Joseph Teasdale; and I. Robertson & Co.’s: bottom of Peter’s Lane.
Burnett, Stirling & Co.; and W. Cleland’s: bottom of Orange Street.
Cowgill & Co.’s; between Orange Street and Luke Lane.
Henry West & Co.; and Donaldson, Forbes, Grant & Stewart’s: bottom of
Luke Lane.
Dick, McCall & Co.’s: between Luke Lane and Princess Street.
Shaw, Holy & Co.; and Lindo & Brothers’: bottom of Princess Street.
Ordnance; and R. Sutherland & Co.’s: bottom of Matthew’s Lane.
W. B. Bryan & Co.; and Fairclough & Barnes’s: bottom of West Street.
Dick, McCall & Co.’s Lumber Wharf: next on the Westward; and further
on.
Liddle & Rennie’s.
IV
ST. ANDREW
The parish of St. Andrew was originally called Liguanea, and the name
still lingers round the plain. It now consists of what before the
passing of law 20 of 1867 comprised the parish of Port Royal and the
parish of St. Andrew, less the parts known as Smith’s Village, Hannah’s
Town, Fletcher’s Town, and the town of Port Royal. There are no towns in
St. Andrew; the principal villages being Halfway Tree, Gordon Town and
Stony Hill.
The earliest known reference to Halfway Tree on record occurs in the
minutes of the Council of January 4, 1696, when “the Governor acquainted
the Board that he had been informed that Mr. Redman Maccragh, Mr. Henry
Archbold, and others had assembled together att halfeway tree in the
parish of St. Andrews and had obleiged severall of His Majesty’s
subjects passing that way to drink a health to the late K. James, which
was lookt upon by the Board to be a great misdemeanour,” and it was
ordered that all persons concerned should appear before the Board the
next Council day; but this apparently they discreetly abstained from
doing.
It derives its name from a cotton tree dating from the conquest, which
existed as late as 1866. Richard Hill, in an article which was published
posthumously in the “Victoria Quarterly” in 1890, said:
“I visited Halfway Tree on Sunday the 25th November, 1866. When I
first saw the cotton tree at the junction of the four roads through
the plain of Liguanea from which Halfway Tree receives its name, it
had nearly lived out its time. It is of that lofty straight-stemmed
variety of Eriondendron which originally growing among some clustering
trees had overtopped them and had spread its horizontal arms out above
them at about some fifty or sixty feet in elevation from the root.
Four or five of these arms yet remained with a few scattering stems on
which a few straggling leaves vegetated. An age of surface rains
rushing to the sea three miles away had removed all the soluble earth
from the platform roots, so that they made arched resting places,
where the marketers coming from the mountains would rest themselves in
groups for they had reached the Halfway Tree.... At the time of the
conquest of the island 200 years ago, the Halfway Tree was one of
those tall and solitary cotton trees of the Liguanea Plain.”
It is to be regretted that no illustration exists of this interesting
tree, which has perished since Hill wrote. It stood near the present
church, where the original road (now known as the old Pound Road) going
from Passage Fort, the landing-place from Port Royal, direct towards the
mountains, was cut by the road that went from Spanish Town to the plain
of St. Andrew.
Long the historian says: “The village of Halfway Tree is situated ... at
the intersection of the three roads which lead to Spanish Town, St.
Mary, and St. George,” and this probably is the origin of the name.
The ascription of the name to the half-way position for the troops
between Greenwich on the Harbour and Stony Hill is evidently wrong, as
the troops were not placed at Stony Hill till 1799.
The =Old Burial-Ground, Halfway Tree=, is the name usually given to the
disused graveyard on the road between King’s House and the Constant
Spring road, where the Waterloo road crosses it on its way to the foot
of the hills. Standing on land falling away towards Sandy Gully, it is
said to be the site of the first church erected by the English in St.
Andrew, one of the seven parishes into which the island was originally
divided by Sir Thomas Modyford in 1664; but there are now no evidences
of the foundations to be seen.
In 1682 Sir Thomas Lynch sent home to the Bishop of London a detailed
account of “this infant church” in Jamaica. Of Halfway Tree he wrote:
“On the north side of Port Royal harbour lies St. Andrews, where Mr.
Cellier, a Swiss, is minister. It is the pleasantest part of the Island,
with an ordinary church and a pretty parsonage house. The minister has
£100 a year, he is an honest man and well beloved. Colonel Beeston can
tell you about him.”
