Rise, Progress and Termination of the Maroon War.” Accounts of the
Maroons will also be found in the histories of Long (to whom Edwards
owns his indebtedness) and Bridges. The story of the Maroon War, from a
military point of view, is told in the 7th chapter of the “History of
the 17th Lancers,” by the Honourable J. W. Fortescue, and in a briefer
form in the same writer’s “History of the British Army.” “The Maroon,”
the work of the well-known novelist, Captain Mayne Reid (first published
in 1862), described a sugar estate named “Welcome Hall” near Montego
Bay, and a neighbouring pen, and the scene is laid entirely in St. James
and Trelawny. The time is shortly anterior to the passing of the
Emancipation Act in 1833, and the story, which incidentally imparts much
information about local natural history and social life at the time, is,
as might be expected from its author, full of exciting adventures.
In 1898 Lady Blake contributed an article on “The Maroons of Jamaica” to
the “North American Review.”
The published accounts of the Maroon War are all more or less of a
partisan spirit. Bryan Edwards holds a brief for the planters, Dallas
for the Maroons, the writer of the “Lives of the Lindsays” for
Balcarres, and even Mr. Fortescue shows a slight partiality for Walpole.
An account of the cantonment of Maroon Town in 1848 is given in
“Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars, 97th Regiment,” 1881.
A brief account of the Maroons in Sierra Leone is given in “The Rise of
British West Africa,” by Claude George (1904).
The wife of William Scarlett (the second), who has been alluded to in
the chapter dealing with St. Andrew, had the Lecount estate in the
parish of St. John, which she parted with to Francis Morgan, mariner,
her brother-in-law, he being the husband of her sister Elizabeth. This
William (the second) had a son William, baptized in St. Andrew’s parish
church on January 17, 1711, but he is the only child so recorded. His
(William the second) second son, James Scarlett, had estates in St.
James, which by his will, proved in 1777, he left amongst his eleven
children, and this James’s second son was the Robert Scarlett of
=Duckett’s Spring=, alluded to above.
Robert Scarlett was born in 1737, probably in St. James. He died in
1798, and was buried in Montego Bay on March 18. He owned Duckett’s
Spring, Success estate and Forest pen in St. James. Scarlett’s Hall (not
far from Rose Hall and Palmyra) was a property of the family.
Elizabeth Anglin, daughter of Philip Anglin, of Paradise estate, was
born on June 25, 1747, and married firstly one John Wright, a planter,
who was killed in her presence by revolted slaves in 1763 or 1764, in
the month of March, on the estate of a Mr. Griswold. In 1765 she married
Robert Scarlett, of Duckett’s Spring, and had by him thirteen children,
but only four sons and three daughters survived their father, the four
sons being Philip Anglin Scarlett, custos and member of Assembly for
Hanover from 1816 till his death in 1823; James Scarlett,
“Silver-tongued Scarlett,” afterwards Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer
and first Lord Abinger; Robert Scarlett, M.D. of Edinburgh 1795, member
of the Assembly for St. James in 1803–07, and later of the Council; and
Sir William Anglin Scarlett. Elizabeth Anglin died in 1828 at Montego
Bay, and was buried there on August 28.
Mary, daughter of John Lawrence, and wife of Philip Anglin, of Paradise
estate, was the mother of the above mentioned Elizabeth. She was born in
1713 and died in 1797.
Philip Anglin Scarlett, member of the Assembly for Hanover, was the
eldest son of Robert Scarlett, of Duckett’s Spring, and the owner of
Cambridge estate, where the railway now runs on the way to Montego Bay,
and near the road to Duckett’s.
