Historical Notes St Vincent and the Grenadines

Dr. A Nicholls’ Trip to St.Vincent and the Grenadines (May 8 to June 18,1891)

“Visit to Owia”

“After reaching the Carib settlement, the coast becomes magnificently wild, and the road steeper and more tortuous. Soon we turned round Espagnol point, and had a wide bay called Myrtle Bay before us. Across this bay was the promontory of Owia, with its bright green arrowroot fields, and its house and little Church on the hill…We soon came to the pretty little village of Owia and on passing the Church we found a marriage of a Portuguese with a Carib girl was about to take place.{{more}} The marriage guests had walked in their finery from Victoria Village, a new Carib settlement on the heights of Sandy Bay, and they with the bride and bridegroom were waiting about the porch for the clergyman, (Anglican) who is a coloured man…

We went to the manager’s house and there had breakfast which the Hazell’s had sent on for us, and afterwards we walked up the hill…to enable Ivor Moore to do his work , which consisted in examining and valuing the Ordinance property. For, in the days of old, there was a small fort and garrison here. The powder magazine was still well preserved and old guns were lying about. A nice little house in good preservation belonging to the leasee of the estate was built on the top of the hill, and the view from it was very fine, and it must be very healthy for the cool Atlantic breezes are consistently blowing…

With Mr. Branch, the manager of Owia estate, we visited the arrowroot works…The Owia arrowroot has an excellent name in the great markets of the world, and every effort appears to be used to keep up the reputation of the mark…”