Unusual Place Names Jamaica’s Unusual Place Names Sometimes place names in Jamaica tell their own stories. And Jamaica’s towns, districts, rivers and streets have some really interesting ones – some are misleading, some are derived from family names, and some don’t mean what you think they mean! Often the names denoted a geographic feature or landmark (Above Rocks, Red Ground, Blue Mountains, Corner Shop), or were named after the original landowners (Tommy Bush, Sanguinetti), or were named for the homelands of immigrants who settled there (Dublin Castle, Irish Town, Egypt, Bengal, Skibo, Aberdeen). Some have Arawak names (Jamaica, Liguanea), or Spanish (Oracabessa, Ocho Rios, Rio Grande), or British (Somerset, High Gate). Many of the place names in Jamaica are humorous (Jackass Alley, Beverly Hills); others describe the distance from somewhere else (Three Mile, Four Mile, Six Mile, Seven Mile, Nine Mile and Eleven Mile)! Some are Biblical (Bethlehem, Siloah, Mount Horeb) and some reflect the abundance of a plant or animal in the area (Annotto Bay, Cashew, Hog Hole, Breadnut Bottom, and Soursop Turn). But many of the names are just purely Jamaican! Jamaicans enjoy naming things and they call it as they see it, so these place-names might describe an incident that happened there or a particular feeling or sentiment they wanted to convey (Rest-and-Be-Thankful, Me-No-Sen-You-No-Come, Bad Times, Broke Neck Gully, Half Way Tree, Putogether Corner, Dump, Shambles, Rat Trap, Poor Mans Corner, Sally’s Delight, Betty’s Hope, Thankful Hill, Boldness, Good Design, Excellent Town, Happy Retreat, Heart Ease, Friendship and Welcome). Yes, those are all the names of real places in Jamaica! More interesting place names in Jamaica There are stories behind most of these names and it’s quite interesting to learn how they originated! While many of the reasons for the names have been forgotten generations ago, here are some of them: ABERDEEN, in Saint Elizabeth, named for the area in Scotland where owner, Alexander Forbes, came from. ABOVE ROCKS, in Saint Catherine, was evidently named for its geographical location - the most westerly extension of the Blue Mountain Range. ACCOMPONG (a Maroon settlement) is in Saint Elizabeth. This name is said to be derived from the Ashanti word, Nyamekopon, which means “the lone one, the warrior”. This name was also given to one of the brothers of Captain Cudjoe, the second Maroon leader. Accompong was established in 1739. ADMIRAL MOUNTAIN, near Newcastle, was used by British Admiral Lord Nelson as his country residence while stationed in Jamaica at what is now known as Fort Charles from 1777-79. ALBERT TOWN - in Trelawny, was originally known as Santa Hill for the large number of Santa Maria trees (Calophyllum calaba) growing in the area, but was renamed in the 1800s for Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. ALLEY - in Clarendon, was the capital of the former Parish known as Vere. The communitys name derived from Veres parish church, which was built in 1671 and was called The Alley. The church, St. Peters Anglican, is the oldest in the island. The current church was built on the same spot in 1715. ALLIGATOR POND, in Saint Elizabeth: The name is said by locals to derive from the shape of the mountain range, which when seen from the beach, has bumps which look like an alligators back. ALLSIDES is so-named because its boundary extends from Trelawny into Manchester; it was on all sides of the boundaries. ALPS, in Trelawny, is situated on a major geological fault which crosses the limestone plateau and which marks the western end of the Cockpit Country. The abrupt landscape and the winding road presumably reminded the British colonists of the European Alps. ANGELS, in Saint Catherine, was Los Angeles of the Spaniards. The last stop of the first railway line in Jamaica was at Angels when it opened in 1845. ANIMAL HILL, in Lucea, Hanover, is not far from Fat Hog Quarter. The name poked fun at the early 1900s families who settled the community who had surnames like Hogg, Mare, Steer, Lyons, Fox and Wolfe. ANNOTTO BAY, in Saint Mary, got its name from the presence of annotto trees, important for dye and food coloring, and once an important export. ARAWAK, in Saint Ann, was named because of Arawak (Taino) remains found there. ARTHURS SEAT is in Clarendon and also in Saint Ann. There is an Arthurs Seat, an extinct volcano, in the center of Edinburgh, Scotland, so Jamaica’s Arthurs Seat was probably named by former Scottish settlers