 Did you know Stollmeyer’s Castle is one of Trinidad’s "Magnificent Seven", an expression which refers to seven homes situated around Queen’s Park West, in Port of Spain? These buildings are part of architectural heritage of the city.
Source: lifeintrinidad.com
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Onlookers at the scene of the 1885 train crash.  An unseasonal shower of rain greeted the lunchtime train from Arima as it pulled into the St Joseph Railway station. It was Tuesday, 28th, January, 1885. Trinidad Government Railway had been operating since 1876. Those nine years passed without any fatal accident involving passengers on the railway. The line, at first, went from Port of Spain to Arima, but by 1882, it reached San Fernando, and Princes Town by 1884.
The passing of a San Fernando train made it necessary for the Arima train to wait a while in St Joseph, while passengers boarded and detrained. The entire railways system back then was single-lined. This meant, to avoid collision, the line must first be cleared of other traffic moving in the opposite direction. The “staff system” was in place at Trinidad Government Railway at the time. Before a train began its journey through a section of line between stations, the Stationmaster handed a staff (usually a painted metal hoop) to the train driver. Possession of the staff ensured that only one train could be on that section of line at a time. There was a notable exception to this rule at the TGR. In some circumstances a written pass could be issued to a train by the Stationmaster. According to the schedule that existed, the Arima train would only have to wait for the San Fernando train to pass before it departed for San Juan, and then onto Port of Spain, but this Tuesday was an exception. At the request of the owner of a sugar factory in Chaguanas, a goods train with empty wagons left Port of Spain just after the San Fernando train. Its mission was to collect a cargo of sugar for a steamer in the Port of Spain habour which was leaving on the same day. On that faithful Tuesday, Louis Fanovich was the Stationmaster at St Joseph, and the assistant Stationmaster was absent on sick leave. The St Joseph Station was under renovation, and with it came usual inconveniences. It was crop season, and the transportation of harvested cane and sugar by rail meant “busy season” at the TGR. Fanovich was informed of the special train on its way to Chaguanas, but he somehow mistakenly issued a written pass to the Arima train, and waved it through the station. Realizing his mistake shortly after, he ran desperately after the departing train, waving a red flag, but it was too late. In drizzling rain, just a few hundred yards away at Champ Fleurs, and still in sight of the station, the Arima train crashed into the goods train from Port of Spain. At that point, the line curved and there was a slight drop (an incline from the opposite direction). The curve, high grass at the side of the line, along with the fact that the Arima train was travelling bunker-first, made it impossible for the drivers to see each other’s train. Both drivers threw their engines into reverse before the crash, but wet rails, no doubt, made it harder to stop. The east-bound locomotive jackknifed and came off the rails on the north side along with the carriage directly behind. The first two carriages were smashed to splinters, while the goods train remained on the line. The two drivers jumped out their locomotives before the impact. Henry Hubert Roberts, only slightly injured, went back to his smashed engine whose smokebox was now facing skywards. He drew the fire, and shut off the steam to prevent further incident. George Wilkie, the fireman on the goods train, did the same as his driver, Charles Henry Treddree (Freddie) was injured. Frederick Perryman, the fireman on the Arima train, was not. Two people were killed on the spot: one Mr. Lord of the Government Telegraph Department, and Mrs. Louisa Gomes, a well-known widow from St Joseph. The elderly, Mrs. Gomes never used the railway in the entire nine years of its existence. She made an exception on that day, to visit her sick daughter a few miles away at Santa Cruz. Her first and last railway journey was just a few hundred yards. Barbadian immigrant, Mr. Charles Armstrong, a builder/contractor, and resident of Tacarigua, was critically injured. He died the following day at the Colonial Hospital in Port of Spain. Mr. Armstrong, about 48 years old, was considered a hero, as he refused help while drawing the helpers' attention to other injured passengers. Sadly, this did not prevent bandits from making off with his gold watch and chain. Among the injured were two sisters, Sophie and Minnie Fraser. The elder sister, Minnie, 22 years old, was considered mortally injured with two broken legs, while Sophie’s injuries were less severe, and not life-threatening. Also injured were Mrs. Francis Gransaull, and one Miss Popo from St Joseph. No less than eight other persons suffered various injuries. The Fraser sisters were daughters of the Lionel Mordaunt Fraser, who was the magistrate for St Joseph back then. Fraser held various Government