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<p>Since its establishment in the 17th century, Kingston and its citizens have for many years interred the dead in cemeteries across the city.</p>
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<p>Cemeteries, from
the viewpoint of many, are morbid reminders of death and sadness – the final
stop in paying respects with one’s hope to never set foot in another.</p>
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<p>However, Buzz Jamaica is of the unpopular opinion that there is no greater teacher of past experiences than a cemetery. </p>
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<p>Luckily for us (and you), sections of Kingston are still perfectly preserved in time, as the dead refuses none who wish to learn.</p>
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<p>With over 150 years as the capital of Jamaica, Kingston has seen its fair share of tragedies and disasters; the deaths arising from these, range in the thousands.</p>
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<p>The welcoming silence of a cemetery makes the skin of some crawl with fear and uncertainty – fuelled by decades of ‘duppy stories’ – Kingston's cemeteries hold some of the world's most interesting histories.</p>
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<p>Arguably holding the distinction of being the oldest in the island, and the oldest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, the Old Jewish cemetery can be found at 1 Hunt’s Bay Road in St. Andrew.</p>
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<p>In the latter part of the 17th century, when Port Royal was a bustling metropolis and the commercial hub of the British Caribbean, the thriving  Jewish community dedicated a cemetery for the final rites and rituals of its people to be performed.</p>
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<p>Many of those tombs are still preserved at the Old Jewish Cemetery, bearing inscriptions in three languages:  Portuguese, Hebrew, and English.</p>
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<p>Many of the remaining Jewish tombstones either bear ornately chiselled rose and hourglasses, trees being cut down by a hand bearing an axe, or a skull and crossbones. </p>
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<p>After the devastating Port Royal earthquake of 1692, Jewish burials continued for a few more years into the 18th century, with the last tomb belonging to Moses Ferro – bearing the date 1771.  </p>
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<p>The second oldest
cemetery within Kingston can be found on the grounds of the St. Andrew Parish
Church, built in 1664. With over 7,000 burials on the 8 ¼ acres, this cemetery
is the largest private facility of its kind on the island in continual
use.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>Interred there are
the remains of historic figures including Archbishop Enos Nuttall, the first
Archbishop of the West Indies after whom the Nuttall Hospital in Kingston is
named.</p>
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<p>It stands to this
day as a popular internment plot for Kingston’s affluent – and is a prized
focal point of interest for genealogists, historians, researchers and archaeologists
who seek insight into personalities of the past, customs and culture over the
last 350 years.</p>
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<p>Kingston’s most famous (or infamous in equally as many eyes) cemetery, the May Pen Cemetery, can easily be seen from the busy Spanish Town Road thoroughfare that cuts adjacent to the massive property.</p>
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<p>As one of the oldest public cemeteries in the Caribbean, the May Pen Cemetery is one of the only burial sites where persons of all nationalities, races, religions and faiths are interred.</p>
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<p>Established on 200 acres of the derelict Littleworth Race Course in 1851, burials began some years afterwards according to ‘Law 21’ of 1874. By then, May Pen Cemetery was the most popular burial site of its kind in the Caribbean – with partitions and special plots called ‘grounds’ reserved for several Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims and others from across Europe (English, Spanish, French, Irish, German and Portuguese) who called Jamaica home.</p>
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<p>Importantly, a section was deemed the 'Pauper Ground', for the burial of the poor and indigent. There was even a section for victims of cholera, which affected Jamaica periodically back then, with the largest outbreak occurring in the early 1850s.</p>
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<p>In the advent of
Kingston’s well-to-do elites leaving the downtown district for the cool hills
of St. Andrew, the May Pen Cemetery was frowned upon and largely reduced to a
pauper’s plot. So much so was this stigma that by 1905, nearly 76% of all
persons buried there were classified as ‘poor and indigent’.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>There have been
recent attempts to resurrect May Pen Cemetery to its former glory, as records
show many influential Jamaicans including pioneering musician and trombonist
Don Drummond being buried there.</p>
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<p>On the other side
of Kingston, Calvary Cemetery, sprawled along Slipe Pen and Lyndhurst roads
came into existence in the late 1800s. Some records obtained show one of the
first burials, Rose Escoffery, taking place in the 1880s. Burials at the quiet
and scenic Calvary Cemetery are still common today.</p>
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<p>Briggs' Park, the
only military cemetery on the island, has been a part of the Jamaica Defence
Force's (JDF) Up Park Pen (now Up Park Camp) estate since 1900. The JDF also
houses a special cemetery at its Newcastle Training Depot since the late 1800s
for soldiers and recruits alike.</p>
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<p>The Chinese
Cemetery along Waltham Park Road in Kingston is the largest single burial
ground of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean for Chinese nationals and
their descendants.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>With burials
starting in 1912, to date, over 3,600 persons have been interred at the
11.5-acre property – managed and maintained by the Chinese Benevolent
Association (CBA).</p>
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<p>Like many other
cemeteries in the city, the Chinese Cemetery has endured periods of upkeep and
disrepair over the 100+ years it has existed – coming into being after the
great 1907 earthquake that levelled much of Kingston.</p>
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<p>Officially
designated a botanical garden, National Heroes Park is the last stop in
Kingston on our Buzz cemetery tour.</p>
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<p>As the largest open space on the island, the park’s 50 acres also serves as the final resting place for several notable Jamaican figures, including founding fathers Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante; freedom fighters Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, Sam Sharpe, and George William Gordon.</p>
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<p>Established in 1783, the park, originally a race track called Kingston Race Course – renamed to what stands after Jamaica’s independence in 1962 – is also the last resting place of other past Prime Ministers, athletes, entertainers, poets, sculptors and painters, and even mass fire victims.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>With the exception of Briggs’ Park and the St. Andrew Parish Church, all the above-mentioned cemeteries are open to the public and available for tours.</p>
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