POTTERS LANE The name has nothing to do with people who made clay pots. Thomas I. Potter was Warden for the ward of La Brea , Oropouche and Siparia back in the days of Wards and Counties. Those were the days when a warden was next to God in his area, having powers of magistracy, being tax collector and responsible for all lands public and private. Potter was responsible for New Village in La Brea when he moved the church and schools in 1911 from the old shifting soil near the coast (now then end of High Road) to more stable ground higher up on the slope. He applied for and received a grant of land from the Crown (a serious conflict of interest as a public officer responsible for lands) north of High St. Siparia just off the Oropouche Road. These he laid out in lots in 1914 and rented them to housebuilders. The water supply was a spring located in the rear of the premises of what is now the Siparia Senior Citizens Home. You can still see the damp area where dasheen and banana trees grow although the spring is now silted over. T.I Potter sold this land to his friend, Leon St. Hilaire De Gannes in 1918. This is where De Gannes St. (behind Republic Bank) and De Gannes Lane adjoining it get their names. Potters Lane is north of these. Leon St. Hilaire DeGannes (1833-1913) was born to Leon De Gannes (1806-1876) and Selima De Vertuil ( 1805-1864) , both of aristocratic Trinidadian French Creole families, Leon Sr. being a relative of Roume De St. Laurent and the Marquise de Charras , and Selima being the daughter of Chevalier d’Legion de Honoure Michel De Verteuil. Leon St. Hilaire was born in a time when his father’s fortunes were at a low ebb, so that after being educated at Ushaw seminary in England , he betook himself to Siparia where in 1850 he developed Alta Gracia (High Grace) cocoa estate ( near present DeGannes Village which bears his name- the name has been corrupted to ALTA GARCIA which literally translates into HIGH GARCIA..puff puff anyone?) . Not far away at Oropouche , his bon vivant cousin, Roads Supervisor Charles Le Cadre was living a riotous lifestyle having fathered several illegitimate children with an Indian woman and had a daughter named Ida with a coloured mistress. Leon St. Hilaire followed suit. In the late 1870s he was driving along the Siparia road and stopped to give a lift to a young woman of mixed Amerindian and African descent named Petronella Rincone who was almost 30 years his junior. Petronella became his mistress ( wife in 1888) , giving birth to several children – Joseph St.Hilaire (b.1884), Raphael (b.1885) , Ferdinand ( b,1889) and Marie Adele (b.1878) . Leon St. Hilaire and his children were thus automatically outcast from the white DeGannes clan although he remained close to his brother Gaston who was a wealthy Arima landowner. Leon St. Hilare ended his days in 1913 in a large house at the corner of Mon Repos St. and Royal Road in San Fernando where he lived with his unmarried son Joseph ( who had become a veterinarian) and his daughter Marie Adele who had married a coloured man, Claude Gillezeau. Joseph St. Hilaire DeGannes was a well known San Fernando figure ,both as a vet and as a racehorse owner . His stables were behind the house in Mon Repos. His most famous thoroughbred was called Ras Taffare (in honour of Haile Selassie) , the offspring of Tom Pearson and Halo. Ras Taffare was trained at Union Park Racecourse ( present day site of Mannie Ramjohn Stadium in Marabella) . He won the Trinidad Derby in 1940 and The Governor’s Cup in 1943, being presented with the honour by Sir Hubert Young KCMG. Ras Taffare died in 1946, and his master, Joe DeGannes passed away a year late
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 01:51:29 +0000
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