THE KING OF MONOS ISLAND

TAKEN FROM Angelo Bissessarsingh's 2012 Archive
Monos Island is now best known as a holiday resort, but for the latter part of the 18th century, well into the 1920s it was an actual community with public officers, a chapel, and families who resided there all year round. The bays of the island were each occupied by a family, foremost among them being the Tardieus who were the great whalers and fishermen of Trinidad in a bygone era. Brave, hardy and hospitable, the Tardieus were well known as boat-builders as well as fishermen and were synonymous with Monos for nearly two centuries. Outsiders were few in the isolated island paradise . In 1849 one of the Tardieu girls married a ruddy Scotsman named William Morrison. He settled in La Vallette (later called Grand Fond) Bay and held the post of Government Bailiff (sort of like a Ward Officer charged with collection of rates and taxes) at the puling salary of one pound eighteenpence per month. As such, he farmed and fished to support his wife and family, and who lived like the Swiss Family Robinson in their solitude. The great English author, Charles Kingsley visited Trinidad and Monos too in 1870. He was enchanted by the lifestyle of Morrison and his brood and soliloquized thus:
“We beached the boat close to the almond-tree, and were welcomed on shore by the lord of the cove, a gallant redbearded Scotsman, with a head and a heart; a handsome Creole wife, and lovely brownish children, with no more clothes on than they could help. An old sailor, and much wandering Ulysses, he is now coast-guardman, water-bailiff, policeman, practical warden, and indeed practical viceroy of the island, and an easy life of it he must have. The sea gives him fish enough for his family, and for a brawny brown servant. His coco-nut palms yield him a little revenue ; he has poultry, kids, and goats' milk more than he needs ; his patch of provision-ground in the place gives him corn and roots, sweet potatoes, yam, tania, cassava, and fruit too, all the year round. He needs nothing, owes nothing, fears nothing. News and politics are to him like the distant murmur of the surf at the back of the island ; a noise which is nought to him. His Bible, his almanac, and three or four old books on a shelf, are his whole library. He has all that man needs, more than man deserves, and is far too wise to wish to better himself I sat down on the beach beneath the amber shade of the palms ; and watched my friends rushing into the clear sea, and disporting themselves there like so many otters, while the policeman's little boy launched a log canoe, not much longer than himself, and paddled out into the midst of them, and then jumped upright in it, a little naked brown Cupid whereon he and his canoe were of course upset, and pushed under water, and scrambled over, and the whole cove rang with shouts and splashing, enough to scare away the boldest shark, had one been on watch off the point. I looked at the natural beauty and repose ; at the human vigor and happiness : and I said to myself, and said it often afterwards in the West Indies : Why do not other people copy this Scot ? Why should not many a young couple, who have education, refinement, resources in themselves, but are, happily or unhappily for them, unable to keep a brougham and go to London balls, retreat to some such paradise as this (and there are hundreds like it to be found in the West Indies), leaving behind them false civilization, and vain desires, and useless show ; and there live in simplicity and content " The Gentle Life" ? It is not true that the climate is too enervating. It is not true that nature is here too strong for man. I have seen enough in Trinidad, I saw enough even in' little Monos, to be able to deny that ; and to say, that in the West Indies, as elsewhere, a young man can be pure, able, high-minded, industrious, athletic : and I see no reason why a woman should not be likewise all that she need be. A cultivated man and wife, with a few hundreds a year—just enough, in fact, to enable them to keep a Coolie servant or two, might be really wealthy in all which constitutes true wealth and might be useful also in their place ; for each such couple would be a little centre of civilization for the Negro, the Coolie and it may be for certain young adventurers who, coming out merely to make money and return as soon as possible, are but too apt to lose, under the double temptations of gain andof drink, what elements of the " Gentle Life " they have gained from their mothers at home.”
The rapture which Kingsley felt over the Morrison clan at Monos must have been real indeed for seventeen years later, the Scotsman was still on the island albeit a bit frailer and was described as follows :
“Monos has good water, several roomy houses, and capital bays for bathing, but the cultivation is not so good as it might be, since it is infested with parasol ants. One of Kingsley's 'At Last' heroes, Mr. Morrison, is still to the fore, though a little more weather-beaten than in the days when Kingsley dubbed him the ' much-wandering Ulysses.'
Morrison died in 1904 and was buried in the sandy soils of his beloved La Vallette Bay His wife, Charlotte Tardieu, also seems to have been all that a pioneer woman needed to be. Indeed, many years after her death, Capt. Percy Fraser, a former Superintendent of Prisons who had visited the place as a youth in the 1880s and 1890s, wrote in the 1940s:
“How many can remember Monos at the time I am writing about? Who remembers old William Morrison and his wife Tante Charlotte” as we youngsters called her and his large family of sons and daughters who were all born on Monos?. Old Morrison was a Scot and a typical one at that. He was a seaman who called here in his youth and married in the Dehere or Tardieu family who at the time owned Bays at Monos and Scotland Bay. At the time I am referring to , the Morrisons lived at Grand Fond Bay , subsequently owned by the Lack family and now by Mr. Albert Siegert (grandson of Dr. J.G.B Siegert of Angostura Bitters fame) . It was taken over by the Americans lately (during WWII) for military purposes. They (Morrisons) kept cows , goats and pigs and cultivated coconuts . People occupying the neighbouring bays got their milk from them. They baked their own bread which they also supplied to the Bays. Tante Charlotte was also the local doctor and whenever anyone fell sick in any of the Bays she was sent for. She readily answered the call and prescribed her well known and efficacious local remedies . Her cheerful disposition was quite sufficient to make a sick person feel better. At Grand Fond they had mango trees of all kinds and we boys enjoyed nothing better than to row over there during the mango season and enjoy that luscious fruit to our hearts content. Whenever we arrived, old Morrison would send one of his men to pick coconuts for us. After drinking as many as we could consume, we would load our boat with nuts to take away. We also enjoyed a glass of fresh milk, either cow or goat. Old Morrison held several posts at Monos under the Government . Postmaster, Harbour Master, Bailiff , Road Officer-there was a road from Kenny’s Bay to Domus Bay, for the upkeep of which he was responsible, Special Constable, Wreck Officer, Customs Officer etc. He was an expert fisherman and no one else knew the various banks or currents better than he. He also took part in the whaling industry which at that time flourished, He was responsible for many rescues at sea.”
This amazing man and his wife lived and died on Monos where they had carved their own utopia, so much so that even though many of their children left the island , three remained in the old house long after the deaths of their parents. The great historian, Fr. Anthony De Verteuil traced the last part of the Morrison saga on Monos and it is this; Patrick Morrison and his spinster sisters, Misses Aggie and Lolotte remained in the old house. Patrick owned a fishing boat called the Oily Oyster from which he harvested the bounty of the sea while Lolotte was Postmistress for Monos, a post she inherited from her father. She was known for floating about in her voluminous skirts on a bamboo raft, bonneted in a Mexican sombrero!! The siblings eked out a living , earning some cash by occasionally moving into the servant quarters at La Vallette and renting out the main house to holidaymakers in the 1920s. Finally, Patrick and Aggie died and Lollotte was left alone. She sold the house and bay to Sir Geo. F. Wight, a millionaire business tycoon from Port-of-Spain who resold it to Gerard Montano, a San Fernando businessman . He had the house demolished in order to build a new villa and workmen were badly frightened when in one of the rooms of the old Morrison home, a 15 foot macajuel snake (Boa Constrictor) was discovered. The superstitious workmen believed that Lolotte was a witch and the snake had been her pet.
Source:  Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago.  Feb 6, 2022)