JAMAICA, DAY 3: GREENWOOD GREAT HOUSE AND FALMOUTH

February 17, 2023

Bob got up early for a morning of bird watching, and I slept in until 7:30. The hotel included a breakfast buffet with boiled bananas and sweet potatoes, fish hash, some bread-like items I don't know the names for, scrambled eggs, sausage, and French toast. It was all good, and the view of Montego Bay made it taste even better.  Chad was out there snorkeling, and he said the water was crystal clear and the fish were amazing.

I had a lazy morning, and when Bob got back we headed out to the Greenwood Great House. GPS led us down roads that could hardly be called roads--narrow, rutted dirt paths that wound around tin shacks. There were virtually no indicators, like signs, for example, indicating that we were going in the right direction. It was hard to believe most tourists wouldn't be deterred by the roads or would get lost on their way to the house. We persevered, however, and finally pulled up to the rear of a large, dilapidated erstwhile manor.

We had pre-purchased tour tickets, but we learned when we got there that they were "short on tour guides." However, there was a group of school children going through that we could join. Well, why not? We spent the first 10-15 minutes with this charming group before another guide finally arrived.

Our new guide had a rather flat, rehearsed delivery, but she still had a lot of interesting information to share. 

The inside of the Greenwood Great House was a surprise compared to the outside. The home was built by the immensely wealthy Barrett family in the late eighteenth century on 84,000 acres of land worked by over 2,000 enslaved people. One author calls this period the "era of elegance and brutality." I can see why. If the name "Barrett" sounds familiar, that's because this family's famous relative was the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning--although she never visited Jamaica.

Greenwood was one of the few houses that remained intact after the slave rebellion of 1831. It still has most of its original furniture. Among the items in its collection are rare musical instruments and a large library of books and documents dating as far back as the mid-1700s. For example, they had an early player piano, a player organ (which I've never heard of), and a phonograph with metal disks that had raised dots, kind of like a music box (below left).

This very old map of Africa is impressively accurate and kept behind protective velvet curtains, but our guide let us see it.

Note the date carved on the lid of the ornate secretary: 1680!

I believe this is Queen Victoria, who ruled England and its colonies (including Jamaica) from 1837-1901.

We learned that the famous painting entitled "Pinkie" (by Sir Thomas Lawrence and now hanging in the Huntington Library in Pasadena just over 60 miles from us) is a portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton, who was born to the Greenwood Barretts in Jamaica in 1783. Her family nickname was Pinkie. When she was 9 years old, she was sent to England to get an education. This painting was commissioned by her grandmother when Pinkie was 11. Pinkie died a year later of some childhood disease.  A reproduction of the famous painting hangs in the Greenwood Great House. Seen next the the original, it is a bit amateurish.

The large house has large rooms and quite amazing ventilation. One side faces the ocean, and a constant breeze keeps everything relatively cool.

The bedrooms are all upstairs, probably to take advantage of the breeze. 

My favorite room was this upstairs parlor where the lady of the house could host a tea for her friends 

A 70-foot-long veranda runs the length of the second story--a great place to sit on a warm day.

Again, the tour guide said almost nothing about the system of slavery that made all of this possible, although there were a few items in the waiting area, including these framed replicas and a "man trap" that I didn't get a picture of but that was used to snare runaway slaves (and maybe take off a foot in the process).

The current owner of the Greenhouse Great House, named Bob something, was hanging around the room where visitors wait for tours to begin. He was very friendly and recommended a restaurant nearby where we could get some lunch. "Irie" is Jamaican Patois for "cool, okay, or nice." I think "flava" is slang for "flavor."

I was really hot and ordered a non-alcoholic piña colada that was possibly the best drink I had on the entire trip.

It almost made up for my very subpar jerk pork and fries.

Chad had shrimp fettucine, which looked very good, and Bob had oxtail, which was the winner dish of the meal (after the drink).

After lunch we drove into Falmouth, the port where First Mate George Cannon arrived on the Eliza with a cargo of 117 slaves in 1792. Today I think the only big ships that dock in Falmouth are cruise ships.

We parked our car and started walking. It quickly became evident that this was not a typical tourist destination. I'm guessing the cruise shippers are hauled off to another location. However, it was our kind of a place--real.

