In life his vertues share, and be like him in Death.
Pallidæ [_sic_] mors æquo pulsat Pede pauperum Tabernas Regumque
Turres.
Lawrence-Archer, in his “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West
Indies” (1875), gives the same information as Roby. Nothing is now known
of such a tomb near Aylmers, and the tombstone in memory of Price, as
quoted by Roby, is now on the floor of the church near the north door;
but the tinctures on the arms are quite gone. There is no record of the
removal from wood to church. It was evidently subsequent to 1849, but
the reference in Lawrence-Archer is no certain proof that it was still
in the wood in 1875.
Charles Price was the third son of Francis Price, who came to Jamaica as
a captain under Venables. His eldest son, Charles, who achieved much
fame in Jamaica and was made a baronet in 1768, and lies buried at
Decoy, his estate in St. Mary, will be dealt with under that parish.
Charles Price was member for St. John in 1713 and St. James in 1725, but
was expelled for non-attendance in the same year. He was custos of St.
Catherine. His two sons and six daughters, who all died between 1716 and
1727, lie buried in the church. He left three surviving sons.
Amongst other monuments in the church are those to the following:
Richard Guy, who represented in the Assembly “the North-side” (1671–2),
St. Ann and St. James in 1673–74, and St. James from 1675 to 1679. In
1676 he patented 1000 acres of which Latium (not Latimer as
Lawrence-Archer and Feurtado—after him—have it) in St. John, formed
part: George Modd, who represented St. John in the Assembly in 1718,
1719, and 1722, and St. Catherine in 1721, in which year he was speaker;
and Colonel Whitgift Aylmer. The arms on his monument are: a cross
between four Cornish choughs close; the crest, a Cornish chough rising
out of a ducal coronet. From the title “Honourable” it is possible, Roby
points out, that he was custos of the precinct of St. Catherine (which
comprehended the parish of St. John with St. Dorothy and St.
Thomas-in-the-Vale), as he does not appear to have been a member of the
Council; and although from the arms on his monument it may be inferred
that he was of the now noble family of Aylmers, of Balrath, Co. Meath,
yet that family was not ennobled until 1718, seventeen years after his
decease, when Matthew (second son of Sir Christopher Aylmer, who was
created a baronet of Ireland in 1682), rear-admiral of the red, was
created Baron Aylmer of Balrath.
The family, which had been long settled in Ireland, is said to have been
descended from Aylmer, a Saxon duke of Cornwall, and Sir Gerald Alymer,
who, 25 Hen. VIII (1533), was a Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, was
great-great-grandfather to Sir Christopher, the first baronet before
mentioned.
The family gave an archbishop to Canterbury, and Whitgift Aylmer is
supposed to have descended from Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury. He
was member of Assembly for St. John’s 1673–74, 1677, 1677 again; St.
Ann’s 1680–81 and 1687–88; and for St. John’s 1701. The Christian name
of his wife was Joyce, as appears from the register of St. Catherine’s,
in which parish two of their children were baptized—Mary, June 11, 1669,
and John, September 5, 1687. His son was also a member of the Assembly.
The following notice of his election for this parish appears under the
date of June 26, 1701.
It appearing by the return of the writs, that Lieutenant-Colonel
Whitgift Aylmer was elected for the parish of St. John, and Whitgift
Aylmer for the parish of St. James, and it being doubted whether the
said Whitgift Aylmer, elected for the parish of St. James, was Colonel
Whitgift Aylmer the father or Whitgift Aylmer the son, and a debate
thereon, it was put to the vote whether the House understood by the
said returns, that Lieutenant-Colonel Whitgift Aylmer or Whitgift
Aylmer his son were elected for the parish of St. James.
_Resolved_, that it was understood by the return to be Whitgift Aylmer
the son.
The memory of the family still lives in Aylmers estate hard by.
The parish of St. Dorothy, which was formed out of part of Clarendon and
part of St. Catherine in 1675, was, on the general reduction of the
number of parishes in 1867, merged into St. Catherine.
=Old Harbour= bay was called by Columbus _Puerto de las Vacas_, probably
because he saw a number of manatees there when he visited it on his
homeward way after he had discovered Jamaica.