William Anglin Scarlett was born on June 24, 1777. He died at Grove pen
in Manchester on October 9, 1831, and lies buried at Mandeville. The
following is the inscription on his tombstone: “Here rest the mortal
remains of the Honourable Sir William Scarlett, Knight, ten years Chief
Justice of Jamaica. He died October 9, 1831, aged 54. ‘The memory of the
just is blessed.’” He married in July 1809 Mary, daughter of Joseph
Williams, of Luana estate in the parish of St. Elizabeth; in that year
he was member of the Assembly for St. James. He became chief justice of
Jamaica in 1821. He was knighted in 1829. His widow survived him for one
year, dying at Worthing in Sussex, England, in 1832. In 1823 he presided
over the trial of Augustus Hardin Beaumont, the proprietor of a somewhat
scandalous paper called “The Trifler,” first published in that year, for
a libel on the Governor, the Duke of Manchester. The trial was the first
to take place in the new court house, Kingston, which, wrecked by the
earthquake of 1907, was only pulled down recently. The trial lasted for
fourteen hours, finishing at 12.30 A.M., and ended in a verdict of “Not
Guilty.” On leaving the court house the chief justice and
attorney-general (Burge) were hissed and pelted with stones.
In the rebellion of 1831 the great house and works on both Cambridge and
Duckett’s Spring were destroyed. On the former were 196 slaves, on the
latter 221. At the time of Emancipation nine Scarletts owned properties
in Hanover, Trelawny, St. James, St. Ann, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and
Kingston, with an aggregate of 327 slaves.
At Cambridge is still to be seen a family burial vault. At Duckett’s are
the remains of the works and the great house. The latter was a square
building of stone, with two loopholed circular towers at diagonally
opposite corners. A similar arrangement is observable at The Cottage, on
Cow Park, hard by in Westmoreland.
In the history gallery of the Institute of Jamaica are photographic
reproductions of paintings of five members and connections of the
Scarlett family: Robert Scarlett of Duckett’s Spring, and Elizabeth
Anglin his wife; Mary Anglin, mother of Elizabeth Anglin, and Philip
Anglin Scarlett, the eldest son of Robert; and his fourth son, Sir
William Anglin Scarlett, chief justice of Jamaica. The slave boy who
holds the game bag in the portrait of Robert Scarlett was called Oliver,
and was entailed very strictly on his master’s death.
[Illustration:
ROSE HALL
]
=Grove Hill= house is mentioned in “Tom Cringle’s Log.” =Rose Hall=,
about 10 miles from Montego Bay, is one of the finest examples of
Jamaica architecture of the old time. It was erected in 1760 at a cost
of £30,000 by George Ash, the second husband of Rose Kelly (b. 1724).
Her fourth husband was the Hon. John Palmer. It is said to have been the
scene of a tragedy in the eighteenth century, when the owner, Annie Mary
Paterson, wife of John Rose Palmer, grand-nephew of the Hon. John
Palmer, was murdered by her slaves; but the occurrence more probably
took place at Palmyra hard by. In 1831 the great house at Rose Hall was
unoccupied and one wing had been removed, while a gable end is all that
remains of the other. =Adelphi= (formerly called Stretch and Set) is
said to have been the first spot on the north side at which religious
instruction was given to the slaves. At =Running Gut= estate are
monuments of the Lawrence family, _e.g._ Benjamin Lawrence (d. 1776).
The Lawrences for many years owned property from Little River to Montego
Bay. The last portion was sold in 1910. =Spring Mount= estate has
monuments of the Heath family, and =Catherine Hall= estate has tombs of
Stone, Barnett, Ross, and others. =Cinnamon Hill= is interesting as
being the home of the Barretts and the Moultons, from whom descended the
poetess wife of the poet Robert Browning. =Carlton= formerly belonged to
an old Scottish family, the Gordons of Earlston, well known by readers
of Crockett’s books, and part of the property is still called Earlston.
At =California= and =Williamsfield= are Arawâk kitchen middens; at
=Tryall= an Arawâk kitchen midden and cave, indicating the existence at
one time of an important Indian settlement; and at =Kempshot=, the site
of the observatory of the government meteorologist, there is an Arawâk
rock-carving. =Brandon Hill= has a curious cave; this was the town house
of the Hon. John Palmer, of Rose Hall. There is another cave at =Seven
Rivers=, near Cambridge, with stalactites. =Miranda Hill= has Spanish
remains. =Seaford Town=, in St. James, is named after Lord Seaford, who
there established a settlement of German immigrants from Hanover. Some
account of his family is given in the chapter on St. Mary.