and landowners. Another theory is that it was named for its original owner, Arthur McKenzie, in 1811. AUCHTEMBEDDIE, a north Manchester village, is of German origin. Whether it is named for a person or a place in Germany is unknown. AUGUST TOWN, in the hills of Saint Andrew, is thought to have been named because freedom came to the slaves of Jamaica on the 1st of August, 1838. Since then, this day has been celebrated as ‘Emancipation Day’. BALLYHOLLY, in Mandeville, is named after a place in Ireland. BAMBOO TOWN, in Saint Elizabeth, was named for its abundance of bamboo trees. BANGOR RIDGE, in Portland, was named after Bangor, Wales. BANNISTER BAY, in Saint Thomas, is named for Colonel Bannister, Governor of Surinam, who brought English and Jewish colonists from Surinam in 1667. BARBECUE BOTTOM ROAD - in Trelawny. The name is descriptive of the area; a barbecue in Jamaica is a large flat, gently sloping area for drying coffee or pimento. The road follows a deep ravine along a major geological fault which features a flat with a gentle slope at the bottom. BATH, in Saint Thomas, was named after its mineral springs (bath). BENGAL,on the border of Saint Ann and Trelawny, is named after a region in India. BLACK HILL, in Portland, is the site of an extinct volcano. BLACKNESS, in Trelawny, refers to the rich color of the soil found in this area. The color is said to indicate the richness of the soil as is the case of the red earth in other parts of the island. BLENHEIM, in Hanover, is a place-name found also in Manchester, and originates from Bavaria, Germany. Blenheim (in Germany) was a site of a great battle, which no doubt led to use of the name in Jamaica. BLOODY BAY, in Saint James, is said to derive from the killing of whales there. BOG WALK, in Saint Catherine, was originally the Boca d’ agua (water’s mouth) of the Spanish, and was corrupted to Bog Walk by the English after their occupation of the island in 1655. BOUNTY HALL, in Trelawny, was named because of its strategic location halfway between the Cockpit Country and Falmouth. Being on open land where you could see an ambush, it was an ideal place for the Maroons to hand over escaped slaves to the British in return for a bounty-payment as per their 1738 Treaty. BREADNUT BOTTOM, in Clarendon, is named for the abundance of breadnut trees in the area. BULL BAY, in Saint Andrew, got its name during the time of the buccaneers or “cow killers”. Once known as Cow Bay, the name is a testament to the islands connection to the time when buccaneers roamed the island hunting for wild cattle. BULL HEAD MOUNTAIN, near Chapelton in Clarendon, was named for the bull head shape of the 3,600-foot mountain that stands as the parishs highest point. Its the geographic center of the island and a clear landmark to vessels that approach from the south coast. The view from the peak takes in 5 parishes - Manchester, St Catherine, St Mary, St Ann and Trelawny. CALABAR, in Saint Ann, is the name of a place in southeastern Nigeria from which many slaves came. CANNON BALL GATE, in Saint Andrew, was apparently named after the Cannon Ball monument at the intersection of Arnold Road and South Camp Road. Arnold Road was constructed by 3rd West India Regiment in 1856. CANOE VALLEY, in Saint Elizabeth, got its name because, for many years, canoes were made from the trees there. CATADUPA - in Saint James. The village is named for its nearby waterfalls. Catadupa is the Greek name for the cataract or waterfalls along the Nile in Egypt. CATHERINES PEAK, in Portland, is named for Catherine Long, the wife of famed pirate-turned-governor, Sir Henry Morgan. She is believed to have been the first woman to scale the 5,050-foot high peak. CEDAR VALLEY, in Trelawny, is supposedly named for cedar trees that used to grow there. CHAPELTON, in Clarendon, was first known as “Chapel Town”, as the village took its name from the church. CHEW MAGNA, in Saint Elizabeth, near Balaclava, was named by the Roberts Family after a place in Keynsham, England from which they came. CINNAMON HILL, near Rose Hall in Saint James, got its name because cinnamon trees once grew there. COCKPIT COUNTRY got its name from the large limestone craters or pits found in the area, formed from what is called cockpit karst limestone. CORN PUSS GAP, in Saint Thomas, is named for a legend about a hiker who got lost in the hills, caught a cat, “corned” it and ate it there. CURATOE HILL, in Clarendon, got its name from a plant used in connection with rum fermentation. According to