posts in his lifetime including; Commandant of Police (up to 1877), and Inspector of Prisons. The families of the injured and the deceased sued the Government, and claims that were first rejected by Governor Sir Arthur Havelock, were approved by newly appointed Governor Sir William Robinson in a compromise settlement that offered half the amount claimed by each party. Among the claimants who accepted the compromise was Mordaunt Fraser, who was told by Governor Havelock that as a public official he should not have taken action against the government. As a result of the accident, Louis Fanovich was charged with manslaughter of Charles Armstrong, but was later acquitted in a highly publicized trial. The brunt of the blame was placed on the decision to allow the special goods train on the line in the first place. This outcome sat well in the hearts of the public who favoured Fanovich. The January, 1885 accident was not the only fatal one on the single line between Port of Spain and St Joseph. Thirty years later, on Saturday 6th March, 1915, eleven souls were sent to meet their maker, and twenty others injured near McKenzie Bridge, just east of the San Juan Railway Station. Clearly, the single line on the busiest portion of the TRG had long become inadequate, and downright dangerous. In 1923 a double line to St Joseph was finally completed, having been accomplished in stages beginning in 1913 at Railway Central (as the Port of Spain Station was called by TGR workers). News of the 1915 accident must have especially troubled Minnie Fraser, who was, quite possibly, the last surviving victim of the 1885 crash, before she passed away on 15th, October, 1945, at the ripe old age of eighty-two. Source: Reflections and Musings on Trinidad's History
 You may recall this photo in the last blog... thanks to Josh Lu, who did the research, this is a PATENT / RICHARD BROWN & SON / PAISLEY Red firebrick from Scotland. This is what they call a Frog Brick which was popular in the 19th century. Click here if you would like to read more about it.
 Grand residence, built in 1920s, once graced Farallon Rock. In 1869, noted English novelist, historian, priest and university professor Charles Kingsley travelled across the Atlantic to Trinidad. He came ashore at the quay in Port of Spain (land then being reclaimed) to find a town of 8,000 souls, and “a multitude of people who are doing nothing”. He would later write about his travels across the island, and other places, in a book titled At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies. In the book, Kingsley described taking a steamer (a steam-powered ship ) from Port of Spain to San Fernando, “a gay and growing little town, which was, when we took the island in 1795, only a group of huts”. It was while in the waters off San Fernando that Kingsley took note, and later wrote “I saw, some quarter of a mile out at sea, a single stack of rock, which is said to have been joined to the mainland in the memory of the fathers of this generation; and on shore, composed, I am told, of the same rock, that hill of San Fernando, which forms a beacon by sea and land for many a mile around”. Kingsley’s description of the stack is one of the first records of the existence of what would later come to be known as Farallon Rock (from the Spanish farallon, meaning “cliff” or “pillar”). Except that the description given by Kingsley would be lost to all who know the Gulf of Paria. That’s because for as far back as anyone can remember, there has been no rocky islet off San Fernando. What one sees instead is the unlikely form of a building standing more than a kilometre out to sea, upon which grows a single tree, and behind which is the outline of Venezuela. Unknown to many is that this foundation was built on the rock, and the base of an impressive home, two storeys above water, in which the area’s most affluent frolicked. How the rock came to be claimed as privately owned is uncertain, but building on it would have taken considerable time, and big money. More impressive was the effort involved in taking the construction material out to the site and working with the tides to raise a concrete foundation— which is all that is left. Historian and author Michael Anthony said he always wondered about the origin of the building, and during the research for his book Anaparima –The History of San Fernando and the Naparimas, he came up with the name Hobson. It turns out Anthony was correct. The last family in San Fernando to use Farallon Rock as their private paradise was the Mokunds, up until the 70s. The family acquired the property from the Synes, a family made rich by the entrepreneurship of patriarch Asgaralli Syne, who history records as being the first to start a private bus service (from Siparia to San Fernando, and later to St James) in 1910, a mode of mass transit that would ultimately help lead to the end of passenger train service in Trinidad in the 60s (Syne Village Siparia is named after the family). The Synes bought the property from another set of prominent San Fernandians—the Gittens family—who were spending their weekends out at sea from as early as the 1940s. The Gittens