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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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