History of Jamaica, published in 1774 by Edward Long, curatoe was a fruit or berry related to the Sapindus, or soapberry, and its juice could be used in soap-making. It may be an Arawak word. DALLAS CASTLE - a district in Saint Andrew, is named for the estate there which was owned by Dr. Robert Charles Dallas, father of Alexander James Dallas who was born in Kingston in 1759 and ultimately became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison from 1814 to 1816. The Dallas family lived in and are very well-known in the U.S. State of Alabama. DANKS, in Clarendon, was known as “Danke.” Sir Henry Morgan, former Governor of the island (and yes, the pirate), was the owner until he gave it to his wife of German nationality. She said danke meaning ‘thanks’ in German. DENBIGH, in Clarendon, is named after a place in North Wales. DOLPHINS HEAD, in Hanover, is said to be named because, when looked at from east to west, the 1,789-foot mountain resembles a dolphins nose, face and fins. DRAX HALL, in Saint Ann, was an estate (plantation) founded in 1669 by William Drax who came to Jamaica from Barbados. His descendant, Charles Drax, was also a planter who willed part of the property to be used for a free school. It later became Jamaica College and was moved to Hope Road in Kingston. At some point, 1,000 acres of the Drax Hall estate was sold to Peter Beckford (1674-1735), who was said to be the wealthiest planter in Jamaica. (in the 1750s, he owned more than 22,000 acres!) DRY HARBOUR, in Saint Ann, was dubbed Puerto Seco (which means dry harbour) by Christopher Columbus when, in 1494, he and his crew put into Jamaica (at Discovery Bay) looking for fresh water and found none. DUNCANS, in Trelawny, was originally a property owned by Peter Duncans in 1784. DUPPY GATE is in Saint Andrew. (Duppy is a Jamaican ghost.) Legend has it that the gate is haunted by the ghost of an officer from the days when the West India Regiments occupied the base. Soldiers have reported visits from a mysterious officer dressed in period uniform with a sword slapping against his leg, who would suddenly vanish as they were ready to report. FAR ENOUGH, in Clarendon, comes from the phrase far enough from courts and kings, which is credited to a Scottish landowner. FAT HOG QUARTER, in Hanover, was named because a large number of hogs used to populate the area. FLAGAMAN, in St. Elizabeth, reportedly was named by a British Admiral Ebanks who settled above Great Bay, in an area then called Pedro Plains, and renamed it after his ship, the Flagaman Escania. FLOG MAN, in Manchester, was named because a man was severely flogged here. Usually punishment could be applied outside the law to wrongdoers. FRIENDSHIP, in Westmoreland, was the site of a Scottish Missionary Society conference in 1837. GIMME ME BIT, in Clarendon, is actually a bird, the Antillean Nighthawk, named for the call it makes. GOLD MINE, in Clarendon: The Spanish are said to have washed gold there. GOSHEN, Saint Elizabeth, was named after a place in Egypt, listed in the Bible as meaning the best of the land. GRATEFUL HILL, in Saint Catherine, was named by Baptist missionaries in gratitude for having been granted land by an English squire to establish a church. GUANABOA - in Saint Catherine, is most likely derived from Arawak. It may come from the native Arawak word for soursop - guanabana. Or, it may derive from the Haitian Arawak words cauni and boa, meaning house of gold. GUTHRIE’S DEFILE, in Saint Elizabeth, was named after an officer of the Jamaica Militia, Colonel Guthrie. He was instrumental in formulating the Peace Treaty with the Maroons in the 18th century. GUTTERS, in Saint Elizabeth, got its appropriate name from the heavy rains that flow through the town from three directions, making it almost impassable. GUYS HILL, in Saint Catherine, was named for the first landowner, Richard Guy, who is said to have taken part in the 1655 Penn and Venables expedition that captured Jamaica for the British. HAGLEY GAP, in Saint Thomas, was named after Hagley Hall, the home estate in Worcestershire, England, of William Henry Lyttelton, who served as Governor of Jamaica from 1762 to 1766. HALF-WAY-TREE, in Saint Andrew, was originally Half-Way-Tree Pen, owned by the Hotchkyn family for 130 years. It is claimed that Half-Way-Tree was named for a cotton tree which was at the junction of four roads. The tree is said to have existed there from before the conquest of the island (1655) and until 1866 it was halfway between two places: