=Lawrencefield= is said to have been the residence of Sir Henry Morgan,
governor of Jamaica (1673–82). =St. Jago Farm= is said to be the site of
the residence of Sasi, the last of the Spanish Governors. =Government
Pen= was the residence of former governors, and is frequently mentioned
in Lady Nugent’s “Journal.” At Caymanas is an Arawâk kitchen-midden·, at
Mountain River, St. John’s, some Arawâk rock-carvings, and at Goat
Island (in Old Harbour Bay) is a cave with Arawâk remains. At Point Hill
are some old barracks which are now used as a police station.
=Keith Hall= is probably named after Sir Basil Keath, governor in
1774–77, and =Sligoville= after Peter, Marquis of Sligo, governor in
1834–36.
III
KINGSTON
That there was a collection of houses on or near the spot where Kingston
now stands, some years before its formation into a town and parish, is
evident, but it is also evident that Gardner’s application of the name
to “the little village of Kingston” in 1673 is based on imagination. In
the map of Jamaica in “The English Pilot” of 1689 in the inset of “the
draft of the Harbor of Port Royal” is marked Liganea, with seven small
houses and one larger one where Kingston now is, and one larger one
half-way to The Rock.
In the “Present State of Jamaica,” published in 1683, occurs the
following description of the village:—“At Liguania, the inside of the
harbour, opposite to Port Royal, about two leagues, is several houses,
some of them very handsome, and well built, which place in time is like
to become a pretty town.”
On the map which accompanies the “State of Jamaica under Sir Thomas
Lynch” (included in the “Laws of Jamaica,” published in London in 1684)
the place where Kingston now stands is marked “Beeston.” The original
owner of the land was Colonel Samuel Barry, who patented it in 1664 and
later sold it to (Sir) William Beeston, who, coming to Jamaica in 1660,
represented Port Royal in the first House of Assembly, and was
lieutenant-governor of the island from 1693 to 1700, and Governor till
1702: but there is on the map a mark for a “towne” on the harbour to the
west, between “Beeston” and Hunt’s Bay, where Greenwich now is.
The site of Kingston was not the first chosen by the English for the
commercial capital of the island. Port Royal, as we have seen,
flourished as such until 1692, in which year occurred the great
earthquake which destroyed that place and caused the death of 3000 of
its inhabitants. That dealt it a fearful blow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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