The second church was erected near where the present fabric stands; the
foundation stone being laid on January 12, 1686, according to the
following extract from the early vestry minutes:—“1686, January 12,
Prayers at the old church and a sermon from Gen. ch. 28, v. 16, 17. The
first brick of the new church laid by the Rev. Mr. Zeller, the second by
Col. Sam. Barry.” The building of this church had evidently been
contemplated for some time, a previous entry, under date July 28, 1684,
reading “Agree about building the new intended Church.” James Zellers, a
Swiss by birth, came out to Jamaica in 1664 and was at once appointed to
St. Andrew, which parish he served for thirty-six years. Colonel Barry,
who owned Cavaliers, was one of the largest landowners in the parish.
The second church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1692. In “The
Truest and Largest Account of the Late Earthquake in Jamaica ... written
by a Reverend Divine there ... London, 1693,” it is thus referred to:
“From thence it is but a short way to _Ligania_, the first and principal
place for Planting, (whereunto my own parish is immediately the next)
which for the most part imitating, if not Exceeding the stateliness of
Port Royal, is now, together with its fine New Built and not yet
finished Church, buried in the same Ruines with the Houses.” This old
ground was used for interment long after the present church was built;
in fact, as late as 1862.
The registers of the church of St. Andrew at Halfway Tree, dating back
to 1666, are the oldest in the island. They contain many records of
interest. Unfortunately, the entries for the early years are only a
transcript of about the middle of the eighteenth century, the same
handwriting extending to the year 1741. The first entry of baptism
extant is that of Grace, daughter of Edward Onion, under date June 10,
1666. The earliest marriage is that of John Wilson and Anne Zeale on
June 7, 1666; and the first death Arabella Joanes, on July 4, 1666.
Amongst those who lie in the old burial-ground are George Bennett, of
Dorsetshire family, “who came here a soldier under General Venables”;
Henry Dakins, who died in 1683; Major Samuel Guy, who died in 1736; and
“Edward, the soven (_sic_) of William and Anne Beeston, who dyed this
5th day of August, 1678, being above the age of ... months,” and “Henry
the sonne of William and Anne Beeston who dyed the first day of May,
1677, being about the age of 14 months.”
[Illustration:
HALFWAY-TREE CHURCH IN 1906
]
Sir William Beeston was governor of Jamaica from 1693 to 1701. His
daughter Jane married firstly Sir Thomas Modyford, the fifth and last
baronet, and secondly, Charles Long, of Longville, son of Samuel Long
who came out with Penn and Venables as secretary to Cromwell’s
Commission, and rose to fame. With his friend Beeston, Samuel Long was
sent home a prisoner by the Earl of Carlisle, but they successfully
vindicated the privileges of Jamaica. Edward Long, the historian of
Jamaica, was grandson of Charles and Jane Long.
The wall of the churchyard no doubt dates from early in the eighteenth
century, as appears by a further extract from the vestry minutes, under
date “1706, February”: “Ordered that both these churchyards [the new and
the old] be walled in.”
The vestry minutes are copied from a reference in the “Morning Journal”
of June 18, 1858, contributed by Mr. Livingston.
The =Parish Church of St. Andrew=, commonly known as Halfway Tree
church, is, after the cathedral at Spanish Town, the most interesting,
from an historic point of view, of all the churches in the colony.
The vestry lost no time in rebuilding after the earthquake had destroyed
the first church, for we learn from the vestry minutes, under date July
5, 1692; “Ordered that a new church be forthwith built on the church
land at Halfway Tree of the figure of the late new church, and a house
for the Minister 50 feet front from out to out, 16 feet wide from in to
in, 9 feet high a brick and half thick.”
The building was apparently so far completed as to receive monuments on
its walls by the following March, for that is the date of the one which
records the death of Frances, wife of Sir Nicholas Lawes, a successful
planter, and a wise and beneficent governor in times of great
misfortune. Lawes himself was buried in the church of the parish, the
interests of which he did much to further, but his tomb is not now to be
found. His name still lives in Laws street, Kingston.
The following further extracts from the vestry minutes are interesting:
“1697, order for building a Vestry room and hanging the Bell”; “1699,
April 29, Bargain about a Steeple”; “... December 22, Order for pewing
the Church.”
