Leaving London: the Ford Boys Come to Jamaica

It’s been a busy summer and I’ve neglected My Jamaican Family, but I’m back now, carrying on the story of the Cunha family and their connection to the Fords. I knew nothing about the Fords, and my curiosity about them was stirred by the marriage of Percival Cunha to Marianne Bravo Ford in 1879. Here is a copy of their marriage record.

They were married 27th August 1879 in St George’s Anglican Church by Enos Nuttall, who later became Bishop of Jamaica. Both were listed as of full age, though their ages were given on the record, and the witnesses to the marriage were all from the Ford family – Jas D. Ford, Florence Louise Ford and Henry B. Ford.

So, who were these Fords anyway? The first task was to find out who Marianne’s parents were. Since Percival and Marianne were married in the Anglican Church I assumed that she must have been baptized in that church, since the Cunhas were certainly Methodists. I found Marianne’s baptism in the Church of England copy registers and saw that she was born 5th February 1858, daughter of James Dearmer Ford and his wife, Cordelia and that she was christened Marianne Bravo. So now I knew that the Jas. D. Ford who was a witness at her marriage had to be her father, James Dearmer Ford. My next step, then, was to search for the marriage of James Dearmer Ford to this Cordelia. I could not, however, find any trace of the marriage in the Anglican registers, so moved to the Dissenter Marriage Registers, on the off chance that they were married in another Protestant denomination, and sure enough, they were. I found that James Dearmer Ford and Cordelia Henriques were married by license on December 15, 1852 in St. Andrew’s United Presbyterian Church in Kingston by one James Watson. Here is their marriage record:

James was twenty-seven years old, a bank clerk, and Cordelia was twenty-one, so both were of full age to be married. The witnesses at this marriage were Henry Ford (again!), an M. Mais, Catherine Dean, Mary Ann Melhado and F. G DaCosta. Here is a recent photo of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, now known as Scots Kirk.

The names Melhado and DaCosta are Jewish, as is Henriques, which made me wonder if Cordelia had married outside of her faith. I therefore searched the Jewish records to see if I could find her birth, which, based on her age at marriage, would have been about 1831.


However, I could find no trace of Cordelia’s birth in the Jewish records, the originals of which are in the National Archives in Spanish Town, but which have been transcribed by Mrs. Phyllis Delisser and can also be found on the Jamaican Family Search website. According to Donald Lndo’s CD, Genealogy of Jamaica, Cordelia was the daughter of one Benjamin Quixano Henriques, who had married Abigail Mesquita, though no date for her birth was given. The source for this was First American Jewish Families, a compilation by the late Malcolm H. Stern, originally published in 1960, the third edition of which was published in 1991. It is also online at http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/FAJF/intro.php.  Stern gave a list of children for Benjamin and Abigail, which included Cordelia (no birth date) and the notation that she had married “Ford”. I was able to find four of these children in the Sephardic records and noted that the last one listed, Nathaniel, was born in Spanish Town in 1927. It’s possible that the other children born after Nathaniel were also born there and that their births were not sent to the synagogue in Kingston and so have not survived in the records. One curious omission in Stern’s list was that of Amos Henriques, born in 1811, who later became a well-known physician and is written up in the Jewish Encyclopedia. In researching Amos I discovered the notice of his death in 1880 in the Jamaica Gleaner of July 7th of that year, which clearly stated his relationship to Cordelia, thus confirming her paternity.

Died

At 67 Upper Berkeley Street, London, of 5th June 1880, of Paralysis of the Heart, Dr. Amos Henriques, aged 72, formerly of Kingston, and deeply regretted by an affectionate wife and children, his sister here, Mrs. Jas. D. Ford, two brothers in Australia, and numerous relatives and friends here and in London.

So now I knew that James Dearmer Ford had married a Jewish girl, but who was he and where had he come from? Unable to find any information about him in the records I started searching the Gleaner for any stories about James Ford and his brother Henry, and it was through Henry, or rather his lengthy obituary published in the Gleaner on November 18, 1901, that I learned the origins of the Ford brothers.

