St Ann's centenarians flourish
published:
Tuesday | June 3, 2008
Keisha Shakespeare-Blackmore, Staff Reporter
Hubert Henry, 105 years old, former pastor, still finds time to read his Bible. - photos by Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
In February, we featured four centenarians from the parish of Manchester. But Manchester is not the only parish where seniors live for 100 years or more.
On a gloomy and rainy day, Lifestyle journeyed to Sturge Town in St Ann to visit three golden agers. It was a long and tedious journey over narrow roads, bordered by an eerie woodland.
We finally arrived at the village, which was quiet except for a group of men standing at a little shed and eating breakfast from empty cheese tins.
Facts about Sturge Town
Monument declaring Sturge Town as the second free village located at the Sturge Town Primary and Junior High School.
1.
Sturge Town is 45 minutes from Runaway Bay or 20 minutes from Brown's Town, located in the parish of St Ann.
2.
The town was founded by freed slaves with the assistance of the Baptist church and is among the second of some 200 free villages in Jamaica. In the aftermath of Emancipation, many former slaves faced low wages and high rent for their humble plantation dwellings. Without control over housing and labour, they had limited opportunities. Free villages were created under the disciplined leadership of the Baptist, Moravian, Presbyterian and Methodist churches.
3.
Sturge Town was named for Joseph Sturge, a Quaker abolitionist from Birmingham, England.
4.
An estimated 20,000 former slaves settled in free villages throughout Jamaica. The town is supplied with water from the Marley Spring, discovered by a runaway slave named Marley. It is credited for giving the citizens good health and long life
Additional source: www.sturgetown.com
Hubert Henry
First stop was at Hubert Henry's home. Henry, 105 years old, made his way to the verandah as quickly as he could. He was in good spirits and said he had just finished reading his Bible. As a young man, he worked as a blacksmith, a mechanic and farmer.
Henry also pastored the Baptist church until about four years ago when he gave up preaching because he was not as strong anymore. He was married to Iris, who died in 1994. Their union produced five children and one of his sons is deceased.
Memory lane
He took us down memory lane from his boyhood when he attended Sturge Town School. He laughed as he spoke of playing cricket. "Yes man, I loved playing cricket and the girls use to form a ring and dance," he reminisced.
"I was was very clever at arithmetic and drawing, you know," he continued. Unfortunately he did not receive further than primary school education.
"After my time in lower school, my teacher told me to tell my parents to send me back to study. They agreed but I said no because we were very poor and I did not want to go only half way so I told them to send my younger brother Alexander instead."
After his decision, he worked on the farm until he was 21 years old then started the blacksmith trade. He had to walk seven miles from Sturge Town to Benjie Moulton, a blacksmith in Bamboo (neighbouring community) to learn the trade. Henry got a job as a blacksmith but six years later he left it to work at the Llandouvery Sugar Estate. In 1951 he returned home and took up farming, which he continued until his 90s. He told Lifestyle hard work and God's grace have kept him living this long.