XI
HANOVER
Kingston and Port Royal excepted, Hanover is the smallest parish in area
in the island. When it was formed the Assembly wished to call it St.
Sophia in honour of the mother of George I, but in this it was
overridden by the Council, and the name was chosen with reference to the
reigning family in England. In the “Jamaica Almanac” for 1751 it is
called, German fashion, Hannover.
In the =Church of Lucea= is a monument to Sir Simon Clarke, 7th baronet
(d. 1777) by Flaxman. The inscription runs: “In this church is deposited
the mortal part of Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., who was born in this island
A.D. 1727, and died on the 2nd of November, 1777, having that day
completed his 50th year.” His father, the sixth baronet, represented St.
John in the Assembly in 1731, and St. Mary in 1732 and 1736, and was
called to the Council in 1739. Sir Simon, the seventh baronet,
represented Hanover in the Assembly in 1760 and 1772. By his wife, Anne
Haughton, eldest daughter and co-heir of Philip Haughton, he left two
sons, Philip Haughton and Simon Haughton. Sir Simon Peter, the fifth
baronet, was an officer in the royal navy in 1730, but was transported
for highway robbery to Jamaica, where his uncle held the office of
patent clerk of the Crown.
Martin Rusea, a French refugee, in grateful recollection of the
hospitality manifested towards him on his arrival and settlement in the
colony, left by his will, dated July 23, 1764, all his real and personal
estate, which afterwards realised £4500 currency (£2700 sterling), for
the establishment of a free school in the parish of Hanover.
The devise was disputed, but in 1777 an Act was passed (18 Geo. 3, chap.
18) settling the trust and establishing an undenominational school,
which has been maintained since in Lucea. It is at present situated in
the old barracks, and is known as =Rusea’s School=.
Trinity Chapel, Green Island, has the tomb of Hugh Munro (d. 1829); at
Orange Bay estate is the tomb of Colonel James Campbell (d. 1744) and
others of the family, including one to John Campbell, custos of the
parish (d. 1808, aged 76) “erected by his dutiful and affectionate
nephew, John Blagrove, Esq.,” the John Blagrove, alluded to in the
account of Cardiff Hall, in St. Ann, to whom Campbell owned his
indebtedness for much financial assistance in his will, and to whom he
left his estates under certain conditions. He manumitted certain of his
mulatto slaves and left them money to purchase negroes to assist them in
carrying on their business. In a codicil he states:
It is my will and desire also that the place of my interment should be
about 20 feet in direct line from the front Bow windows of the
Hospital [for the completion of which he made provision] and that a
sun-dial be erected over my grave. The Sun Dial 18 inches in diameter
to be supported by both hands upon the head of a Leaden figure of a
Negro man with a bandage about his waist Kneeling upon the right knee,
placed upon a platform laid with Bristol Flags, six feet square and 18
inches higher than the ground round about, so that it requires three
steps of Bristol Flags six inches high and 18 inches wide to get up to
the platform, and this will effectually prevent the Cattle and Horses
while pasturing from rubbing against it, and putting it out of plumb.
At =Haughton Court Mountain= is the tomb of Christopher Crooks (d.
1762). The tomb of John Pearce is on the parochial road between Hopewell
and Welcome; he was murdered by the slaves of the adjoining estate on
December 30, 1831. =Salt Spring= estate burial-ground has a monument to
John Campbell (d. 1782); =Haughton Court= burial-ground has tombs of
Colonel Richard Haughton (d. 1740), Jonathan Haughton (d. 1767), and
others of the family who came to Jamaica from Barbados; =Fat Hog Quarter
Estate= burial-ground has tombs of Philip Haughton (d. 1765) and others
of the family; and at =Point Estate= burial-ground are tombs of David
Dehaney (d. 1701) and others of the family. =Haughton Hall=, =Rhodes
Hill=, =New-found River= and =Kew= are all places with Arawâk
kitchen-middens. At The Bluff, Round Hill, is a stone to James Reid (d.
