Half Way Tree, St. Andrew

HALF WAY TREE, ST. ANDREW

It derives its name from a cotton tree dating from the

Conquest, which existed as late as 1866. Richard Hill,

in an article which was published posthumously in the

"Victoria Quarterly" in 1890, said:

Engraving; AC Collection

I visited Halfway Tree on Sunday the 25th November, 1866. When I first saw the cotton tree at the junction of the four roads through the plain of Liguanea from which Halfway Tree receives its name, it had nearly lived out its time. It is of that lofty straight-stemmed variety of Eriondendron which originally growing among some clustering trees had over topped them and had spread its horizontal arms out above them at about some fifty or sixty feet in elevation from the root. Four or five of these arms yet remained with a few scattering stems on which a few straggling leaves vegetated. An age of surface rains rushing to the sea three miles away had removed all the soluble earth from the platform roots, so that they made arched resting places, where the marketers coming from the mountains would rest themselves in groups for they had reached the Halfway Tree. ... At the time of the conquest of the island 200 years ago, the Halfway Tree was one of those tall and solitary cotton trees of the Liguanea Plain."

It is to be regretted that no illustration exists of this interesting tree (Interesting to note that this could be the only photograph known which resides at the Smitsonian Institute, Washington DC), which has perished since Hill wrote. It stood near the present church, where the original road (now known as the old Pound Road) going from Passage Fort, the landing-place from Port Royal, direct towards the mountains, was cut by the road that went from Spanish Town to the plain of St. Andrew. Long the historian says: "The village of Halfway Tree is situated ... at the intersection of the three roads Which lead to Spanish Town, St. Mary, and St. George"And this probably is the origin of the name. The ascription of the name to the halfway position for the

troops between Greenwich on the Harbour and Stony Hill is evidently wrong, as the troops were not placed at Stony Hill till 1799

Historic Jamaica, Frank Cundall 1915