Bernaldez tells us that:
Thus sailing in a southerly direction they anchored one evening in a
bay in a territory where there were many large villages; and the
cacique of a very large village which was above the ships came and
brought them a quantity of fresh provisions and the admiral gave some
of the things which he had on board to him and his followers, and they
were much pleased; and the cacique asked whence they came and what the
admiral’s name was, and the admiral answered that he was a vassal of
the mighty and illustrious sovereigns the king and queen of Castile,
his masters, who had sent him to these parts to learn and discover
those lands and to do much honour to good men but to destroy the bad.
Now he spoke to them by means of his Indian interpreter and the said
cacique was much pleased, and he asked the interpreter at great length
about things in Spain, and he told him at great length at which the
cacique and the other Indians were much astonished and pleased and
they stayed there until night, and then took leave of the admiral.
Next day the admiral departed, and as he was sailing with a light
wind, the cacique came with three canoes and overtook the admiral
coming in an orderly and stately manner; one of the canoes was as
large as a sea-going ship and was painted all over: the cacique came
and his wife and two daughters and two young lads, his sons and five
brothers and others who were followers; one of the daughters was 18
years old, and very beautiful; she was quite naked according to the
custom of those parts, the other was younger.
In the prow of the canoe stood the standard-bearer of the cacique clad
in a mantle of variegated feathers, with a tuft of gay plumes on his
head, and bearing in his hand a fluttering white banner. Two Indians
with caps or helmets of feathers of uniform shape and colour and their
faces painted in a similar manner, beat upon tabors; two others, with
hats curiously wrought of green feathers, held trumpets of a fine
black wood, ingeniously carved; there were six others, in large hats
of white feathers, who appeared to be guards to the cacique.
Having arrived alongside of the admiral’s ship, the cacique entered on
board with all his train. He appeared in full regalia. Around his head
was a band of small stones of various colours, but principally green,
symmetrically arranged, with large white stones at intervals, and
connected in front by a large jewel of gold. Two plates of gold were
suspended to his ears by rings of very small green stones. To a
necklace of white beads, of a kind deemed precious by them, was
suspended a large plate, in the form of a fleur-de-lys, of guanin, an
inferior species of gold; and a girdle of variegated stones, similar
to those around his head, completed his regal decorations. His wife
was adorned in a similar manner, having also a very small apron of
cotton, and bands of the same round her arms and legs. The daughters
were without ornaments, excepting the eldest and handsomest, who had a
girdle of small stones, from which was suspended a tablet, the size of
an ivyleaf, composed of various coloured stones embroidered on network
of cotton.
When the cacique entered on board the ship he distributed presents of
the productions of his island among the officers and men.
Columbus tells us that Old Harbour was inhabited by the most intelligent
and most civilized of all the aborigines that he had met in the
Antilles. Later it was called Esquivel, after the Spanish governor who
established it as a port for ship-building.
The land on which the =Church of St. Dorothy=, commonly called
Tamarind-tree church, at Old Harbour, was built, was given as a free
gift by Colonel Fuller and his wife Catherine Fuller, and also the land
and glebe consisting of about 30 acres of land on which the rectory
house was built. Colonel Fuller was among the foremost of the
Parliamentary officers who came here with Penn and Venables, and
received large grants of land, comprising Fuller’s Pen and Thetford in
St. Dorothy, and Fuller’s Pen in St. John’s. At a Council meeting held
at St. Jago de la Vega, May 9, 1692,
Thomas Scambler Clerke, Minister and Rector of the Parish of St.
Dorothy, being at the Board tendered the oaths appointed by Act of
Parliament to be taken instead of the oaths of Supremacy and
Allegiance, and also to repeat and subscribe the Declaration as by the
said Act is Required Peremtarily refuse to take the same ordered that
he be from henceforth _ipso facto_ deprived of his said benefice as by
the said Act is Directed, and that notice thereof be given to the
Churchwardens of the said parish.
On May 19, at a meeting of the council, it was
ordered that the Provost Marshall forthwith take into custody the body
of Thomas Scambler Clerke, late Minister and Rector of the Parish of
St. Dorothy for refusing to take the oaths ... and that the
Attorney-General prosecute him thereupon.
Amongst the rectors was the Rev. William Leacock, who was of the Leacock
family in Barbados. He gave up the living in 1836–37 and went to America
and was the leading divine of the Episcopal church in New Orleans. He
was succeeded by the Rev. Charles Hall, the Rev. McAlves, and the Rev.
George Wilkinson Rowe, brother of Sir Joshua Rowe, the chief justice of
Jamaica, who held the rectory for upwards of 30 years, and the Rev. W.
