the general disregard of
both religion and morality throughout the whole island.”
Matters were much improved when the see of Jamaica, which then included
the Bahamas and British Honduras, was formed in 1824; and in 1870, when
Disestablishment threw the Church almost entirely on to voluntary
resources, it gave to it a new vitality.
Many of the old Baptismal, Marriage and Burial registers are deposited
for safe keeping in the Record Office at Spanish Town, where all the old
church registers should be, as they would there have a chance of longer
life than when exposed to the vicissitudes of local vestries, and would,
moreover, be more readily available for research than when scattered
throughout the island.
It may be convenient to give here a list of the earliest date of the
Baptismal, Marriage and Burial registers for the island, taken from
“Sketch Pedigrees of some of the early Settlers in Jamaica. By Noel B.
Livingston, Kingston 1909.”
EARLIEST DATE OF PARISH REGISTERS
Parish Baptisms Marriages Burials
Kingston 1722 1721 1722
Port Royal 1728 1727 1725
St. Andrew 1664 1668 1666
St. Thomas ye East 1709 1721 1708
St. David 1794 1794 1794
Portland 1804 1804 1808
St. George 1806 1807 1811
St. Mary 1752 1755 1767
Clarendon 1690 1695 1769
St. Ann 1768 1768 1768
Manchester 1816 1827 1817
St. Catherine 1668 1668 1671
St. John 1751 1751 1751
St. Dorothy 1693 1725 1706
St. Thomas ye Vale 1816 1816 1816
Metcalfe 1843 1843 1843
Westmoreland 1740 1740 1741
St. Elizabeth 1708 1719 1720
Trelawny 1771 1771 1771
St. James 1770 1772 1774
Vere 1696 1743 1733
Hanover 1725 1754 1727
John Roby, Jamaica’s most celebrated antiquary, published (from notes
made in 1824) in 1831, at Montego Bay, where he was then collector of
customs, “Monuments of the Cathedral Church and Parish of St.
Catherine.” The information therein given was included and supplemented
by Lawrence-Archer in his “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West
Indies,” published in 1875: and annotations to Lawrence-Archer’s
account, by the present writer and Mr. N. B. Livingston, were published
in “Caribbeana” for January and April 1910. A full account of the
history of the Church of England in Jamaica may be gathered from the
work of the Rev. J. B. Ellis, published in 1913, “The Diocese of
Jamaica.”
The history of the Department of Public Gardens and Plantations, now
known as the Agricultural Department, is intimately connected with the
various vicissitudes through which the island has passed. The following
particulars have been taken in great measure from the account in the
“Handbook of Jamaica for 1900.”
Directly and indirectly during the last hundred years and more the
Department has been the means of introducing and propagating some of the
most valuable plants, now the sources of the staple products of the
island.
It is a striking fact that with the exception of pimento and a few
others of comparatively little value, most of the staple products of the
island are derived from exotics or plants introduced from other parts of
the globe, either by accident or by direct intention.
The sugar-cane, though here in the time of the Spaniards, was first
cultivated by the English, by Sir Thomas Modyford, in 1660; but its most
valuable varieties, the Otaheite and Bourbon canes, were introduced in
His Majesty’s ships by Captain Bligh as late as 1796. Coffee was
introduced by Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes in 1718. The mango, brought by
Captain Marshall of Rodney’s squadron in 1782, was first planted in
Hinton East’s botanic garden, in Liguanea, and is now one of the
commonest trees in the island. The plentiful and free-growing logwood
was introduced from Honduras by Dr. Barham, the author of “Hortus
Americanus,” in 1715. The beautiful akee was obtained by Dr. Thomas
Clarke, first Island Botanist, from a West African slave ship in 1778.
The cinnamon came with the mango in Captain Marshall’s ship in 1782, and
was distributed from the Bath Garden by Dr. Dancer. The ubiquitous but
graceful bamboo is also an exotic and owes its introduction to M.
Wallen, who brought it from Hispaniola and first planted it in the
parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East. To Wallen, formerly owner of Cold
Spring and Wallenford, the friend of Swartz and a successful botanist,
we are no doubt indebted for the first plants of the watercress,
chickweed, wild pansy, groundsel, dead nettles, dandelion, common
honeysuckle, black-berried elder, evening primrose, nasturtium, common
myrtle, the English oak, white clover, and the sweet violet, now common
on the Port Royal and Blue Mountains, being possibly escapes from his
garden at Cold Spring, which even in 1793 was well stocked with choice
selections of introduced flowers and European trees and shrubs. For the
cherimoyer we are indebted to Hinton East, who introduced if from South
America in 1786; to East and his magnificent garden we also owe the
jasmines and many species of lilies, many convolvuli, the oleander, the
horse-radish tree, numerous roses, the trumpet-flower, monkey-bread, the
camellia, _Calla æthiopica_, the weeping willow, the mulberry tree, the
_Arbor vitæ_, and the sweet-scented mimosa. Dr. Clarke, on his arrival
as Island Botanist in 1777, brought with him the jujube tree, and the
litchi, the purple dracæna, the sago palm, and the valuable camphor
tree; at the same time there came the now common “almond tree,” the tea
tree, and the “sunn” hemp plant. The wanglo, or zezegary, was sent by
Sir Simon Haughton Clarke in 1801. The nutmeg tree, first brought by
Rodney in 1782, was reintroduced by Dr. Marter in 1788, together with
the clove and black pepper, for which he received the thanks of the
House of Assembly and an honorarium of £1000. The seeds of the valuable
and now indispensable Guineagrass were accidentally introduced from the
West Coast of Africa as bird food in 1745. Scotch grass received its
name from having been first brought from Scotland to Barbados.
