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
As a very young girl I lived near to Half Way Tree and today if you are asked where you used to live in Jamaica most people understand when you say "I used to live near to Half Way Tree." Great memories.
ReplyDeleteI was also told many years ago, (in addition to what I had just red here) that at the time when the relevant authorities had decided to cut down the tree, due to its HUGE size and height, they had was to first cut away the top half, hence the name "Halfway Tree", since it was reduced to half of a tree.....it remained such for an extended period of time until the bottom half was finally removed.
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