Greenwich, a British soldier base at the harbor, and Stony Hill, where the barracks were located. The soldiers always rested at this spot before proceeding to the barracks. There are written references to Half-Way-Tree going back to 1696. HELL BELOW is the name given to a dangerous corner near Dunn’s River where there is a deep plunge into the sea. HORSE GUARDS. This place name is found in many parishes and originates from the time that Cromwell ruled Jamaica and used his regiment, the Horse Guards, to protect it. The name stuck to the places where they were barracked. IRISH TOWN, in Saint Andrew, was obviously originally settled by the Irish. JOES HUT or JOE HUT, in Trelawny, was named after its first settler, a man named Joe Buckle, who built a hut here (apparently in the 18th century) and it became a local landmark, as in ...two miles from Joes Hut. In time the hut disappeared and so did the apostrophe! Some generations ago it was proposed that the name be changed to Joes Town but this was refused by the inhabitants. JUDGMENT CLIFF, in Saint Thomas, is the site of the great 1692 earthquake (which destroyed Port Royal) where part of the cliff fell on the estate of a notoriously wicked Dutchman and buried him alive. (He got his “judgment”.) LABOUR-IN-VAIN, in Saint Elizabeth, is an area where the rain seldom falls. This results in crops of poor quality, if any at all. LAWRENCE TAVERN, in Saint Andrew, was named for a tavern that used to be located there. LLANDOVERY, in Saint Ann, and LLANRUMNEY, in Saint Mary (once owned by Sir Henry Morgan). “Llan” means a yard in Welsh. Morgan was Welsh and both are place-names found in Wales. LLANTRISSANT is another Welsh place name and is, in fact, the town where the British Royal Mint is located. It was so named by a former owner whose origins may have been Welsh. According to the history of the town, the name also means the Church of Three Saints. LONGVILLE, in Clarendon, is named for the estates original owner, Samuel Long, who accompanied the expedition of Penn and Venables in the capture of Jamaica in 1655. He was very active in politics and was appointed Speaker of the House of Assembly and later, Chief Justice. LOWER TOOTING, in Saint Ann, is named after a working-class town in Surrey, near London, England. LYSSONS - in Saint Thomas, was orginally named Lycence or Lycense after Nicholas Lycence, who had been granted 264 acres in the Parish and was a member of the first Council for St. Thomas in 1671-1672. He was one of the soldiers of fortune on the British Penn & Venables expedition when they captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655. MADRAS, in Saint Ann, is a region in India, a reminder of the number of indentured East Indians who came to Jamaica in the mid-19th century to work on the sugar estates. MAGGOTTY, in Saint Elizabeth, is a small town near the head of the Black River, named for the sugar estate that was located there. Maggoty Estate is now known as Kenilworth and the 17th century ruins of the sugar factory on this estate are considered the best example of old industrial architecture in the island. MAHOGANY HALL, in Trelawny, apparently gets its name from the house named and built by a British Captain near a Mahogany tree where he found (and fell in love with) a Spanish senorita who was hiding there during the time the British were chasing the Spanish from the island. MANCHIONEAL, in Portland, comes from the Spanish Manzanella (little apple) of the Manchineel tree. The large, beautiful but poisonous trees once lined the coast there. The foliage, fruit, trunk and branches ooze a milky sap which causes burning blisters on the skin and kills animals instantly. The Arawak/Tainos used to dip the points of their arrows in the liquid, creating deadly missiles. Legend has it that the British would poison the invading Spaniards who would stop to rest under the shade of the trees. The British cut the tree, letting sap drip on the invaders, which would ultimately lead to their death. There are only one or two trees left in the town and residents identify the trees to visitors to prevent unfortunate mishaps. MAY PEN, in Clarendon, was once part of an area of land owned by the Reverend William May, who came to Jamaica as rector of the Kingston Parish Church in the 18th century and was then transferred to Clarendon. ME-NO-SEN-YOU-NO-COME, in the Cockpit country of Saint Elizabeth, has a pretty clear meaning - don’t call us, we’ll call you! The Maroons in exclusive communities like Accompong