By Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
Sixty-four-year-old William McKenzie (left) converses with 104-year-old Richard Tracey, who is the oldest living person in Sturge Town.
- Photos By Andrew Smith/Photography Editor
AFTER 164 YEARS, the second oldest free village in Jamaica Sturge Town is barely a shadow of the vibrant community life it once boasted but is instead bleeding from brain drain and urban migration.
Located in lower St. Ann, Sturge Town was first established by Joseph Sturge, a Quaker philanthropist who bought the property that was formerly known as Mt. Abylah and divided into village lots for some 100 ex-slaves.
Some of the senior citizens who were born in Sturge Town and are descendants of the original 100 families, say the community is urgently in need of economic injection.
Reminiscing on her childhood days in Sturge Town, 98-year-old Louise McKain told The Gleaner that "it was a beautiful town". She boasts that over the years, Sturge Town had produce fine outstanding citizens in Jamaica. "Every doctor, minister everything comes from Sturge Town. Nothing don't leave that Sturge Town don't have," she beamed.
SUB-DIVIDED
Mrs. McKain, a descendant of the Anderson family, still resides on the original property, which her family acquired in 1840. Her son Phillip McKain, now 76, said it was further sub-divided as the family grew larger.
Despite unable to see and walk, Mrs. McKain painted a clear picture of the community during its heyday, "We use to cultivate banana, cane, every (kinds) of plant down there."
Phillip McKain, however, pointed out that all forms of crop activities have ended on the family's property as the land was now suffering from soil erosion.
Attesting to the former vibrancy of the town, he said, "For one thing, it was the leading district in this section of the parish. It was leading in social life, education anything you can think about Sturge Town was tops. Now things do not seem to be going that way at all."
Mrs. McKain, however, believes that things will improve for the community if there are better roads, which over the years have deteriorated to donkey paths.
She complained, "The roads rough, we don't have any good roads. When I go to the doctor the car is just keep jerking me up. It is a good district but we don't have any roads. People would come in and build but there is no road for them to settle down."
Douglas James, at 77, looks sadly on to a town, which he said was leading economically but has failed to keep it up because of the reluctance of the younger generation to farm the land. "The town is not what it used to be, since the younger set come up and because they refuse to work, this make the town deteriorate," he said.
He suggested that if there were a skills centre, this would help to improve the community. "The improvement we need for Sturge Town is some kind of activities for the young people because they are our problem, they have nothing to do," he said.
LOTS OF CHANGES
For 33-year-old Webley James, the town has improved over the years with residents having access to electricity and piped water. "Sturge Town compared to 20 years ago has seen a lot of changes. It has moved from (being) primitive to a civilised society where only one or two families had television. Now, almost every family has a television. Street lights were not there but now we have a lot of street lights," he said.
He noted, though, that the community was affected mostly from brain drain and as such, many young people are forced to migrate to neighbouring towns such as Brown's Town to seek employment. "It is like a brain drain here in the community, so you find that we really suffer from that and the kind of mentoring that used to be here 20, 30 years ago, we don't have that here. Sad to say, most of the teachers originally from the community are serving in other communities," he said.
There is, however, some positives still happening in the community, as pointed out by 64-year-old William McKenzie: "There is no war, no fuss, the only thing that Sturge Town needs is employment."
The town is also capitalising on its cultural heritage with the aim of revitalising the community and packaging it as tourist product. "Our main thrust at the moment is to get the community involved in community tourism," said Dr. Frank Lawrence.
The product, he said, included marketing its historical attractions such as its Baptist Church, which was erected in 1858; the Marley Spring, which it is claimed if drank from will ensure long life; the Thatchfield 'Light Hole Cave'; its great houses including the Fort George and the Thatchfield Great Houses that were built in the 18th century, and its original narrow Free Village streets.
Already, the community has started this cultural revival with its annual Emancipation Day cultural activity, homecoming and back-a-yard activities that focus on the community's rich heritage.
Now in its fifth year, the cultural event was well supported on Monday, as it attracted not only community members but also persons from other communities, other Caribbean islands and Jamaicans from the United States, Canada and England who were back home for the Emancipation and Independence Day holidays.