The church was finally completed in 1700. In 1701 Sir William Beeston
and his wife gave, as we have seen, a site in Kingston for the erection
of a church in that town, and in the year following, namely, on January
13, 1702, the Vestry of St. Andrew ordered “That the benches belonging
to the church be given to Kingston for the use of their church.” On
October 25, 1703, it was ordered “that the tyles be taken off the roof
of the church, and that it be covered with shingles instead thereof”;
and in 1705 that the ceiling, &c., be plaistered. Richard Hill is
probably in error in saying that “the then existing church shattered and
blown down in the hurricane of 1712 and 1722 was succeeded by the
present edifice,” but one’s later day experience of hurricane and
earthquake have shown that these and the work of “restorers” make sad
havoc of the historic evidence offered by monumental inscriptions. In
1685 it was decided to order a communion service from England, but the
oldest chalice and flagon in the church bear the date 1700, and the
mark, B.O., of John Boddington (who made a communion flagon which is at
North Cerney in Gloucestershire).
On June 9, 1741, the churchwardens were ordered to send to Great Britain
for a “Pulpit Cloth with Cushions and other necessary ornaments for the
Pulpit, Reading Desk, and Communion Table, of crimson, with a plain gold
fringe, and six dozen hassocks.” The edifice was somewhat damaged in the
hurricane of October 20, 1744; and on November 3 following the
churchwardens were ordered to agree with workmen to put the church
immediately in repair and secure the windows with substantial shutters
on the outside. In 1760 orders were given for the importation of an
organ, and on July 1, 1762, Messrs. Freeman and Dixper were employed to
take down the old organ and to put up and tune the new one for £80.
For many years the church remained, as it was built, a plain
unattractive structure, by men who had the fear of earthquake and
hurricane before them. In 1879–80 extensive restorations were carried
out; the Campbell memorial chancel was added, extensions were made to
the north and south ends of the transept, and at the west end so as to
connect nave and tower, and the ceiling was removed.
In 1904, in order to provide extra accommodation, a south chancel aisle,
designed with deep-mullioned, unglazed window-openings, so as to exclude
sunlight and yet admit fresh air, was added in memory of the late
rector, the Rev. H. H. Isaacs. And in 1909 extensive repairs, involving
the pulling down of the shattered tower, the space occupied by which was
thrown into the nave, were rendered necessary by the earthquake of 1907.
The first rector, James Zellers, was appointed to St. Andrew on June 9,
1664, and since that date the parish has been served by but sixteen
rectors, giving an average of upwards of fifteen years for each
incumbent—not a bad record for a “pestilential climate,” as that of
Jamaica was formerly called.
In this connection it is of interest to note that a recent member of the
congregation worshipped in the church for upwards of seventy years, for
a large part of which time he was verger. Stephen Dale, who was born in
the parish of Manchester in or about 1806, came to St. Andrew as a slave
on Cassia Park, a property near the church, when a young man, and lived
in Halfway Tree till his death. Though pensioned as verger in 1896, he
still, to the advanced age of 106, in 1912, played his part in
collecting the offertory at the Sunday services, and performed other
duties in connection with the church. He remembered that he was
thirty-two years of age at the time of Emancipation.
Of the monuments by far the most interesting from an art point of view
is that formerly on the south wall of the chancel, now on the north wall
of the nave, to =James Lawes=. One of the best pieces of iconic
sculpture in the island, it is by John Cheere (miscalled Sheere by
Lawrence-Archer), the brother of Sir Henry Cheere (b. 1703, d. 1781), at
first a pupil of Sheemakers, and afterwards employer and instructor of
Roubiliac.
Sir Henry Cheere was the chief of the statuaries of his time, working in
marble, bronze, and lead to meet the demand for garden decoration. He
executed numerous monuments for Westminster Abbey. In 1760 he was chosen
by the County of Middlesex to present a congratulatory address to the
King on his accession. Knighted on that occasion, he was created a
baronet six years later. In 1755 he drew up the first proposals for the
formation of the Royal Academy. All we are told of John Cheere is that
he was “also a statuary and probably a partner in his brother’s works.”
Of James Lawes almost all there is to tell is stated in Latin on his
handsome monument. He was baptized in 1697, married in 1720, and was
member of the house of Assembly for St. Andrew in 1721, and for Vere in
1722. He was called up to the council in 1725. He died in 1733. He had a
dormant commission, but never acted as governor. His widow re-married,
in 1742, William Home, eighth Earl of Home, governor of Gibraltar. His
epitaph, translated, runs as follows:
In this neighbourhood lie the remains of the Hon. James Lawes: he was
the first-born son of Sir Nicholas Lawes, the Governor of this island,
by his wife Susanna Temple: he married Elizabeth, the only daughter
and heiress of William Gibbon, Esquire: then in early manhood, when
barely thirty-six years of age, he obtained almost the highest
position of distinction amongst his countrymen, being appointed
Lieutenant-Governor by royal warrant; but before he entered on his
duties, in the prime of life—alas!—he died on the 29th day of
December, A.D. 1733.