1772). =Cousin’s Cove= is interesting as being the property which caused
Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, its present owner, to visit Jamaica in 1914 on
account of a lawsuit connected with it.
=Shettlewood=, originally belonging to an owner of that name, was for
many years, with Montpellier, the property of the Ellis family. In the
closing years of the nineteenth century extensive tobacco-growing
experiments were carried out, but were ultimately abandoned. Both pens
of recent years have had many head of imported Indian cattle placed on
them.
XII
WESTMORELAND
Westmoreland, which became a parish in 1703, was probably so called
because it is the westernmost parish in the colony.
The chief town was formerly called Queen’s Town (now Cross Path) and
contained a church and many inhabitants, but in 1730 Savanna-la-Mar
(“the plain by the sea”) rose into fame.
Its sad fate in the hurricane of 1744 can never be remembered without
horror. “The sea bursting its ancient limits overwhelmed that unhappy
town and swept it to instant destruction, leaving not a vestige of man,
beast, or habitation behind. So sudden and comprehensive was the
stroke,” says Bryan Edwards, “that I think the catastrophe of
Savanna-la-Mar was even more terrible, in many respects, than that of
Port Royal.”
The “Spanish road from Bluefields Bay to Martha Brae, by the head of the
Great River,” as Long wrote, is said to be still in existence.
The old parish =Church of Savanna-la-Mar= was pulled down in 1904 in
order that a new and more suitable building be erected in its place. The
old building took the place of what must have been the first parish
church erected there late in the seventeenth century or early in the
eighteenth century.
The church stood somewhere along the sea beach. It was destroyed in the
storm on October 3, 1780. For some years services were held in a
temporary building, and in 1797 the foundation-stone of the second
church was laid, but it would seem that it was really intended to be a
temporary structure. It was opened for divine service in 1799, so
considering that it was a wooden building it had done good service.
While excavating, the old foundation-stone was discovered, and in it was
inlaid a brass plate in a fine state of preservation, bearing the
following inscription:
Deo Juvante
Hoc primum Saxum
Templi hujus
Parochiæ Westmoriæ
Jamaicensis
Ornatissimus Georgius Murray, Arm.
Custos Rotulorum
(Attendentibus
Multis Parochianis præclaris)
Collocavit
Die quarto Mensis Junii
Natatis Auspicatissimo
Annoque Regni tricesimo Septimo
Georgii Tertii
Salutis humanæ
1797.
Thoma Stewart, Rectore
Hugone Fraser, Architecto
D. G.
C. L. Robertson, Sculpt.
Which may be thus translated:
Thanks be to God, the Hon. George Murray, Esquire, Custos, in the
presence of many distinguished parishioners, laid the foundation-stone
of this Church of the Parish of Westmoreland, in Jamaica, on the
fourth day of June, on the hallowed birthday and in the thirty-seventh
year of the reign of George III, and (in the year) of man’s salvation,
1797. Thomas Stewart, Rector. Hugh Fraser, Architect. To the glory of
God.
C. L. Robertson engraved
[this plate].