were apparently not very welcoming towards unexpected visitors. MIDDLE QUARTERS - in Saint Elizabeth was probably named for the Court of Quarter Sessions held in the Parish between 1821 and 1838. Middle Quarters is now known as the pepper shrimp capital of Jamaica. MILK RIVER, in Clarendon, was the Rio do Manatines of the Spanish. The mineral baths are situated at the foot of a limestone hill. The water, which is extremely saline, comes from crevices in the rock directly into the baths. MIRANDA HILL, in Saint James, was named for former Spanish governor, Alonzo de Miranda. MOCHO, in Trelawny (there is also a Mocho in Clarendon, Saint Andrew and Saint James), traditionally means A place symbolic of remoteness - a rough, uncivilized place. To describe someone as coming from Mocho is to describe that person as backward or, in Jamaican terminology, dark. The usage probably came from tribal rivalry during the days of slavery. Mocho is derived from Mgboko, a place name of Calabar in Eastern Nigeria, and suggests that the Jamaican Mochos may have been persons of the Ibo tribe. MONEAGUE - in Saint Ann, has a couple of plausible explanations. According to old Spanish documents, Moneague was originally called Manegua, or lonely water which means it could be a corruption of the Spanish Managua due to an underground lake in the area. It could also be a combination of the Spanish words for mountain water - monte and agua. Also, there was an old Arawak settlement called Moneque, while Manique is a Cuban Spanish word for thicket or bush. MONYMUSK - in Clarendon, is a sugar estate originally owned by the Grant family, descendants of wealthy landowners from Monymusk, Scotland. Sir Archibald Grant owned a slaving station in West Africa, which provided labor for the Monymusk Estate in Jamaica. MONTEGO BAY, in Saint James, has two possible origins. The most likely one is that it derives from the Spanish name Manteca Bahia, or Bay of Lard, due to the fact that the Spanish slaughtered many hogs & wild boars there and manufactured large quantities of lard which they loaded in jars to ship to Columbia. The Spanish word for lard is mantega. Others speculate that it was named after Montego de Salamanca, an early Spanish colonizer. MORANT BAY, MORANT POINT, PORT MORANT, in Saint Thomas, take their names from the family of Spanish Jews, Morante, who accompanied Diego Columbus (Christophers brother) when he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. The great Hato de Morante, a huge estate that covered about 15 miles and is listed on Spanish maps dating back to the 1500s. MOSQUITO COVE, in Hanover, is said to have originated because of the prevalence of mosquitos. Historians insist, however, that the correct name is Miskito Cove, for a tribe of Indians that once inhabited the island. MOUNT HOREB, in Saint James, is named for the Biblical Mount Horeb where the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God. NAGGO HEAD, in Saint Catherine, preserves the name Nago which was given to the Egba clan of Yoruba people from western Nigeria by the Kingdom of Dahomey (in present-day Benin), a regional power that supplied up to 20% of the slaves to Europe and the Americas in the 1700s and 1800s. NAIRNE CASTLE, in Clarendon, probably derived its name from a landowner named Nairne who came from the seaside town of Nairne in Scotland. Nairne Castle, Jamaica was a Free Village, a community of freed people who lived away from the estates immediately following the abolition of slavery in 1834. NUN’S PEN, in Saint Andrew, was also known as “Islington” and “Moringa Park”. It was once owned by a Haitian refugee named Henri D’Aquin. Two of his daughters were determined to become nuns even though he wanted them to marry. He decided to give the land to the Roman Catholic Church and since then it has been known as “Nuns Pen”. OLD WOMAN SAVANNA - in Clarendon, appeared with that name on early maps. Apparently the old woman was Spanish but refused to leave Jamaica when the English captured the island in 1655, even after her house and property in Spanish Town had been seized. She received permission to retire to her hato, or farm, in the country; hence the name. ORACABESSA, in Saint Mary, probably comes from the Spanish for aura meaning air or breeze and cabeza meaning head, resulting in a phrase that could be read as fanciful (or ‘air headed’). Or, it could be a combination of the Spanish words oro and cabeza, meaning golden head. Or, it could be a corruption of an Arawak word, juracabes