Sonia Morgan, Staff ReporterRECENTLY, MY assignment took me to Port Antonio to get "a feel of the people and the town". It was just a weekend, but I intended to get in as much work as I could in the less-than-three-days afforded me. I had to cram everything in that time. I needed to speak to someone who knew the town; someone who was old enough to have seen the changes and help me to understand its evolvement. I was told to speak to Ronald Williams, a founding member of the Rotary Club of Port Antonio, who lives in Folly.
We made arrangements from my hotel room at Trident Villas: "Leave Trident, there is a bridge by the sea. On the right, at the end of the sea wall after the last bridge, there is a white gate, it's right before the cricket oval, you can't miss it."
I did miss it.
Actually, I only thought I did because all I could see was an expanse of coconut trees. I thought any moment now I would see a sign that said 'Trespassers will be shot'. Hurriedly, I turned the car around in the one-car driveway only to see the oval I shouldn't pass. I turned back and it was the place. When I got to the house, Ronald Williams, a tall, slender, white-haired Indian was sitting on the veranda waiting for me.
He greeted me and we began to talk. He is 85 years old and has been occupying the property at Folly for many years. He said he was working with the government for 40 years and in 1953, he went to Port Antonio. "I was transferred here from Manchester. I am originally from Buff Bay and wanted to come back to Portland, so when there was an opening ..."
He looked out at the ocean from his veranda and said that it was government property, but he has lifetime lease agreement in recognition of his long service. "I planted everything here," he said of the well vegetated area, "when I came here it was a pasture." He occupies a beautiful home overlooking the sea. The wooden house was built in 1885 and it is the original property of Folly Estate. The wood was brought from US - 'pitch pine' and 'Douglas Furrow' - which were painted and sand-dashed for preservation. The house is still intact.
Mr. Williams offered me a glass of coconut water which he called the "'unalcoholic', uncontaminated, unadulterated, unbelievable 'green stripe beer'." He claims it has kept him healthy all these years.
He launched into a history of the town: "Port Antonio got its fame through the banana industry. It started with Captain Lorenzo Baker about 1895." Baker was a retired sea captain who came to Jamaica, got a sample of the banana and subsequently began the export trade. The Spanish had brought in banana, coffee, citrus, pigs and horses, mules and donkeys which they used for transport. In fact, the pigs they brought multiplied rapidly and some ran to the hills which saved the Maroons from starvation.
During the interview a tour bus came (unannounced) with an alumni group from New York on tour of the island. Phillis Dale, a friend of the family and schoolmate to Mr. Williams' children, was on the bus. It was a mini reunion for his daughter, Jennifer, who lives in France and who was visiting. Shortly after he spoke to them we were back to the history of the pristine parish.
Mr. Williams said within five years Captain Lorenzo had 27 ships doing banana trade and he started a regular trade with Boston and Port Antonio. He subsequently started the Boston Fruit Company. "Port Antonio flourished economically and while the captain was taking bananas to Boston, he was coming back with tourists. Port Antonio is the cradle of tourism," he said with unselfish pride.
It was really fascinating to listen to the man who seemed to be a walking textbook of history, reeling out the dates and the names of the people who made Port Antonio.
He said in 1962 the year of Jamaica's Independence, the banana industry, tourism, livestock, citrus were flourishing. Small farmers were doing well. "Port Antonio is still a struggling town because of the high rate of unemployment and decline in farming activities. People hardly move inland, they usually migrate." Today, he said, there are many returning residents, but they are usually unhappy with what they have found and have returned abroad.
According to Mr. Williams, "Historically, Port Antonio has earned its economy by things coming in. Famed actor, Errol Flynn, had 4,000 acres of farm lands for cattle rearing and coconut farming. Today, the coconuts have died out and the people can't sell beef." With the free market the small farmers suffer and hotels sometimes buy products like beef from overseas. He lamented that there was too much importing: "We are importing mutton and selling it for $70 per lb., while the local mutton is for $120 per lb."
The Lethal Yellowing disease had wiped out coconuts from east Portland and St. Thomas and west Portland and St. Mary. "It's pathetic to see the headless trees in the coconut graveyards. When the disease attack the trees the nuts fall off then the rest of it leaving a headless tree whose trunk stay there and rot." While most of the coconut farms now look like coconut graveyards, Mr. Williams' five acres have not had a single attack of the Lethal Yellowing disease. He attributes it to good luck, God's blessing and that he had interplanted three breed of coconuts.
"What I did was to interplant them. I don't know if there are any benefits, immunity or resistance due to cross-planting."
Mr. Williams is optimistic about the construction on the marina and the pier in Port Antonio. "What they are doing there is excellent development, which is a long-tern investment, the results of which will not be seen until the next 25-50 years." However, he said with the pier there must be land attraction and development to complement it. "There have to be hotels and restaurants. The fear now is that these things will be there, but as a white elephant, an ornament. There is talk about a casino which is already getting opposition from the church."
There is a crime problem, Mr. Williams said, but it is more or less average. It is not much right now. Mr. Williams hopes that:
Some development will take place that will provide employment for the skilled as well as the unskilled labourers.
Development of the craft industry - in both manufacturing and sales.
A rise in tourism. And most importantly
A change in the vision of tourism from sun, sand and sea to eco-tourism to include mountain climbing and the like.
Mr. Williams is currently writing a book on the history of Folly which will encompass the development of the estate, the building of the mansion, the rise and fall of the Mitchell family who built it and the state of decline and ruin of the building which is now a landmark.