The accompanying list copied from an old bible once in the possession of
a former beadle, W. Robertson, gives the following rectors:
Rev. John Dickson From 1739 Died July 23, 1747
Rev. John Pool From 1747 Died Dec. 1766
Rev. Thomas Pollen From 1767 Died 1768
Rev. William Bartholomew, A.M. From July 1768 Died Sept. 15, 1780
Rev. Hanford Left Dec. 1793
Rev. Thomas Stewart From Dec. 17, 1793 To Sept. 15, 1815
Rev. Edmund Pope, LL.D. From Sept. 15, 1815 To July 9, 1820
Rev. James Dawn, A.M. From July 16, 1820 Died Jan. 25, 1822
Rev. W. W. Baynes Left Jan. 25, 1823
Rev. John McIntyre Left Dec. 1, 1827
Rev. Thos. Stewart, D.D. Left Dec. 6, 1847
Rev. Wm. Mayhew, M.A. Left Nov. 13, 1860
Rev. Daniel Fidler, B.D. Died Apr. 11, 1863
Rev. Josias Cork Left Sept. 21, 1870
Rev. Henry Clarke } To Oct. 1872
Rev. Edward Clarke }
Rev. Henry Clarke Till April 1894
Archdeacon Henderson
Davis, F.K.C. Died Jan. 1915
The new building is a stone structure with a clerestory of wood. It is
in length 105 ft. 3 in.; width 56 ft., with an apse 13 ft. 6 in. by 23
ft. It is dedicated to St. George. The foundation-stone was laid on St.
George’s Day, 1903, and the building was consecrated St. George’s Day,
1904.
Where =Bluefields= now stands once stood probably the township of
Oristan, one of the three principal early “cities” formed by the
Spaniards in Jamaica, named after a town in Sardinia when that island
was under the crown of Spain. Except for Sevilla (St. Ann’s Bay),
Bluefields was the only town mentioned in the description of Jamaica
supplied by Gage to Cromwell. It was connected by road with Mellila
(near Montego Bay) on the north, and with Esquivel (Old Harbour) to the
east. It had been deserted by the founders as a place of settlement
prior to 1655, although it was adopted as a temporary place of residence
by a number of Spaniards in 1657, before they were finally driven off
the island. Of it Blome writes in his “Description of the Island of
Jamaica, with other Isles and Territories in America” (1672):—
“_Orista_ reguards the _South-Sea_, in which are many _Rocks_, and
amongst their _Banks_, some _Isles_, as _Servavilla_, _Quitosvena_ and
_Serrana_, where _Augustin Pedro Serrano_ lost his _Vessel_, and saved
onely himself, and here in a solitary and lone Condition passed away 3
Yeares; at the end of which time he had the company of a _Marriner_
for 4 _Years_ more, that was likewise there _Ship-wrackt_, and also
alone saved himself.”
The Serrano above mentioned was a Spanish hidalgo, a passenger in one of
the plate fleets during the reign of Charles V, whose ship was wrecked
on the island. When, after his sojourn there, he reached Spain, Serrano
was sent into Germany to tell his experiences to the Emperor, who gave
him an order on the mines of Peru for four thousand eight hundred
ducats, but he died on his way to Panama.
Ruins of Oristan existed when Leslie wrote in 1739. In the Assembly
convened in October 1664, Bluefields was represented by James Perkman
and Christopher Pinder; but at the next election (January, 1671–72) the
district was called St. Elizabeth.
Whether Bluefields owes its name, as does its namesake Blewfields in
Nicaragua, to the use made of it by Bleevelt, the buccaneer, is merely
conjecture. In the map accompanying Blome’s “Description of Jamaica” it
is called Blew Fields.