of unknown meaning. PANTREPANT, in Trelawny, is a Welsh name meaning house in the hollow. PORUS is a town in Manchester. There are three reasons given for this name: first, that Porus is possibly a confusion between Las Pocas (the pits) and should be called Pocos, or second, that since Porus was referred to by the Spaniards as “the district of Porras”, they must have named it after the brothers who were marooned with Christopher Columbus at St. Ann’s Bay for over a year. The Porras brothers finally mutinied against Columbus. The third, and most well-known, explanation is that market vendors, traveling before the days of cars, rested under a guinep tree in the village, remarking poor us as they removed the loads from their heads. POTOSI, in Trelawny, was named after the fabled silver mine in Bolivia, the location of the Spanish colonial mint. It is from Potosí that most of the silver shipped through the Spanish Main came between 1556 and 1783. In Spanish there is still a saying, valer un potosí, to be worth a potosí (that is, a fortune). PRICKLY POLE, in Saint Ann, is named for a rare endemic palm tree, Bactris jamaicana, which was once plentiful in the John Crow Mountains and Cockpit Country. It is now endangered. PUTOGETHERCORNER, near Mandeville, is the spot where market women stopped to put their goods and themselves in order before proceeding to town. QUICK STEP, in Trelawny, comes from the 18th century when British soldiers were fighting with Maroons. RACKHAMS CAY - one of the Port Royal cays in the Parish of Kingston, was named after John Calico Jack Rackham, an English pirate captain who, with George Featherstone and Richard Corner, was hanged from the gallows on the Cay in 1720. ROSE HALL, in Saint James, was named for Rose Kelly, the first mistress of the infamous estate. SANGUINETTI, in Clarendon, is named for its first landowner, Jacob Sanguinetti, an Italian Jew. SAVANNA-LA-MAR, in Westmoreland, was the Sabana-de-la-mar (“the plain by the sea”) of the Spanish. During English occupation of the island, the “de” was dropped, and the name became Savanna-la-mar, sometimes abbreviated Sav-la-mar. SAVE RENT in Westmoreland, is not a spot for living cheap; the name is actually a corruption of the name of a French colonist, M. Saverent. SEAMANS VALLEY, in Portland, is said to derive its name from the destruction of a party of British seamen by the Maroons. SEE ME NO MORE, in Portland, is an area named for a deep wooded gully there, where water caused a deep valley to form. Before a road was built in the area, anyone crossing the gully could not be seen from the other side, thus the name. SEVILLE, in Saint Ann, was the Sevilla Nueva (New Seville) or Sevilla de ora (Golden Seville) of the Spanish. SHAKE-HAND MARKET, in Portland, is a square named for its use as a meeting place. SHERWOOD CONTENT, in Trelawny, probably has some connection with Sherwood Forest in England. The name Content is related to container and, similarly to Pen, which was an area where cattle were kept. SHOE MYSELF GATE, in Saint Elizabeth, derives from the fact that, when someone in town who was not accustomed to wearing shoes got a new pair, they would carry the shoes over their shoulders until they reached their destination. At the gate, they would “shoe themselves”. SHOTOVER, in Portland, is a corrupted version of the French “Chateau Vert”. SPANISH TOWN, in Saint Catherine, was founded about 1534. It had previously been known as Villa de la Vega (the Town on the Plain), but was renamed Santiago de la Vega by the new Spanish Governor, Manuel de Rojas, when the King of Spain declared this the new capital of Jamaica. After conquering the Spaniards in 1655, the English, called the city St. Jago de la Vega, or ‘St. James of the Plain’, and that name remained in popular use for some years. Now it is known as Spanish Town. SPORTSMANS HALL, in Trelawny, apparently got its name when sportsmen on a bird-hunting party found a cave large enough to be used as a house; they divided it into two parts, one for men and the other for women, then jokingly called it Sportsmans Hall. STETTIN, in Trelawny, was named by Dr. William Lemonius after the city in Pomerania, Germany, from which his family came and where he participated in an unsuccessful battle against Napoleon. Dr. Lemonius was responsible for about 1,000 North German immigrants who arrived in Jamaica between 1834 and 1838. William Lemonius is listed as the owner of 330 plus 189 acres in the Jamaica Almanac of 1840. STONEHENGE, in