family owned a dental practice along Pointe-a-Pierre Road (now the site of a newly-built, but abandoned CLICO office), and were also involved in the often despised business of quarrying on the Fernando Hill, which only ended in 1976. However, it was the Hobson family who had the fortune to undertake the build. The house was likely built in the 1920s by Leonard Manning Hobson, a prominent attorney, who would later become the Mayor of San Fernando (and whose hilltop home at Circular Road, San Fernando, would be acquired by the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union, and used by the famed CLR James for several years). Kennedy “Kong” Sooklalsingh, 80, who operated the Gittens quarry, recalled boating out to the house to spend the weekend at Farallon. “I would go out with there with my wife and children and Rosemary Gittens, who owned the quarry. We were there in ten minutes. There was electricity from a generator, a caretaker, and a lot of fishing. It was a memorable time”. Victor Edoo, 70, who was a frequent guest of the Mokunds, said the house sitting in the sea was never considered unusual “since it was there before anyone of us was even born”. Edoo recalled that his sister and her husband honeymooned at the house, that would also, during the course if its existence, host Easter parties that would rival today’s all-inclusives (there were eight bedrooms on the top floor and an open ground floor used as a dance hall). Anthony, who spent some of his early years in San Fernando, also recalled people swimming out to the rock as a dare (at least one was known to have drowned in the attempt), and the house being used as a turning point for the annual January 1 San Fernando regatta. But without a permanent resident, the house became a fisherman’s hangout, and was vandalised and dismantled over the decades. Combined with the action of the waves, the foundation has fallen away, exposing in places the original rock that Kingsley described, when he saw it 144 years ago. Source: By Richard Charan, Virtual Museum of T&T what's left of the house today
 People erroneously assume that upon expiration of their five year indentureship contracts, coolie labourers from India (1845-1917) were automatically handed five acres of land in lieu of a return passage to India as an incentive to stay in the colony. This is not true. The incentive only existed from 1860 and applied only to those who served a full term of the contract. All incentives ceased in 1880 when it was determined that enough had settled in Trinidad to provide a permanent labour force.
The Indian who saved from his pittance and bought out his contract received nothing. He and those before 1860, were left to survive on what little they had saved from their wages ($2.50/month for an adult male, $1.75/month for a female, $0.75 for children up to 12). Neither did the incentive consist of land. It was simply five pounds in cash with which the majority purchased crown lands, which after 1870 were available for one pound per acre. Naturally, there were those who for reasons of profligacy or ill-luck ended up as vagrants on the streets of Port-of-Spain. In 1904, it was estimated that as many 140 Indian vagrants slept in Port-of-Spain, most near Columbus Square. From 1849, an official known as the Protector of the Immigrants was appointed to oversee the general welfare of the immigrants, ensuring that they were treated fairly. Often enough, these bureaucrats were corrupt slackers, who took massive bribes from estate owners to not “rock the boat”. The only one who seems to have been a man of energy and conscience was Charles Melville whose father, Henry Melville (and ironically enough, Protector of the Slaves before emancipation) had been a medical doctor and a man of great reputation in the colony. Charles took a dangerous stance in taking his job seriously and arguing with the all-powerful sugar plantocracy for better rights for the Indians. Since the manager of Usine Ste Madeleine was more powerful than the Governor in those days, Melville soon suffered the fate of the conscientious civil servant and was axed. Melville’s successor was Major Comins (1895-1910), an honest soldier and owner of Glenside Estate in Tunapuna. Comins had been an officer in India and was thought to have been the best fit for the job since he understood “the Indian Problem.” Major Comins travelled extensively across the estates, inspecting barracks, and the dreadful living conditions of the Indians on the plantations. His scathing report published in 1902, and revised in 1908 is an indictment on a labour system that was little better than slavery. He was particularly aggrieved over what he saw at Woodford Lodge Estate where Indians were worked longer than stipulated hours, kept on the estate by armed guards, left untreated at a filthy estate hospital and fed on scanty provisions. It was, however, generally understood that as a planter himself, he sought the colonial interests and moderated his views to such an extent as to be a tool of the establishment and not in favour of those he was supposed to protect. The last Protector of the Immigrants was Arnauld De