In later days Bluefields has been chiefly noted as the temporary home of
the celebrated naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, well known as the inventor
of the marine aquarium, whose writings have done much to bring the
charms of Jamaica to the notice of students of natural history. While on
the one hand he was, as Huxley called him, an “honest hodman of
science,” on the other the unacademic freshness of his early habit of
mind, which met with the hearty approval of Darwin and Owen, remained
through life, and gave, as his son points out in his Life, its pleasant
tincture to all his subsequent works; and this is especially noticeable
in his “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” “one of the most valuable and best
written of his books.” He was not a true biologist; his real work in
life was the practical study of animal forms in detail, and his chief
attempts at theorising, “Life” and “Omphalos,” were failures. In these
days of nature study it may be interesting to quote the following
passage from the preface to the “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” written more
than half a century ago:
That alone is worthy to be called _Natural History_, which
investigates and records the condition of living things, of things in
a state of nature; if animals, of _living_ animals:—which tells of
their “sayings and doings,” their varied notes and utterances, songs
and cries; their actions, in ease and under the pressure of
circumstances; their affections and passions towards their young,
towards each other, towards other animals, towards man; their various
arts and devices to protect their progeny, to procure food, to escape
from their enemies, to defend themselves from attacks; their ingenious
resources for concealment; their stratagems to overcome their victims;
their modes of bringing forth, of feeding and of training their
offspring; the relations of their structure to their wants and habits;
the countries in which they dwell; their connexion with the inanimate
world around them, mountain or plain, forest or field, barren heath or
bushy dell, open savannah or wild hidden glen, river, lake or
sea:—this would be indeed _zoology_, _i.e._ the science of _living_
creatures.
Dr. Duerdon, in his article on Gosse, which appeared in the “Journal of
the Institute of Jamaica” in 1899, says:
There is no writer who has thrown such a charm around the natural
history of Jamaica, or who has contributed in the same degree to make
known the various representatives of its topical fauna, as Philip
Henry Gosse. Probably no other country possesses such a strictly
accurate and entertaining account of the nature and activities of its
leading animals, such as they were fifty years ago, as is found in the
pages of “A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica.” With its minute and
attractively written observations and descriptions of almost
everything which could appeal to the eye of a naturalist, Gosse has
accomplished for Jamaica what Gilbert White, in his letters of last
century, performed for Selborne.
Born in 1810, Gosse was from 1827 to 1835 in an office in Newfoundland;
from 1835 to 1838 in Canada. In 1836 he wrote his “Entomology of
Newfoundland” (which still remains unpublished); after a sojourn in
Canada and Alabama he returned to England in 1839 and sold the MS. of
his “Canadian Naturalist,” which had been written on his homeward
voyage. He published his “Introduction of Zoology” in 1843. In 1844 he
started for Jamaica, where he remained for eighteen months at Bluefields
as the paying guest of a Moravian minister and his wife, and collected
and sent home specimens of many rare animals. In 1847 he published his
“Birds of Jamaica,” and in 1849 a folio volume of plates in
illustration. In 1851 he produced his “Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica,”
in which he was much assisted by Richard Hill, one of Jamaica’s most
talented sons. Several other works followed and added to his reputation.
In 1856 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, to the
Transactions of which he contributed numerous papers. He died in 1888,
after many years of seclusion, at St. Mary’s Church, Devonshire. Gosse’s
main purpose in visiting Jamaica was the collection, for dealers at
home, of the animals and plants, particularly in such popular groups as
insects, birds, shells and orchids. That he was an eminently successful
collector in every department may be gathered from the number of objects
which he gives in the “Sojourn,” namely: “Mammalia, 41 specimens; Birds,
1510; Reptiles, 102; Fishes, 94; Nests and Eggs, 34; Shells (marine),
1276; (terrestrial and fluviatile), about 1850; Crustacea, 100; Insects
(including Arachnida and Myriapoda), about 7800; Echinodermata, 57;
Zoophytes, &c., 42; Sponges, 550; Dried plants, about 5000; Living
plants (Orchideæ), about 800; Bulbs and Suckers, 932; Cacti, 32; Ferns,
222; other Living Plants and Young Trees, &c., 117; large Capsules and
Seed-vessels, 383; Seeds of Flowering Plants, 170 packets; Palm seeds,
14 boxes; Gums, 24 specimens; Woods, 50 blocks.”
The Bluefields of to-day differs but little from its condition of fifty
years ago. The actual property to which the name is applied was in
Gosse’s time in a very advanced ruinate condition, having been thrown up
as an estate years before. When he was there the prospect of planters
was by no means bright. “In 1844,” he says, “the beautiful sugar estates
throughout the Island were half desolate, and the planters had either
ceased to reside in their mansions or had pitifully retrenched their
expenses.”