There it was – James and Henry had come to Jamaica on February 14, 1840! It seemed to me that they had most likely come from England and so I changed course and began researching in English records to see what I could find. In my next post I will describe my research into the Ford family.

Some Thoughts on Violence and its Consequences

It has been a long while since I updated this blog … overtaken by various duties and obligations I’ve neglected my posts, but lately I’ve been paying attention to events in two countries, my birthplace and my present home. As I write this the City of Toronto is reeling from the destruction caused by a small group of anarchists, calling themselves the Black Bloc, who have managed to hijack the peaceful protests against the current G20 meetings taking place in the city. Can such anarchist and nihilist behaviour ever be justified? Not always. I don’t deny the right of peaceful protest to those who disagree with the leaders of the G20, who think that they do not care for the average person, and who deplore the amount of money that has been spent on this summit and the security to protect the leaders themselves. They have the right to express their opinions peacefully, but what we have seen this weekend is not peaceful protest but anarchy.

At the same time, not too long ago, in Jamaica we saw a state of emergency declared and a police and army raid on Tivoli Gardens in downtown Kingston, all in order to arrest one man, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a notorious gang leader, in order to turn him over to United States authorities. There was violence there too – much more serious than what we are seeing in Toronto at present – as more than 75 people were killed in the raids. “Dudus” has now been captured and extradited to the U. S.

Many of the comments I have seen about the violence in Toronto in the various online news sources are to the effect that this is not how Canadians behave – that it gives Canada a bad name, and so on. But this country has seen violence against authority in the past. As George Santayana said: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The rebellions of 1837 are a case in point. William Lyon Mackenzie and his supporters rebelled against the government of the day, the Family Compact, in Upper Canada. For this he was forced to flee the country, many of his supporters were arrested, a few hanged and others transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). The consequences of the 1837 rebellions was the appointment by Great Britain of Lord Durham

who was sent to investigate the situation in the Canadas and proposed changes to the status quo which led to the establishment of responsible government. Not only that, but Mackenzie himself, the Firebrand, became Mayor of Toronto and part of the establishment.

There have been many cases of violence in Jamaican history, some of which has brought changes for the better. I think particularly of the 1831-32 slave revolts, also called the Baptist war, in the western parishes, which was led by Sam Sharpe

and which were to lead eventually to the abolition of that pernicious institution, slavery, in the British colonies in 1834. Reviled as Sharpe was in his day – and he was hanged for his pains – he was declared a National Hero of Jamaica in 1975 and there is a statue commemorating him in the square in Montego Bay.

Nor should we forget the 1865 Rebellion in Morant Bay, led by Paul Bogle, which protested the treatment of a poor black man who had been put on trial for the crime of trespass on a long-abandoned plantation. Here there was violence on both sides but more so on the part of the Government under the leadership of Governor Edward John Eyre who put the rebellion down with the utmost brutality. Bogle and many of the rebels were hanged, some without a trial, and so was a member of the House of Assembly, George William Gordon, who had opposed Eyre but who had not taken part in the rebellion. And the consequences? Well, Eyre was recalled to England, the Jamaican House of Assembly renounced its charter and Jamaica became a Crown Colony. Clinton Black, in his book, The Story of Jamaica (London: Collins, 1965), sees this as a turning point in the island’s history as it gave the governors of this period the opportunity to push through various reforms and improvements. Both Bogle and Gordon were declared National Heroes of Jamaica.

I realize all this is very far from what I’ve been writing about in this blog, My Jamaican Family. One thing I’ve realized is that Jamaica, as it exists now, is not the Jamaica I grew up in. At the same time I feel it is important to remember the past, because we, and Jamaica, are products of that past. I cannot say what the end result will be of the raid on Tivoli Gardens, any more than I can say what may come from the violence in Toronto this weekend. That is probably very far in the future. For now I plan in my next post to return to the 1831 slave revolt and its consequences – the abolition of slavery and what it meant to the family I have been following, the Cunhas and a connected family, the Fords.