Boissiere in 1927, a playboy and dandy who only held the office for the 400 pounds a year it paid. In Port-of-Spain, Indian vagrants were a lost people, they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off. In Trinidad, they were alien, many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrackyard dwellers, and the colonial authorities. Most Indian vagrants survived as porters at sixpence a load. The main employers were marchandes (female vendors of edibles), and laundresses who would engaged porters to carry the bundles of soiled clothing collected from the better homes in Woodbrook and St Clair, returning the freshly ironed and starched pieces, neatly folded on a wooden tray, carried by an itinerant porter. Some fortunate displaced Indians found accommodation at the Ariapita Asylum (known as the Poor House) until that facility was closed in 1929. Largely, most begged charity on the streets until death claimed them, their bodies being consigned to the earth of the Pauper’s cemetery in St James, opened in 1900. In Port-of-Spain, Indian vagrants were a lost people, they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off. In Trinidad, they were alien, many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrackyard dwellers, and the colonial authorities. Source: the late Angelo Bissessarsingh - Virtual Museum of T&T Calypso is a music that documents the histories and ideologies of the people who create it and the societies in which they live. Many calypsonians note that the music functions as a newspaper, conveying contemporary stories of local and global significance, attitudes about life and society, critiques of structures of power and the dreams and aspirations of its people. Rapso is an overtly political and activist variant of calypso, with deep roots in the oral traditions of the people of trinidad and tobago. Although trinidad and tobago became independent of british colonial rule in 1962, the struggle for freedom and independence is ongoing. Through their music and performance, rapso artists advocate for economic and social justice and cultural self-determination. An important aspect of their work is to foster local pride while being simultaneously in conversation with regional and international social movements for human rights. What does this tell us about the culture and politics of the caribbean? It tells us that the project to achieve independence continues and that artists are engaged in a critical assessment of their reality within the global dynamics of power and culture. Despite the history of genocide, slavery, colonialism, and neo-imperialism, caribbean people have survived very difficult circumstances, using creativity and wit to manage the most difficult of experiences. The arts have been, and continue to be, a central feature of caribbean political and social action.
Patricia van Leeuwaarde Moonsammy, Dickinson College Assistant Professor and Distinguished Chair of Africana Studies. (via dangercurls)  Trinidad and Tobago’s Mango Festival celebrates the king of fruits
The dual-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago is known for its superb cuisine and spectacular street food, but on certain days in July, the nation of foodies will pay homage to the king of tropical fruit. Sweet, juicy and versatile, delicious mangoes of every size and type will be the focus of Trinidad and Tobago’s fourth annual Mango Festival. Featuring a mango market, mango products, grafting demonstrations, exhibitions, children’s activities, games, mango-eating competitions, and other entertainment, Trinidad and Tobago’s Mango Festival offers mangophiles every imaginable mango-made delight, from soaps and preserves to candles and gift paper. A highlight of the festival is the mango market where a variety of the locally-grown fruit, including the sinfully sweet Julie, considered the queen of mangoes, which was developed in Trinidad, and other varieties with whimsical names such as Rose, Hog, Calabash, Douxdoux, La Brea Gyul, Turpentine, and Graham – a seedling of the Julie mango – can be purchased. Preceding the festival will be the island’s second Mango Conference on July 4, which is also being hosted under the auspices of the Network of Rural Women Producers (NRWP) of Trinidad and Tobago. Highlighting the contribution of rural communities and agri-entrepreneurs to national economic development, Trinidad and Tobago’s Mango Festival also promotes economic opportunities through the sustainable use of the mango, and educates participants on the many benefits of the much-loved fruit. Known as the “king of fruit” throughout the world, mangoes were brought to the West Indies by Portuguese traders. In some cultures, the mango tree is a symbol of love, and the fruit is known to be bursting with flavor as well as protective nutrients including vitamin C and beta carotene. In Trinidad and Tobago, mango trees are planted as part of re-forestation programs due to their extensive root systems that hold the soil and prevent erosion. The fruits are also a good source of food for birds and other animals. Courtesy of Jus trini tings |
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