Orchard Estate

For nearly 170 years the Grizzle family were associated with Orchard Estate in Hanover. The plat survey of 29 March 1711 'began at a Balsom tree and thence to a Breadnutt'. The family acquired a further 300 acres in 1773 and another 420 acres was added in 1782 in the eastern part of the property adjoining Round Hill Plantation. The additional land was purchased from a Samuel Cunningham of St. James. The property was extended through both land purchase and also marriage. Marguerite Curtin noted that 'in 1711 the land to the east of Orchard, 300 acres, was owned by Edward Knowles, but at some point later the Knowles family and the Grizzle family had intermarried and Nicholas, a son of John and Mary Grizzle, had the name 'Knowles', as a middle name.

In 1738 when Nicholas Grizzle died his inventory gave the names and prices of 35 enslaved men, women and children. It is likely given the location of the Orchard estate that the enslaved were bought from either Lucea of Montego Bay both of which were ports of entry for the slave trade.

One of the Grizzles was killed by enslaved people during an uprising. His death was noted by Thomas Thistlewood in his diary 'John Wright and John Grizzle, Jun. Murdered by rebellious negroes; were buried on the 29th of March, 1763.' Another entry noted that the enslaved people who had 'confessed to have murdered Mr. Wright at Mr. Grizzle's etc. Round Hill in Hanover' had been sentenced. One man was to be burnt alive and 'One is kept as evidence against other which may be taken'. John Grizzle Jun. had been married to a woman from the prominent Anglin planter family who owned Paradise Estate in Westmoreland.

Given the constant threat of violence participation in the militia was compulsory for white males. Many Grizzles were active and in 1788 a John Grizzle was listed as one of six Major-Generals of the Militia in Jamaica. The head of the Hanover Regiment as Colonel was Major John Grizzle. John Grizzle also served as a Justice of the Peace for Hanover.

Eventually Mary Lawrence Grizzle married Robert Bowen and the couple had a son - John Lawrence Grizzle Bowen (b.12/12/1766). Thus Orchard eventually became the property of the Bowens, an old plantation family with properties in Westmoreland and St. James. By 1818 Joseph Robert Bowen was the owner of Orchard and Hopewell estates. At that time there were 237 enslaved people at Orchard and 173 at Hopewell. According to the crop account of 1818 the overseer William B. Hole reported that the plantation made 144 hogsheads of sugar and 65 puncheons of rum.

In 1831 the Bowens claimed ownership in 410 enslaved people on Orchard and Hopewell. The Baptist War, which began at Christmas in 1831, engulfed Hanover and on 1 January 1832 General Cotton reported that the whole of eastern Hanover and northern St. James was in open revolt. When the uprising was eventually quelled the trials of participants began. Joseph Clarke of Orchard was one of twelve men court-martialled and tried for 'Rebellion and Conspiracy' and for assisting in the 'Destruction of Property.' Thomas Irving, a private in the Light Company, gave evidence against Clark claiming that when he visited Orchard on 9 January 1832 Clark had refused to help put out the fires on the property. Another enslaved person on Orchard called Robert Johnson also testified against Clarke by corroborating Irving's account. Clark was found guilty and sentenced to 200 lashes - effectively a death sentence.

Joseph Bowen, the proprietor at Orchard was part of a group of planters who actively sought to persecute and blame the Baptist and Methodist missionaries for the violent uprising. As a Justice of the Peace, Bowen signed the warrant for Baptist missionary Rev. Thomas Burchell's arrest. When Burchell was arrested it was Bowen and a man named Coates who read the charge. Bowen was also implicated in the bribery of a young free coloured man named Samuel Stennet, a Baptist, who was paid to testify that he had seen both Burchell and another missionary, Rev. Gardner, incite the enslaved to violence.

This entry is indebted to the work of Marguerite Curtin.

Marguerite Curtin, Orchard: A Profile of an Estate in North Western Jamaica (Kingston, 2002). See particularly pp.11-45.