The Cunha Family -- Louis's Children

Stephen Hopwood pointed me towards the website of the National Library of Jamaica where I found a picture of the Commercial Rooms, at Harbour and King Streets, where Louis Cunha had worked early in his career. Here it is:

The artist was Joseph Bartholomew Kidd, who was born in Edinburgh in 1808 and died at Greenwich in 1889. Between 1831 and 1833 Kidd was engaged by John James Audubon to copy many of his watercolours of birds, Audubon at that time being very involved in finding subscribers for his Birds of America. One such work by Kidd is The Baltimore Oriole.

Kidd also spent time in Jamaica between 1833 and 1840 where he painted many island scenes. Other examples of his work can be found on the website of the National Library of Jamaica, which is currently under construction.

After Louis Cunha dissolved his partnership with Casper Davis in 1879 he continued his operation of the Commercial Exchange. At some point it seems that the Commercial Exchange, or “Commercial Rooms” as they were also known, became the Merchants’ Exchange. In 1885 the Merchants’ Exchange was amalgamated with the newly formed Jamaica Society of Agriculture and Commerce, but by it’s probable that by this time Louis had retired.

Louis and his wife, Elizabeth had six children: Emmeline Isilda, Reginald Granville, Herbert Augustus, Clarence Louis, Percival Charles and Olive Mosse – four sons with two daughters as bookends! All seven were baptized in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, but only Herbert and Clarence were married in that church. They would have been members of Coke Chapel in Kingston.

Courtesy of The New York Public Library. http://www.nypl.org/

Coke Chapel was destroyed by the earthquake in 1907 and the current Coke Methodist Church was built on the same site.

Gleaner, Pieces of the Past www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/images/

Emmeline married Frederick Augustus Autey, a merchant and proprietor of Autey & Company, with operations in both Kingston and Port Antonio. When they married in 1871 Emmeline was twenty-four and Autey was forty-two and a widower, his first wife, Esther Ramos, having died in 1869 at age thirty-three. Autey and Emmeline might have met through Emmeline’s younger brother, Clarence who is listed in the 1878 Directory for Kingston as an accountant with the firm of Autey & Co. at 119 Luke Lane. Autey himself died “of old age” in 1905 and I haven’t so far found any further reference to his widow, Emmeline.

Reginald Granville, the eldest son, married Isabel Martinez Trincoso in Colombia, according to a brief notice in the Gleaner, and I know nothing further about him. Nor have I been able so far to find out what happened to Olive Mosse Cunha, the youngest of Louis’s children. I have been more successful in tracing the lives and careers of Herbert, Clarence and Percival, all of whom I hope to write about in this blog. I found a curious item in the Gleaner of June 20, 1866 about one of Louis’s sons, though which I’m not sure. It might be the youngest, Percival. Here it is:

Louis Cunha died on December 1, 1893 at his home, 136 Church Street, Kingston. Cause of death was chronic cerebritis -- inflammation of the brain. The Gleaner published a brief obituary about him.

His wife, Elizabeth, had already passed away on June 14th, 1884, most likely of uterine cancer.

In my next post I’ll continue the story of the Cunha family.

The Cunha Family -- How Did They Fit in?

Some years ago I did a fair bit of research for a Trinidadian friend on his Cunha connections in Jamaica. This was a Jewish family, the name being Mendes Cunha, and it was of interest to me because family story had it that my mother's family was connected to Cunhas through the Browns. According to my Uncle Rodney (many of whose family stories turned out to be incorrect!), a daughter of my great-grandfather, Daniel Elias Brown, had married a Cunha. This was one Sarah Letitia Webster Brown, of whom I knew very little save that she was the third child of Daniel and his wife, Sarah Letitia, born 26 December 1863 and baptized in the Methodist Church on 3 March 1864. All I've been able to find out about her since is that she was the informant when her father, Daniel Elias, died in 1891 and that at the time she was living at 49 Rose Lane, Kingston and was single. I have not so far found a marriage for her nor a record of her death. So, where did the Cunha connection come from?

