Lapeyrouse
cemetery in Port of Spain is one of the best examples of this country’s
cosmopolitan population. It contains the graves and tombs of the rich and the
poor. Reading the inscriptions is a veritable ‘tour de force’ of the known
world.
There
are rows of graves with Chinese inscriptions, as well as small mansions for the
French aristocratic dead. Elegant monuments commemorate the more conservative
British, and imposing rotundas and tall obelisks eminent free masons of a
previous century.
The
various religious rites performed at Lapeyrouse are a true reflection of the
country’s multi-faceted society. On a busy afternoon, one can hear the clapping
and chanting of the Shouters, while not to far away is the murmur of the
Catholics working at their beads. In the gathering dusk, the mournful tubas of
the Salvation Army Band keeps pace with alarming flats and sharps as rendered
by the reeds and woodwinds. You can hear a kaiso or two and sometimes very god
pan. The smell of flowers is often mingled with that of exotic incense, and at
times there is the bang and flash of firecrackers. This is for the Chinese.
Indeed,
the origins of Lapeyrouse are closely connected with the establishment of
present-day Trinidad. Picot de la Peyrouse, a French nobleman, came to Trinidad
in 1778. He was a friend and companion of Philip Rose Roume de St. Laurent. His
older brother was one of those intrepid explorers who circumnavigated the globe
towards the end of the 18th century.
Picot acquired land on the outskirts of Port of Spain, a muddy little village in
those days. And together with a gang of slaves he cleared the dense forest and
laid out the first sugar cane estate on the island. Picot also built the first
factory there for the production of Muscovado sugar, brown, wet and smelling of
molasses.
He
may have been our first exporter. The Otaheite variety of cane did well and so
did the de la Peyrouse family.
A
parcel of land, no one knows quite where, was a burial ground even before the
de la Peyrouse cane fields. This served a small village, now lost into the
suburbs of Port of Spain. This parcel of land bounded on the estate or was
perhaps on it. It was called ‘Campo Santo’ (the holy field). The earliest grave
is said to have been one for Jean Creteau, who died in 1745.
Port
of Spain grew and prospered, and by the time of the British conquest in 1797,
it was in need of a bigger and better burial ground. This was marked off in a
small area bordered by Tragarete Road, Richmond Street and Fraser Street. A
wall was erected around it, and by 1813 it was referred to as the ‘Old
Cemetery’. The records concerning the purchase of land from the de la Peyrouse
family by the Cabildo have long since been destroyed by the various fires that
have swept the town over the years. It would appear, however, that the
Littlepage family business did tender for the erection of a wall around the
‘New Cemetery’. This new burial ground acquired the name ‘Lapeyrouse’ by 1831,
being on the old estate lands.
By
1823, colonial order was being generally imposed on this unruly, very
heterogeneous and bacchanal-prone island. This was highlighted by the
inauguration of a section of Lapeyrouse for Anglicans towards the western wall.
Not to be outdone, there was soon a place for Catholics - the eastern side.
Within
just a few years, the cemetery was again enlarged, this time buying lands from
the Shine family, who were originally Irish and are related to the Park and
Black families. One Herr Schuler, a German, was employed as keeper. It is
interesting to note that several remarkable people became keepers of the
cemetery in the 19th century: P.G.L. Borde, for example, the notable historian,
and also José Numa Dessource, an early socialist reformer who attempted to
start a colony in Venezuela.
Over
the next few years, more land was acquired by the Cabildo, this time from
Joseph Dert (pronounced Der), who was the son of Benoît Dert, who had started
the first coffee estate in an area between Queen’s Park south and Tragarete
Road in the 1770s (now part of Newtown). Benoît also introduced freemasonry to
Trinidad in the establishment of Lodge United Brothers, which is still in
existence today.
