Moneague is located in the picturesque hills of St Ann. Home to the remarkable Teachers' Training College, housed in the historic Moneague Hotel, this town boasts a legacy as a popular cool resort in the 19th century. Noteworthy is the old Moneague Tavern, now a private residence, dating back to the early 1800s and once a vital stop during the three-day coach journey from Spanish Town to the north coast.

Published Thursday, January 30, 1975

Jamaica Places: Historic Moneague

We reached Moneague the other day, in typical fashion, plodding endlessly along, as it were, behind a huge and ponderous truck, carrying some sort of hefty esoterica to one of the bauxite sites. My friend, Bob Purrington, formerly at the Sheraton-Kingston, referred to these terrors of the highways as "wood-burners", because of the incredible amount of exhaust which they threw out behind and alongside them, as they inched their way up the steep slopes of Mount Diablo, through Mount Rosser.

We managed to go around the gigantic vehicle when it paused to reconnoiter a big tipper-truck which had crashed into the side of the mountainous roadway, and then we managed to go along without too much additional delay to our destination, Moneague and its environs. This is one of the most pleasant Jamaican towns of my acquaintance, handsomely situated in the rolling grassy and woodsy hills of St Ann, and with several added attractions for the interested visitor.

For example, the recently expanded and now most impressive Teachers' Training College occupies some of the buildings and the property of the Moneague Hotel, which, back in the latest decade of the 19th century, was a singularly popular cool resort in the hills, to which regular groups of visitors came from the hot, often perilously feverish lowlands.  The old Moneague Tavern, now a private home, dates from the earlier parts of the 1800s, and was a popular stopping place when coaches required three days to make the trip from Spanish Town to the north coast of the island.

Subterranean streams

My photograph shows a part of the main street in Moneague, taken from in front of the rather attractive principal church.  The sizeable two-storey building near the centre of the photo is an exceptionally busy shop, formerly owned by Willie Chin.  My friend, Frank Gilmore, at Terra Nova, some time ago told me that if one could get down into the underpinnings, the cellar as it were of this establishment, at a certain spot, one could hear several subterranean streams running beneath it - seven rivers, I was told.

I wonder if at least some of these are not part of the unexplored system which feeds the rise and fall of the Moneague Lake, which I discussed in these columns in connection with the district called Swamp, a few weeks ago? The shop was so packed with people on our recent visit that I disliked disturbing the present proprietor to go downstairs and listen for the seven rivers. But perhaps on another visit during the week,, when things are not quite so active, this fascinating event will come to pass.

I have long been curious about the origin of the place-name Moneague and contacted my good friend,  Clinton V. Black, the government archivist in Spanish Town, who very kindly responded at length, and in his customary careful and welcome detail.

Arawak origin

Black writes: "the name is actually 'The Moneague', as you will see from some of the older milestones along the way, and the reason for this is that the name comes almost certainly from the Spanish word la manigua, meaning 'the thicket' or 'wooded country', in origin perhaps an Arawak word which the Spaniards brought over from Cuba.

"In old Jamaican records in the Jamaica Archives of the 17th and early 18th century 'The Moneague' occurs frequently, spelt in other ways as well, such as 'The Menege',  'Ye Manheague', 'The Maneige,' and so on.  In these same records, we also find references to 'the Menhege Savanna' and to 'a place called the thicketts'.

The whole area was once thickly wooded, and apart from The Moneague itself, two places (marked on the J. A. A. Road Map), 'Newby Thicketts' and 'Whiteborn Thicketts', both beyond Claremont, perpetuate the name."

My sincere thanks to Mr Black for all of this informative data re 'The Moneague'. And may I also mention, as I did to him, that, at the time of all of this, was reading Daphne du Maurier's fascinating novel, The House on The Strand, originally published in 1969, and now available in a paperback edition in our good island bookshops, in which the "parish of Mawgan-in-Meneage", in Cornwall, in Southwestern England, figured with some prominence. One must wonder.

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