Bimble
|
Just a Little Bimble On The
Way Home
  On the way back
from the Ferry Terminal, after our week on Tobago, we were nearly home when I
saw an odd sight, a regional meeting of Corbeau
sitting at the top of a dead tree.
 We
usually see these big birds sitting by the side of the road a few feet from
Chaguaramas Bay
   Not
too dainty on the take off and landing
 Facing inland on the other side of the main road we saw this chap.
I asked Bear if we could drive along the road
parallel
 Of the hundreds of times we have been along the main road, we had
no idea what was along this quiet Macqueripe Road - we
soon saw this sign
 The ruins of St Chad’s Anglican
Church
In 1850, Daniel Cave who was the owner of Mount Pleasant Estate, donated 22,800 square feet of land to the Anglican Church for the construction of a St Chad’s - named after the English saint. The original church that was constructed in 1850 was made of wood but after eighteen years it fell into a state of disrepair and had to be demolished. The congregation requested a new church and with the help of Daniel Cave a new one was completed in 1875. Unfortunately by 1915 this church was in a state of decay. Agnes Tucker, the wife of the owner of the majority of estates in Chaguaramas, then pushed for the construction of yet another new church. By the end of 1915, with the help of the people of Mount Pleasant Village (which was created by the former slaves after Emancipation who settled on the lands of Mount Pleasant Estate) and the estate workers a new church was constructed. This church remained in use until the US Army was given Chaguaramas for use as a military base.
When St Chad's church
was constructed it lay between the grocery and the school. The grocery (though
no longer operational) still appears in good condition because of the
refurbishing that was done when Mount Pleasant Village was used in 2001 to film
some of the scenes for the movie, The Mystic Masseur. Within the church's
cemetery there are several graves. The most prominent grave
belongs to Amelia Tripp, born on the 19th of January 1856. She was the
daughter of William Tucker and married his business partner, Edgar Tripp. Edgar
was the Attorney of the Macqueripe Estate, he later pioneered electric lighting
in Trinidad. Amelia died on the 17th of April 1879 in childbirth at the young
age of twenty three. There are those who say that on a dark night she roams the
roadway but no one has been able to prove it. Her grave, appropriate for her
high status in the community, now shows a worn marble cross with a faded and
worn inscription. Sadly, grass has grown in the tomb itself so it looks pretty
poorly. It was the general opinion in those days that only the wealthy were
given tombs, whereas a wooden cross was placed as a grave marker for people of
the working class. Her inscription reads:
ALL IN ALL WE NEVER KNOW
WHAT WE'LL SEE NEXT |