Governor
Sir Ralph Woodford (1813 - 1829) worked hard for the cause of racial
segregation in Trinidad, to the extent of marking off a portion of Lapeyrouse
cemetery for the free black people of the town. This in fact cost Schuler his
job as for various reasons he lost track of the incoming dead and often buried
the blacks amongst the whites and vice versa. The matter was amended only ‘as
far as circumstances will admit’. It must have been extremely upsetting for the
white dead who had avoided personal contact with the blacks throughout their
entire lifetimes, to find themselves sharing the same worms in death...
In
those times, Trinidad possessed chain gangs, prisoners chained together, who
were set to work building roads like Lady Chancellor Road, cutting canals like
Harts Cut in Chaguaramas (which was filled in the Second World War), and
digging graves. The men in the chain gang were whipped on a regular basis by a
slave called Cinq Sous (five cents). After Cinq Sous’ untimely death, the
Illustrious Cabildo was forced to advertise for a new whipper.
Just
as today, the cemetery was populated by both the living and the dead, and
efforts were constantly made to stop the robbing of tombs of their monuments
and mortuary decorations. There was also an active trade in skulls and other
bones for the purpose of obeah. Corpses were sometimes exhumed by robbers in
search of gold and other valuables and reports were made to the police of the
finding of smashed dentures where gold had been removed from them. So much for
‘R.I.P.’ - rest in piece.
In
the period just before emancipation, that part of town was pretty rough. There
was stickfighting and brawling on an ongoing basis. Corbeaux Town’s name was
well earned. Port of Spain’s jamette society staged spectacular funerals that
were remembered more than 100 years later by oral tradition. This was recorded
by Mitto Sampson in the 1940s, who was otherwise known as ‘Strong Man’. Sampson
was famous for his death-defying hangman’s leap from the Dry River bridge, a
noose being fastened to it and then placed around his neck.
The
cemetery grew in direct proportion to the town, eventually covering some 20
acres. By the 1840s, Ariapita estate, which had once belonged to the wife of
Roume de St. Laurent, had been developed for housing. So had been Tranquillity,
acquired from the Cummings family. Newtown, once part of the St. Clair estate,
was also opened up. Streets were laid out and people moved in. There was an air
of prosperity about the place, which was of course reflected at Lapeyrouse
cemetery with magnificent mausoleums, some containing chapels where masses may
be sung in Latin, even then a dead language.
The
cholera epidemics of 1854 wrought a terrible havoc in the town. The connection
between the cesspits and the waterwells in most people’s back yards was not
made until too late and Lapeyrouse possesses a certain melancholy for the
quantity of graves with the names and years of life of the city’s very young
inhabitants.
Burying
people in the tropics had to be done quickly, even hastily. There is a case of
an Indian indentured who was to be buried. Fortunately for him, his cries were
heard coming from his coffin by some soldiers of the West India Regiment. He
was saved. For many years later, he was known as ‘Lapeau’ (after Lapeyrouse)
and made his living as a rat catcher.
Great
samaans once lined Main Street in Lapeyrouse. Only two are left. No longer are
there royal palms trailing yellow tail birds’ nests. The famous American naval
commander Commodore Perry is remembered on the Tragarete Road side in ‘Perry
Gate’. This monument is upkept by the American government. On the eastern side,
Daniel Hart had erected a massive arch in the 1840s as the main entrance to
Lapeyrouse, which was once flanked by elaborate cast iron lamps. These have
long been stolen and sold. There was once a lovely water fountain - this too
has gone.
The
tombstones of Lapeyrouse make interesting reading, ranging from the simple to
the hilarious. One ‘Wag’ had engraved on his marker: “Fart free, wherever you
be, for this was the death of me.”
There
is also the well-known “Malice to none, charity to all” and this inscription which
you can find near to the southern gate:
“Stop,
traveler, e’er you go by
So
are you now, so once was I
As
I am now, soon you will be
Prepare
yourself to follow me.”
Find a grave in Lapeyrouse Cemetery, Port of Spain, Trinidad, by clicking here!
Find a grave in Lapeyrouse Cemetery, Port of Spain, Trinidad, by clicking here!
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