In him we lose an upright and honoured citizen, a faithful and
industrious friend, a most affectionate husband, a man who was just
and kind to all, and distinguished by the lustre of genuine religion.
His wife who survived him had this tomb erected to perpetuate the
memory of a beloved husband.
His arms are painted on the monument: “Or, on a chief azure, three
estoiles of eight points or. On an escutcheon of pretence, or, a lion
rampant sable debruised of a bend gules charged with three escallops,
or.”
He was probably born at Temple Hall, where his father, governor of the
colony from 1718 till 1722, introduced towards the close of his life, in
1728, the coffee plant into the island. His mother was a daughter of
Thomas Temple, of Francton, Warwickshire, and Temple Hall, in St.
Andrew, sister of “La Belle Temple,” of de Grammont (wife of Sir Charles
Lyttelton, governor of Jamaica), and widow of Samuel Bernard, speaker of
the Assembly. She was the fourth of Sir Nicholas Lawes’s five wives, all
widows when he married them.
Other interesting monuments in the church are those to Zachary Bayly,
uncle and patron of Bryan Edwards, the historian, who wrote his flowery
epitaph typical of the time; to Admiral Davers, who was one of the
principal actors in the quarrel between Sir Chaloner Ogle and the
governor, Trelawny, an echo of the jealousy of Wentworth and Vernon,
which was a factor in their deplorable failure at Cartagena; and to
General Villettes (by Sir Richard Westmacott), commander of the forces
and lieutenant-governor, to whom there is a mural tablet in Westminster
Abbey; and in the churchyard is the monument of Christopher Lipscomb,
first bishop of Jamaica.
The earliest dated tomb is that to Edward Harrison, of the year 1695.
The latest monuments of importance erected in the church are those in
memory of Sir James Fergusson, who was killed in Kingston by the
earthquake of 1907, and lies buried in the churchyard; and a brass
tablet to the memory of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a former governor.
The number of naval men buried here is somewhat remarkable for an inland
church: Admiral Davers (d. 1746), Dr. Charles Mackglashan, R.N. (d.
1834), Commodores Pring (d. 1846), Peter McQuhae (d. 1853) and Cracroft
(d. 1865), Admiral Holmes (d. 1761), Captains Renton (d. 1747–8),
Shortland (d. 1827) and Morrish (d. 1861).
Amongst military men are General William Anne Villettes (d. 1808),
Lieut.-Col. Augustus Frederick Ellis (d. 1841), Lieut.-Col. Charles
Markham (d. 1842), and Major-General Lambert (d. 1848).
The old chandelier, at the west end, dating from the year 1706, the gift
of Nicholas Lawes, is a good example of English brass work of that
period. The copy of the royal arms, also at the west end, dates from the
time of Queen Anne, as the initials A. R. testify. The tattered flags of
the 3rd West India Regiment told of a time when there were more
battalions than there are now. Laid up on the disbandment of the
regiment in 1870, they were on July 31, 1912, removed from the church to
the recently erected garrison chapel at Up-Park Camp.
The registers contain many records of interest. In the early years occur
the well-known names of Brayne, Beeston, Barry, Elletson and Lawes.
Between 1671 and 1691 Colonel Samuel Barry had four children baptized;
Colonel William Beeston, five; and Roger Elletson (who married Anne Hope
on May 6, 1680), six.
The Robert Beckford who, on June 6, 1688, married Anne Prenyard, must
have been a member of the well-known family, possibly a brother of
Colonel Peter Beckford, the president of the council.
Amongst the baptisms are recorded those of Robert Charles Dallas, the
author of “The History of the Maroons,” on Christmas day, 1756; of
William, son of Lieut.-Col. John Dalling, afterwards governor of the
island, in 1771; and of Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Despouches
and Sir Hyde Parker, vice-admiral of the red, in 1797.
Slaves were often baptized _en bloc_. In 1780 four negroes “the property
of the Dutchess of Chandos” were baptized on February 8. On May 5, 1790,
five slaves, the property of Simon Taylor, the wealthiest man of his
time, were baptized; and on September 9, 1803, eighteen slaves on Mona
estate; and on July 15, 1815, twenty-nine male adults, twenty-seven
female adults, eight male and nine female children slaves were baptized
on Fair Hill plantation.