C. McCalla, who commenced the building of the chancel and organ chamber
about 1890.
Up to the year 1845–46 the old church was usually called the Old Harbour
“barn,” with red brick walls and wooden window shutters. The church was
renovated and restored and a belfry was put on the roof by the late
Alexander Bravo in the time of the Rev. George W. Rowe.
In the church are monuments to Colonel Thomas Fuller (d. 1690) and John
Pusey (d. 1767).
=Colebeck Castle=, which stands on a ridge of land on the west bank of
the Colebeck gully, about a mile and a half to the north-west of Old
Harbour town, overlooking the bay, probably dates from the end of the
seventeenth century. It must have been the most imposing building of the
kind erected in Jamaica. It was evidently at one time partially
destroyed by fire. It is rectangular in plan, about 114 feet wide and 90
feet deep, consisting of four three-storied, square, tower-like
buildings at each corner, rising to a height of about 40 feet, connected
by two-storied arched arcades, consisting on two sides of three arches,
on the other sides of five arches. The windows on the ground floor are
circular. The walls are formed of stone, filled in between with rubble,
with brick quoins and window facings, and are about 2 feet 6 inches
thick; at every fourth or fifth course is a course of larger sized
bricks. The inside walls have been coated with plaster work. Some of the
lintels of doors and windows still remain, and are of bully-wood, as
good as when they were first put up. A concrete terrace ran around the
castle, with steps at front and back.
Parts of a projecting wall—at a distance of about 114 feet from the
castle on each side, enclosing a square of about 300 feet—about 12
inches thick, still remain, and show crudely-formed loopholes for
firing. In some places there is a drop of from 12 to 20 feet on the
outside. At each corner of the outer wall was a substantial building
some 60 feet square, and underneath three of them were vaulted dungeons.
Two dungeons are no higher than 6 feet, 8 feet wide, and 24 feet long,
with only one very small aperture low down at one end. The dungeon at
another corner measures 60 feet by 20 feet, and is reached by a flight
of twenty steps.
To-day the castle is surrounded by bush, and is the abode of bats and
owls. On the surrounding property sugar has given place to tobacco.
From his black marble gravestone on the floor of the south transept in
the cathedral, we learn that “Collnel John Colbeck of Colbeck in St.
Dorothyes was born ye 30th of May, 1630, and came with ye army that
conquered this island ye 10th day of May, 1655, where haveing discharged
several honble. offices both civill and military with great applause he
departed this life ye 22d day of February 1682.”
He was returned member for Old Harbour in the first Assembly of Jamaica,
which met on January 20, 1663–64. In 1664, as Sedgwick had prophesied in
a letter to Thurloe, the Maroons proved a thorn in the side of the
English settlers. Though the main body under Juan de Bolas had
surrendered after the defeat of the Spaniards by Doyley, other parties
remained in inaccessible retreats, and, augmented by runaway slaves,
gave great trouble by intermittent descents on the planters in the
interior. Foremost amongst these were the Vermaholis negroes. After the
death, in action, of Juan de Bolas, who on surrendering had been made a
colonel of the Black regiment, Captain Colebeck, in March 1664, was
employed to endeavour to quell them. “He went,” Long tells us, “by sea
to the north side, and having gained some advantages over them, he
returned, with one who pretended to treat for the rest. This embassy,
however, was only calculated to amuse the whites, and gain some respite;
for they no sooner found themselves in a proper condition, and the white
inhabitants lulled into security, than they began to renew hostilities.”
In the survey of Jamaica sent home by Modyford in 1670, under St.
Katherine’s parish we read: “John Colebeck (812 acres); Capt. Colebeck
and inhabitants (1340 acres).”
In the third Assembly, which met on February 1, 1671–72, Colebeck’s name
appears among the representatives of St. Catherine as “Major John
Colebeck for Bowers,” Bowers being the district in which Colebeck Castle
stands. On February 14 following “the Gentlemen of the Assembly in a
body came to the Council and informed the Governor [Sir Thomas Lynch,
Lieutenant-Governor] of the sickness of their Speaker, Captain Samuel
Long, who recommended unto them Major John Colebeck, with whom they went
back to their House and immediately returned their thanks to the
Governor for his proposing so fit and able a person to be their
Speaker.”