I have a cousin living in Jamaica whom I've known all my life, but it was some time before I figured out how we were connected. And here again was another Cunha connection, in that her grandmother's maiden name was Cunha! I knew her as Aunt Maud. My research led me to Maud’s parents, Clarence Louis Cunha who had married Marie Louise Sewell in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. And then the penny dropped! For I then discovered that Marie Louise was the daughter of one Augustus Robert Sewell, a policeman, and his wife, Sarah Saunders Brown, and Sarah was none other than the sister of my great-grandfather, Daniel Elias Brown! Augustus and Sarah had married in the Roman Catholic Church, and it was not until I was able to get a copy of the record that I could make the connection. Here is what it said:

On the 6th of January 1845 Revd. G. L. Duquesnay joined in lawful wedlock according to the rites of the R. Catholic Church, Augustus Robert Sewelle [sic], a native of Carlisle, Cumberland, England, and Sarah Saunders Brown, a native of Kingston, in presence of:

[Signatures]: Augustus R. Sewell
Sarah Brown
Christian Glaatz
Sarah Elizabeth Glaatz (her mark)
G. L. Duquesnay

I haven’t so far tried to track down Augustus Robert Sewell in Cumberland, as I’ve been concentrating on Sarah and her descendants. And if all this sounds as if it just fell into place I can tell you that it took me quite some time to get to the above conclusion.

Once I had the connection to Clarence Louis Cunha I decided to find out more about his family to see if they were part of the Mendes Cunha family. If there is a connection I haven’t so far found it. Clarence was one of the children of Louis Charles Cunha and his wife, Isabel (also known as Elizabeth) Ximenes (which was spelled Himenes in their marriage record.) They were married in the Wesleyan Methodist denomination in 1846 and the record gives very little information save their names, and that they were “of full age”, so I don’t know who their parents were. If Louis were the son of one of the Mendes Cunhas he was most likely illegitimate as he does not appear in the Sephardic Jewish records. Based on his age at death he was probably born about 1819. I should add here that during my research I corresponded with other family connections who were certain that Louis Charles Cunha must have been a Jew who converted and changed his Jewish name, but we have been unable to find any evidence for this.

Louis Cunha was from all accounts a highly respected person in the Kingston business community. On Clarence’s baptismal record he is listed as a gentleman and on another record as the manager of the Commercial Rooms. According to Stephen Hopwood, the Commercial Room was
…”rather like a Chamber of Commerce, but with more importance. It was located on Harbour Street (south side) near King Street. A tower over the building was used for sighting of incoming ships and the report given as to friend or foe and report if mail ships were approaching. Before the post office - it served as a mail drop, and had it own hand stamp for outgoing/incoming mail, and generally served as a post office as well. In other words it served a very important function!”
This illustration by James Hakewill, from his Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica, shows the corner of King and Harbour Streets as of 1825 and is the closest I can come to a picture of the area.

In researching Louis’s connection to this establishment I researched notices from the Gleaner and found that he eventually started up in a similar business with a partner. But before that I did find references to his employment at the Commercial Room in a Parliamentary Report on Governor Edward Eyre’s handling of the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion. In this report Louis was giving evidence in 1866 in a case regarding a charge of seditious libel printed in a newspaper, the “County Union”;

From reports in the Gleaner it seems Louis decided to go into business with a partner in an endeavor similar to his former position, as per this item in the Gleaner of January 29th, 1878:

The following month the Gleaner reported the opening of the Commercial Exchange:

Success was short-lived however and the partnership did not last. The following conflicting advertisements appeared in the Gleaner of September 26, 1879:

Shortly thereafter the Gleaner published the following notice on January 3, 1880:

According to the advertisements the dissolution was by mutual accord.

Casper Davies (also spelled Davis) was an observant Jew and this would explain his decision to close the Commercial Exchange for the High Holy Days. Apparently he did this without consulting his partner. Did Louis respond the way he did because he didn’t want the public to think he was Jewish, or was it because he had not had a part in the decision? Whatever the reason this was most likely why the partnership was dissolved.

In my next post I will continue the story of the Cunha family.