The good people of Kingston not infrequently came to St. Andrew to be
married, _e.g._, on September 12, 1792, Robert Hibbert, Esq., Jun., of
the parish of Kingston, married Elizabeth Jane Nembhard, of the same
parish. Another interesting marriage that took place in St. Andrew was
that of Philip Livingston of Kingston, merchant (the eldest son of
Philip Livingston, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
of the United States in 1776), to Sarah Johnson, of the parish of St.
Andrew, on June 29, 1768. Apparently, also, sometimes burial services
were conducted in St. Andrew prior to entombment elsewhere. Under date
November 5, 1702, is recorded the death of “Admiral John Bembo,” whose
tombstone is in Kingston parish church. He had died at Port Royal on
November 4. There is an old tradition that Benbow was buried at
Greenwich, then a naval station on the harbour to the west of Kingston.
This would be compatible with the entry in the Halfway Tree register, as
Greenwich was and is in the parish of St. Andrew; but James Knight, who
was member for Kingston in 1722 and following years, says, in a
manuscript history of Jamaica in the British Museum, “He was buried the
day following [his death] in the church at Kingston, greatly lamented by
all ranks of people.” It is strange, therefore, that his burial should
be recorded in the register of St. Andrew. It may be that when two
rectors took part in the burial service each recorded it.
Amongst other interesting items in the burials we read: “1772, Nov. 6,
Mrs. Clies, mother-in-law to Sir George Bridges Rodney, Bart.” She was
the mother of Rodney’s second wife, Henrietta. Her husband was John
Clies, of Lisbon.
The following is a complete list of the rectors of the parish:
July 1664 to 25th May 1700 Rev. James Zellers
1700 to 5th July 1710 Rev. John Moodie
1710 to 22nd Oct. 1714 Rev. George Wright
1714 to 25th March 1738 Rev. John Carey
1738 to 26th April 1747 Rev. Alexander Inglis
1747 to 25th Oct. 1760 Rev. George Eccles
1760 to 13th April 1768 Rev. Gideon Castelfranc
1768 to 1782 Rev. John Pool, LL.B.
1782 to May 1813 Rev. John Campbell
1813 to 8th Dec. 1858 Rev. Alexander Campbell, M.A.
1858 to 1860 Ven. Archdeacon Richard Panton, D.D.
January 1861 to 1870 Rev. William Mayhew, M.A.
October 1870 to August 1872 Rev. George Taylor Braine, B.A.
August 1872 to Oct. 1878 Ven. Archdeacon Duncan Houston
Campbell, M.A.
March 1879 to 22nd Sept. 1900 Rev. Hubert Headland Isaacs M.A.
January 1901 Rev. Edward Jocelyn Wortley
[Illustration:
KING EDWARD’S CLOCK TOWER
]
Amongst interesting houses are =Lundie’s Pen=, Halfway Tree, a typical
eighteenth-century Jamaica house, but altered after the earthquake of
1907—it bears date September 3, 1767. =King’s House=, which was formerly
the residence of the Bishop of Jamaica, was purchased for £5000 as an
official residence of the governor, on the removal of the seat of
government to Kingston in 1872. A dining-hall and ballroom were added
later. It was wrecked by the earthquake of 1907, and was rebuilt in 1909
from designs by Sir Charles Nicholson. In it are two full-length
portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds of George III and Queen Charlotte,
copies of the portraits which were painted in 1779 and for which
Reynolds received £420. Reynolds made it a condition of his acceptance
of the presidentship of the Royal Academy that he should be allowed to
paint portraits of the king and queen. The portraits were presented to
the Royal Academy by the king. Thirteen pairs of copies were painted.
Copies are in the possession of the Earl of Malmesbury at Heron Court;
at the Viceregal Lodge, Dublin; at Hatfield House; at Cobham Hall; at
Knole; the Senior United Service Club, London; and the Cutlers’ Company;
and the pair mentioned above at Jamaica. The king is seated in his
robes, with the sceptre in his right hand; in the background are a
canopy and the aisles of Westminster Abbey. The queen is seated on a
throne, with a sceptre on a cushion in front. She is clad in a
gold-embroidered dress, with lace sleeves, and ermine train and robe.
At Halfway is =King Edward’s Clock Tower=, erected as a memorial by
public subscription in 1913.
The =Stony Hill Barracks= (dating from 1799) are now used as an
Industrial School. In 1844 they were unoccupied, and the Assembly
suggested that they should form a lodging for the convicts which, it was
proposed, should tunnel Stony Hill. Amongst the tombs is one to the
memory of an officer of the York Chasseurs who fell in a duel in 1818.