Pindars were brought to Hinton East from South America; the afou, the
acorn and Guinea yam, and indeed all but one of the cultivated yams, are
from the coast of Africa or East Indies. The seeds of the guango were
brought over from the mainland by Spanish cattle. Cacao is indigenous to
Central America. The shaddock was brought to the West Indies from China
by Captain Shaddock, hence its name. The genip was brought to Jamaica
from Surinam by one Guaf, a Jew. The ginger is a native of the East
Indies, introduced to Jamaica by a Spaniard, Francisco de Mendiza. The
locust tree and blimbling were brought to Jamaica from the South Seas in
H.M.S. _Providence_ in the year 1793. The orange, both sweet and
Seville, the lime, the lemon and citron, were brought hither by the
Spaniards. The Jerusalem thorn is from the Spanish main. The prickly
pear is a Mexican plant.
It appears that the first public garden established in the island was
the old Botanic Garden at Bath; and in the Journals of the House of
Assembly mention is made of Dr. Thomas Clarke, “Practitioner in Physic
and Surgery,” who came to the island in 1777, at the particular instance
and request of Sir Basil Keith, to superintend two botanic gardens, then
intended to be established in the island. One was to be a European
Garden, which however was not established till long after, at Cinchona,
and the other was the Tropical Garden at Bath.
A private garden possessing many rare and valuable plants had already
been formed by Hinton East in Liguanea (Gordon Town), which, on the
death of the founder, became the property of his nephew, E. H. East,
“who with great generosity offered it to the Assembly of Jamaica for the
use of the public at their own price.”
Bryan Edwards remarks that “the Assembly of Jamaica, cooperating with
the benevolent intentions of His Majesty (to introduce valuable exotics
and productions of the most distant regions to the West Indies)
purchased in 1792–93 the magnificent Botanical Garden of Mr. East and
placed it on the public establishment, under the care of skilful
gardeners, one of whom, Mr. James Wiles, had circumnavigated the globe
with Captain Bligh.”
An interesting catalogue of the plants in this garden, at the time of
East’s decease, was prepared by Dr. A. Broughton, and forms an appendix
under the title of “Hortus Eastensis” to Bryan Edwards’s “History of the
British West Indies.”
From a letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks by the Botanic Gardener,
Jamaica, 1793, we gather that the bread-fruit trees “were upwards of 11
feet high, with leaves 36 inches long, and the success in cultivating
them has exceeded the most sanguine expectations; the cinnamon tree is
become very common, and mangoes are in such plenty as to be planted in
the negro grounds. There are, also, several bearing trees of the jack or
bastard bread-fruit ... and we have one nutmeg plant.” For his services
in introducing the bread-fruit tree, 1000 guineas were granted in 1793
to Captain Bligh and 500 guineas to Lieutenant Portlock.
The Botanic Garden at Liguanea continued to be under Wiles’s care
(superintended by a Committee of the House of Assembly) for many years,
while that at Bath was entrusted to Dr. Dancer as Island Botanist. The
allowance for the two gardens was fixed at £800. The duties of the
Island Botanist were defined as follows: “To collect, class and describe
the native plants of the island; to use his endeavours to find out their
medicinal virtues; to discover if they possess any qualities useful to
the arts, and annually to furnish the House with a correct list of such
plants as are in the Botanic Gardens, together with such information as
he may have acquired relative to their uses and virtues.”
For the purpose of distributing the bread-fruit and other valuable
plants from the Botanic Garden the Committee of the House “appointed
several Committees for each county, to receive and distribute the
allotments destined for them,” and, according as sufficient numbers were
prepared for propagation, the Chairmen of the County Committees were
apprised and their respective proportions delivered and distributed, “by
which means,” it is quaintly remarked, “the public has derived all the
advantages to be expected from these establishments.”
During the years 1791–1807 the Committee in charge of the Botanic
Gardens, with Shirley as Chairman, greatly developed and improved them.
Enquiries were made everywhere for new products; thanks and gratuities
were voted for the introduction of valuable plants, and these were
cultivated and distributed with great assiduity and care. In order to
make the islands less dependent on America for supplies every
encouragement was given to the cultivation of yams, cocoas, maize,
plantain, and such products as the bread-fruit, zezegary or wanglo,
nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, pindars and coffee, it being believed that the
“cultivation of these valuable exotics will without doubt in a course of
years lessen the dependence of the Sugar Islands on North America for
food and necessaries; and not only supply subsistence for future
generations, but probably furnish fresh incitements to industry, new
improvements in the arts, and new subjects of commerce.”
These beneficial efforts, long and successfully maintained, were however
greatly relaxed after the year 1807, and under the influence of domestic
troubles, want of due appreciation of the value and nature of botanic
gardens, or the need of strict economy, a bill was introduced into the
House of Assembly in 1810 “for vesting the Botanic Garden in Liguanea in
the Commissioners of the Board of Works, to be sold and the money to be
brought to the credit of the public.” This bill was finally passed
December 1810, and, the garden passing to private hands, many of the
valuable plants contained in it, and collected with so much care and
industry, were entirely lost.
The garden at Bath was however maintained, though in a very reduced
state. Dr. Stewart West acted for some time as Island Botanist, and was
engaged in collecting the plants that had been lost from the gardens,
for the purpose of propagating and distributing them.