Trelawny, is undoubtedly a word-play on the owners name, Reverend Joseph Stoney. It was located near Campbells on the Barbecue Bottom road. STURGE TOWN, in Saint Ann, is a free village that takes its name from Joseph Sturge, a wealthy English Quaker and abolitionist who gave money and land to provide living quarters for freed slaves. SURINAM QUARTERS - in Saint Elizabeth, is named for settlers who, in 1655, came to Jamaica from Surinam (or Suriname), also known as Dutch Guiana, when the Dutch conquered it from the English and gave up, in exchange, a small trading post in North America called New Amsterdam (which later became New York City). TAN-AN-SEE, in Trelawny, means “stand and see” referring to the view of the beautiful open land. There is a cliff here overlooking the landscape. TEMPLE HALL, in Saint Andrew, is named for its first landowner, Thomas Temple. Temple Hall is where Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica from 1718-22, who married Temples daughter in 1698, introduced the cultivation of coffee to the island in the 1700s. TIME AND PATIENCE, in Saint Catherine, could be named for the type of crops past residents chose to grow. TOMMY BUSH, in Westmoreland, is named after Tommy Sinclair who owned the plantation there. TOM REDCAM AVENUE is named after Tom McDermot, an Irish campaigner against colonialism and slavery, Tom Redcam is a backwards spelling of McDermot. TRY SEE, in Saint Ann, is a post-emancipation name inspired by the idea of having former slaves who received land try and see what they could do with it. TYRE, in Trelawny, probably comes from the ancient Phoenician word for rock, which would certainly fit the geology of the area. It should probably be pronounced Ty-ree. UNITY, in Saint James, got its name from the story of two brothers. The younger of the two asked the elder to borrow £1000 in order to purchase land, the elder refused and their relationship deteriorated. Sunday came and the two went to church, encountering a sermon on the importance of unity. The elder brother felt it was a sign and raised a loan to help his younger brother purchase the land. They named the place Unity. VAUXHALL, in Saint Elizabeth, was named for a popular London tavern. VICTORIA TOWN, in Manchester, was named after Queen Victoria. VINEGAR HILL, in Westmoreland, was probably originally settled by Irish landowners and named after the Battle of Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy, Ireland, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. WAG WATER RIVER - which runs through Saint Mary, is thought to have derived its name from the Arawak word Guayguata. WAI RUA, is Saint Andrew, comes from New Zealand and means place by the river. WAIT-A-BIT, in Trelawny, derives its name from the Wait-a-bit thorn, believed to have been brought to Jamaica by African slaves. The thorn was very hardy and was often used in Africa in hedges against wild animals. WHITE HORSES is in Saint Thomas. Legend has it that the Spanish called is Barreras Blancas, or White Barriers, because of the beautiful white chalky cliffs that line the coast here. The English saw the cliffs from the sea and thought they looked like white horses and renamed the area. WHITE SHOP, in Clarendon, just across the Manchester border, may have been so named because the shop that dominates the village square had once been painted white. Y.S. ESTATE, in Saint Elizabeth, lies near a bridge over the river of the same name. Some say that the curious name of the river comes from a Welsh word meaning winding (on early maps it is written Wyess) and possibly the form Y.S. was first adopted as the mark stamped on hogs heads of the Wyess Sugar plantation. YALLAHS, in Saint Thomas, could be a corruption of the Spanish word yalos, which means frosts, attributed to the chalky white cliffs in the area. Others say it was named for a Dutch pirate who frequented the area in the 1670s, Captain Yhallas. However, since British maps reflect this name as early as 1664, it was most probably named for a Spaniard with the surname of de Ayala who owned the Hato de Ayala which stretched from Bull Bay almost to Morant Bay in the 1500s. YTHANSIDE, a village in Portland, is named after a place in Wales. Its first owner, William Espeut, also owned Spring Garden Estate in Portland where he was believed to have bred mongooses (imported from India) to kill rats on sugar plantations.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:27:49 +0000
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