Hannah's Children -- Eugene Ca Costa

Eugene Da Costa – he never used the middle name, Rodrigues – was born about 1873, the second child and first son of Joseph and Hannah Rodrigues Da Costa. I have not been able to find his baptismal record, but he was most likely baptized in the Catholic Church. I did not, of course, know him, but I imagine from what I’ve found about him, that he wasn’t much like his sister, Ida. Eugene was a character … a man of definite opinions, and involved in several pursuits chief among which was horse-racing. A great deal of what I’ve learned about him I found reported in the Gleaner, for Eugene was an inveterate writer of letters to the editor and did not mince his words.

As I had no pictures of Eugene I had to try and build a picture of him based on whatever information I could find in the Gleaner. Not long after I began searching for information about him I came across a letter of his to the editor of the Gleaner in which he mentioned that he had written a history of horse-racing in Jamaica. This intrigued me and I set about trying to find the book, without success. It then occurred to me that perhaps he had deposited a copy of the book in the National Library of Jamaica, and sure enough he had. I emailed their reference section, told them I was a relative of Eugene’s and asked if it were possible to get a copy of his book. The reference librarian I dealt with very kindly offered to photocopy it for me, for a modest cost, and there it was … a book written by my cousin, Eugene!

There was no cover, so I had to make do with the title page.

Eugene’s reminiscences about horse-racing in Jamaica covered the years 1874 to 1934, and described the early racing days at the Kingston Race Course and then the move to the racecourse at Knutsford Park in St. Andrew.

This area is now New Kingston and the racecourse is now Emancipation Park.

Eugene was very much involved in horse-racing, both as Secretary of the Jamaica Turf Club and as an owner and trainer himself. He was also, according to information I found in the Gleaner, employed by the Jamaica Railway Company (which, sadly, no longer exists) and had an ice cream business at Cross Roads, St. Andrew.

The earliest vital information I could find on him was his marriage on March 26, 1899, to Catherine Rebecca James. At the time he gave his address as Bog Walk, St. Catherine and his occupation as clerk. He and Catherine were married by Father Patrick F. X. Mulry at St. George’s College. They had no children and according to Eugene’s brief obituary in 1951 his wife had predeceased him. I have not been able to find a record of her death.

I found a story in the Gleaner of May 31, 1911, which stated that the City Council had granted Eugene an application for use of the site on the Kingston Race Course to hold a race meeting on two Coronation holidays, June 22nd and 23rd. There were several other stories concerning Eugene and horse-racing in general, as well as numerous letters written by him to the editor of the newspaper about the state of horse-racing in Jamaica. He was somewhat of a combative nature as he was involved in at least two lawsuits, both of which he won.

The closest I got to a picture of the man is this clipping from the Gleaner of June 22, 1939:

Eugene is at the right in front. Like many of the Da Costas he was not tall! To my mind he looks a lot like my father, his first cousin.

A brief story in the Gleaner of December 28, 1945 described Eugene’s visit to Trinidad. Here it is:

On his return from Trinidad Eugene was quoted in the Gleaner as follows:
“The pari-mutuel turn-over in Trinidad in a single day is better than we in Jamaica can do in a single year.”
He went on to say that Trinidad had the power behind it to become one of the best racing centres in the world. “’On the first day of the meeting”, said Mr. Da Costa, ‘the promoters made a net profit of 60,000 dollars’”.

Eugene died July 3, 1951. Here is his obituary from the Gleaner of July 5th:

I was surprised to see that he had attended Wolmer’s Boy’s School as I thought he would most likely have gone to St. George’s. His sister, Ida, must have taken care of the funeral arrangements. From what I’ve been told by Ida’s grandson, Timothy, Eugene was almost like a father figure to Ida’s children so brother and sister must have been quite close

There is no doubt that Eugene knew horse-racing inside out and had many years of experience with the sport in Jamaica. So I am very disappointed that Dr. Rebecca Tortello, in her piece on the history of horse-racing in Jamaica, in the Gleaner’s Pieces of the Past, does not mention Eugene at all.

I hope that this small piece about him helps to make up for that.