Our first stop was Water Square. Information on a sign in the square says Falmouth was the first municipality to have piped water in the Americas. Beginning in 1798, a series of aqueducts brought water to a circular stone reservoir in this town square, and water from the reservoir supplied the town until 1952. The square is also known as Market Square because it housed the original Sunday markets where enslaved Africans and later peasants sold their wares. The main street in Falmouth, which runs by the square, is named Market Street.

The words at the top of the sign, "Nuh Dutty Up Jamaica" are part of a public education campaign to reduce waste and keep the city clean. The words roughly mean "Not dirty."

I think that fountain in the middle of the square must be the remains of the old reservoir. The wrapped palm tree trunks are a common site all over Jamaica.

We bought a Jamaican apple at one of the farm stands. It looks like a pear, but it does taste more like an apple than a pear--firmer, tarter fruit.

I had already seen a version of this dog at our previous stops. There are an amazing number of these dogs--all the same color and size--all over Jamaica. I think it must be their national animal.

We tried to get to the dock, but it was fenced off. However, in our attempts to find a way past the fence, Chad made friends with a friendly young minister who told us more about the area. He had a church next to this vacant building below. From his church we could see the dock, but there was no way to get there.

 While we were chatting, the minister's 13-year-old son came home from school and gave us a wonderful drum solo in the church. I loved the sign on the door--essentially, "In God we trust (but have the good sense to wear a mask).

The minister gave us directions to a couple of old churches we were interested in, and then we were on our way.

It was very hot and muggy, our hottest day in Jamaica, in fact, and the walk felt two or three times longer than what showed up on my watch. We stopped first at William Knibb Memorial Baptist Church . . . 

 . . . where we were welcomed to rest for a few minutes in its cool interior.

The church is named after William Knibb (1803-1845), a renowned English Baptist minister and abolitionist whose mission was to minister to the enslaved Africans in Jamaica. He was arrested during the Emancipation War of 1831-1832 for giving fiery speeches that were said to incite the enslaved people. His chapel was destroyed by the militia in retaliation for his involvement, but it was rebuilt bigger and better in 1837, just in time for the following important event:

Knibb died of fever in Jamaica just seven years later at age 42. He was buried here on the grounds of his church, and the service is said to have attracted 8,000 African islanders.

Sadly, the 1837 chapel was damaged by a hurricane in 1944, but it was reconstructed on the foundations of the earlier church in 1948.

Back out on the road, I noted various businesses and wondered what it is like to visit a family physician who is a "Clinical Christian Pscyhologist."

This is an attorney's office:

Next up, the Trelawny Parish Anglican Church of St. Peter the Apostle, the oldest church in the parish and the oldest public building in Falmouth. The land for the church was donated by Edward Barrett, the owner of Greenwood Great House, which we had seen earlier in the day. The church was built between 1794-1796, then enlarged in 1842, making it one of the largest Anglican churches in Jamaica.

Unfortunately, the gate to the church grounds was locked, but fortunately the stone wall was low, so we climbed over it and spent a little time in the graveyard.

"Sacred to the memory of Augustus Forbes Esquire, who died on the 11th of December, 1850, Aged 48 years"

"Here lie the remains of James Holmes Esq. who died the 3rd of Dec. 1816 aged 27 years. Tears flow and cease now where the good man lies / Till all who knew him follow to the Skies. / Tears therefore fall where Holmes's ashes sleep. / His Wife, Friends, Brothers, Sisters, Servants weep. / And Justly few shall ever him transcend / As Husband, Parent, Brother, Master, Friend."

What is that standing on the tombstone at the back of the graveyard?

A Goat Grazing on a Grave. Not something you see every day.

As we were about to leave, who should show up but the minister Chad had befriended earlier. He had found a book with the history of his church and some Falmouth maps. He was very friendly and helpful, and when he left we gave him a contribution for his church.

We passed some interesting sights on our way back to the beach. I like that this school was pro-active in their dress code.

We spent a bit of time looking out to sea. This is a "real-life" spot, not a tourist area.

Back in the car, we did some typical downtown Jamaica-style driving: narrow streets, crazy traffic, lots of commerce:

Not sure about that trademark name on that building. Hmmm. Note the KFC shirt on the woman walking next to our car. KFC is big in Jamaica, just like it is almost everywhere else.