At =Dryland=, near Woodside, is an example of Arawâk rock-carving
(illustrated in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” vol. ii, No.
4). =Fort Haldane=, situated on a cliff above the coast on Gray’s
Charity, a mile west of Port Maria, is named after General George
Haldane, Governor in 1759. =Prospect=, near White River, is an old
loopholed house, a good example of Jamaica architecture; and =Heywood
Hall= was the scene of a fight between Koromantyn slaves and the white
inhabitants of St. Mary, who defeated them, in 1760.
As early as Slaney’s map of 1678 there was a =Christopher’s Cove= in St.
Mary in addition to Don Christopher’s Cove in St. Ann.
VIII
ST. ANN
The parish of St. Ann is rich in associations with the aboriginal
inhabitants, the Spaniards, and with the early history of the British
occupation of the colony. It was in St. Ann that Columbus discovered
Jamaica; it was in St. Ann that he spent a twelvemonth while waiting for
help from Hispaniola; it was in St. Ann, at Ocho Rios, that two
engagements of note with the Spaniards were fought; it was from St. Ann
that the last remnants of the Spaniards left the island, while the last
battle of importance was fought at Rio Nuevo in St. Mary, but a few
miles across the border.
A kitchen midden of peculiar interest was opened up in 1912, situated at
the top of the hill, some 980 feet high, on which stands the great house
of =Liberty Hall=, commanding a view from Seville, the old Spanish
settlement, on the west, to Port Maria on the east, and overlooking the
little creek to the east of St. Ann’s Bay, known as Don Christopher’s
Cove, where Columbus spent twelve weary months, from June 1503 to June
1504. The thick foliage must in those days, however, have precluded any
more than mere peeps at that sea over which the dreaded Caribs might at
any moment arrive.
It is highly probable that the Liberty Hill Arawâks supplied Columbus
and his companions with food while he lived on board ship in the creek
some three miles distant, into which the Spanish Lookout river runs,
through land which afterwards became Drax Hall property and whence
Beckford of “Vathek” fame later obtained much of the wealth he spent
lavishly at his Gothic residence in Somerset. It is possible that some
of the pottery recently dug up by the turn of the fork may have been
used to cook this food, and it is conceivable that some of the vessels
may have been handled by the great discoverer himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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