Colebeck remained speaker of the Assembly until Samuel Long was
re-elected in May 1673; but on Long’s election to the Council, Colebeck
was passed over for the speakership, and Beeston was elected.
In the fourth Assembly, May 10, 1673, Colebeck was again returned under
the general head of St. Catherine as chosen specially for Bowers. In the
next Assembly, which met on February 13, 1673–74, his name appears as
one of the three representatives for St. Catherine generally, the return
omitting the former distinctions of one member for St. Jago, another for
Sixteen Mile Walk, and a third for Bowers. In the sixth Assembly, April
26, 1675, he was elected for the newly formed parish of St. Dorothy, and
continued until his death to represent that parish in every successive
assembly, viz. on April 9, 1677, when he had been promoted to the rank
of lieutenant-colonel; on September 6, 1677; September 2, 1678; August
19, 1679, when he had attained his colonelcy; and finally on March 19,
1680–81.
In a “Brief Account of the Government of Jamaica,” drawn up in 1680, his
name appears fourth on the list of justices of the peace for Precinct IV
(St. Catherine’s, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, and St. Dorothy’s), coming
after those of Byndloss, Ballard and Long.
In 1679 he was one of a committee of fourteen of the Council and
Assembly for the Defence of Jamaica, who signed specific recommendations
to the governor for strengthening the breastwork, arming the new works,
and providing four fire-ships.
[Illustration:
COLEBECK CASTLE
]
On February 17, 1682, the Lords of Trade and Plantations agreed to
recommend, and the King approved, Colonel John Colebeck to be of the
Council of Jamaica, in the room of Colonel Whitfield deceased, but he
had died before the decision reached Jamaica. His will, dated February
20, was proved on March 15, 1682–83. He does not seem to have had
relations for whom he cared, for he named none. He left all his estate,
real and personal, to his executors, Hender Molesworth and Samuel
Bernard (to each of whom he gave £40), to hold for payment of his just
debts and legacies. He bequeathed money to purchase a ring to each of
Sir Thomas Lynch, Robert Byndloss and Sir Henry Morgan. He left £20 to
Henry Howser, the rector of St. Catherine, to preach his funeral sermon.
He left £10 each to Dr. Ross and Edmund Duck, the Attorney-General, and
£300 to Mrs. Ann Ash; and to every one of “ye Gentlemen of Councill each
a ring of 30/- price. To ye church of St. Dorothy’s ye charge of
glassing all ye windows and putting in iron barrs.”
After his death, the name of Colebeck does not appear in Jamaica
history. As his arms are not given on his tombstone, there is nothing to
show whether he came of the Bedfordshire or the Lincolnshire branch of
the family; but there is a tradition in the Colbeck family that a member
of the Lincolnshire branch at Louth was transported to the West Indies
for cutting down an elm tree; that he acquired a fortune, and that his
estate went into Chancery.
The principal reminiscence of the great earthquake of 1692 which
overthrew Port Royal is the =Tomb of Lewis Galdy=, which is on the
opposite side of Kingston harbour, at Green Bay, where at one time many
naval officers were interred. On a brick tomb rests a white marble slab
with Galdy’s crest and arms. The arms are a cock, two mullets in chief
and a crescent in base. The crest, on an esquire’s helmet, is a plume,
and the motto “Dieu sur tout.” The following is the inscription:
Here Lyes the Body of LEWIS GALDY, Esq., who departed this life at
_Port Royal_ the 22nd December 1739. Aged 80. He was Born at
_Montpelier_ in _France_, but left that Country for his Religion and
came to settle in this _Island_, where he was swallowed up in the
Great Earthquake in the year 1692 and by the Providence of God was by
another Shock thrown into the _Sea_, and miraculously saved by
swimming until a boat took him up: He lived many years after in great
Reputation, Beloved by all who knew him and much lamented at his
death.
Lawrence-Archer, in recording this inscription, adds: “Mr. Galdy
probably exaggerated the circumstances of his escape, especially as
there was no one left to contradict his statement.” There must have been
at the time of his death many persons living who could have borne
witness to Galdy’s escape. Galdy probably did not write his own epitaph.
Moreover, if Lawrence-Archer had experienced an earthquake himself he
would not have been so ready to scoff; and the following contemporary
accounts all tend to prove the truth of the monumental inscription. In
the earthquake of 1907 there were many escapes almost as miraculous as
Galdy’s.
In “The Truest and Largest Account of the Earthquake in Jamaica, June
the 7th, 1692, Written by a Reverend Divine there to his friend in
London” (London, 1693) it is stated:
You would admire at the Goodness of God in the Preservation of the
residue; some were very miraculously delivered from death, swallowed
down into the Bowels of the Earth alive and spewed up again, and saved
by the violent Eruption of Water through those Gaps; some (as they say
themselves, if they were alive at that time to know what was done to
them) were swallowed up in one place, and by the rushing of Waters to
and fro by reason of the agitation of the Earth at that time, were
cast up again by another Chasm at places far distant.
This account is corroborated by the contemporary account given by
Captain Crocket, writing from Port Royal on June 30, 1692. He says:
Several People were Swallow’d up of the Earth, when the Sea breaking
in before the Earth could Close, were washed up again and Miraculously
saved from Perishings; Others the Earth received up to their Necks,
and then Closed upon them and squeez’d them to Death; with their Heads
above ground, many of which the Dogs Eat; Multitudes of People
Floating up and down, having no Burial.
Also in “A full Account of the Late Dreadful Earthquake at Port Royal in
Jamaica, Written in two Letters from the Minister of that Place”
(London, 1692), we read:
But no place suffered like Port Royal; where whole Streets were
swallowed up by the opening Earth, and the Houses and Inhabitants went
down together, some of them were driven up again by the Sea, which
arose in those breaches and wonderfully escaped; some were swallowed
up to the Neck, and then the Earth shut upon them, and squeezed them
to death; and in that manner several are left buried with their Heads
above ground, and some Heads the Dogs have eaten, others are covered
with Dust and Earth by the people which yet remain in the Place to
avoid the stench.
Also in a letter, dated Jamaica, September 20, 1692, quoted by Sir Hans
Sloane:
The Earth when it opened up and swallowed up people, they rose in
other streets, some in the middle of the Harbour, and yet saved;
though at the same time I believe there was lost about 2000 Whites and
Blacks.
Elsewhere in the same letter it says:
She [the anonymous writer’s wife] told me when she felt the House
shake, she run out, and called all within to do the same: She was no
sooner out but the Sand lifted up; and her Negro Woman grasping about
her, they both dropped into the Earth together; and at the same
Instant the Water coming in rowled them over and over, till at length
they catched hold of a beam, where they hung, till a Boat came from a
Spanish Vessel and took them up.
And again, in a letter of July 3, 1693, “Some were swallowed quite down,
and cast up again by great Quantities of Water; others went down and
were never more seen. These were the smallest openings: Others that were
more large swallowed up great Houses, and out of some gapings would
issue great Rivers of Water, spouted up a great height into the Air,
which seemed to threaten a Deluge to that part of Port-Royal.”
But the most detailed account of all is given in “A Natural History of
Nevis and the rest of the English Leeward Charibee Islands in America.
With many other Observations on Nature and Art. In Eleven Letters from
the Rev. Mr. Smith, sometime Rector of St. John’s, at Nevis, and now
Rector of St. Mary’s in Bedford; to the Rev. Mr. Mason, B.D.,
Woodwardian Professor, and Fellow of Trinity College, in Cambridge,
1745.”
One Mrs. Akers of Nevis was a native of Port Royal in Jamaica, and
lived there in the year of our Lord 1692, when the great earthquake
made such a dismal havoc and destruction, as will hardly ever be
forgotten by the inhabitants of that Island. She told me, ‘That the
earth opened wide, swallowed her with many others, and then
immediately closed up again’; she said she was in a state of
insensibility during her short stay there. It could not exceed the
tenth part of a minute before it opened once more to vomit some of
them up again. I asked her what might be her thoughts of the matter
just the moment before the Earth swallowed her down; and she answered,
that imagining herself upon the brink of a boundless Eternity, she put
up a short ejaculation to Almighty God, begging him to pardon her
Sins, and to receive her Soul. The Hiatus she fell into was all Water,
so that being very wet she received no other harm, excepting in one of
her Cheeks, which grated a little against something that did but just
draw blood. This water Hiatus closed again the next moment, catching
hold of some people by a Leg, of others by the middle of the Body, and
of others some by the Arm &c., detaining them in dismal torture, but
immovably fixed in the ground, till they, with almost the whole Town
besides, sunk under Water; which happen’d within three minutes after
she had got safe on board a Ship then riding at anchor in the Harbour.