About

Type: Ruin
Parish: St.George
Founding date: 1682
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“View in Old North Sound Antigua”

Current Status

This estate later converted to steam and there is no sign of the mill today.   However, one can still see the remains of the cattle pen and a large water catchment up on the hill near where the house was located.

Also at the entrance stands a lone Royal Palm and the “Pain Tree”.   The Pain Tree was used in times of slavery to get rid of ailments, aches, and pains.   They would take a leaf to treat the painful area but for it to work payment had to be made and this was done by pounding a nail into the trunk.   Later coins were used.    Remnants of this bygone custom remain to this day in the gnarled trunk of the “Pain Tree”.   Rupert ‘Myson’ James from Parham, said that they would take a rounded bottle and roll out the leaf on a board before heating it and applying it with some oil to the area a leaf and applying it to the area that needed treating.  Rolling the vein in the leaf flat, kept it from pressing on a blood vein and stopping the flow.

Estate Related History/ Timeline:

1667: Old North Sound 100 acres to Richard Freeman.

1677: Lt. John Morris 514 acres

1677: Lt. John Morris 160 acres by Col. Philip Warner.

1777: Will.   Sir William Thomas “….. I charge my North Sound estate in Antigua with £4,000 for my daughters Susannah Roe, Mary Thomas, and Lydia Thomas….”  Vere Oliver Vol.III p.129

1682: Capt. John Morris, patent for 500 acres at Old North Sound by Sir W. Stapleton.

1731:  Col. Thomas Morris sold his 319 acres in Old North Sound in 1731 to Jonas Langford.   Vere Oliver Vol.II p.272     Not sure which estate this pertains to – Old North Sound could refer to either the plantation of that name or to the North Sound Division.

1739: “Letters from a Sugar Plantation in Antigua 1739-1758 from Dr. Walter Tullideph, sugar planter of Antigua, to Sir George Thomas, Baronet, absentee planter of that Island, give considerable insight into the problems of plantation management and the functions performed by attorneys and overseers.   The recipient of those letters was a third-generation sugar planter whose grandfather, Major William Thomas of Bristol, was a planter in Antigua as early as 1665.   His father, Colonel George Thomas, married Sarah, the only daughter and heiress of Joseph Winthrop, the Quaker Deputy Governor of Antigua.   Sir George, the eldest son, was born and raised in Antigua.   In 1718 he inherited the estates of his uncle William Thomas, who was a wealthy sugar planter.   Sir George’s plantations are referred to in the correspondence as North Sound, Winthorpes, Popeshead, and Five Islands.

After serving as a member of the Assembly and Council of Antigua for a number of years, Thomas was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in 1738 and served in that capacity until 1747.   In 1753 he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, an office which he held with distinction for thirteen years.   Upon his retirement to England in 1766 he was created a Baronet.   He died in 1774 at the age of seventy-nine.

Dr. Walter Tullideph was born in Scotland and educated at the High School in Edinburgh.   After serving as an apprenticeship to a chirurgeon in that City, he went to Antigua (c.1726) to practice medicine and act as a factor for his brother who was a merchant in England.   In 1736, the Doctor married a young widow, Mary Burroughs, and came into possession of her plantation.   From that time until his retirement in Scotland in 1737, he was one of the Island’s most able and prosperous planters.   Between 1736 and 1754, he increased the size of his plantation from 127 to 571 acres and from 63 to 247 Negro slaves.

In addition to managing his own estates, Tullideph acted as an attorney for several absentee planters.   In this capacity, he visited the plantations periodically, where he checked on the overseers by observing the condition of the canes, the treatment and health of the slaves, the quality and quantity of sugar produced, and the growing of provisions to feed the slaves.   He also saw that the bookkeepers maintained proper plantation accounts, and supervised the town agents who purchased part of the supplies for the plantations.   Attorneys devoted considerable attention to mercantile, shipping, and financial matters.   Tullideph purchased Negro slaves for the estates of absentees, he negotiated with ship captains for the shipment of his principals’ sugar and rum, and he dispatched invoices and bills of lading and corresponded with the London merchants to whom the sugar and rum was consigned and from whom.”   Richard B. Sherida Agricultural History.

“North Sound Plantation on a ledger over a marble tomb in a cane piece:-  Here lies the body of Elizabeth Thomas Who Died the Twenty-fourth Day of September, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty Three In the Sixty Second Year of her Age (1763), etc. “ V. Oliver Vol.III p.135.

1815: Indenture between Sir William Lewis, George Thomas, and Robert Blake …. in consideration of 5/- W.L.G. Thomas grants and confirms to Robert Blake all that plantation in the division of Old North Sound, sometimes called “Thomas’s Hill” and now known by the name of Col. Thomas’s North Sound Plantation.  Vere Oliver Vol.III p.130

1829: North Sound contained 662 acres – 295 slaves.

1837: Francis Shand of Woolton Wood near Liverpool, West India Merchant, owned large estates in Antigua.   In 1837 he married Lydia Byam of Cedar Hill at St. Georges.   Vere Oliver Vol.III p.78

1851: Antigua Almanac shows North Sound of 602 acres belonging to Sir Geo. Thomas, Bart.

1852: Sir George Thomas, Bart, owned “Upper and Lower Five Islands Estates of 703 acres in St. John’s Parish and North Sound Estate in St. George’s Parish of 602 acres.   This later was sold to the late George Estridge, Esq., about 30 or 40 years ago, and is now vested in his daughter.     Vere Oliver Vol.III p.135

The Estridge name originates from France and is a well-known name in St. Kitts.

1892: Sammy Smith in “To Shoot Hard Labour, p.72″ worked at North Sound from the age of 15 in 1892.    ‘His job was to drop out dung at sugarcane roots.    The first murder he witnessed was that of Hatty Bab when she was thrown in the estate cellar for not answering roll call one morning.   She was left there for days.    When orders were given for her release she was dead and rats had bitten off her nose and lips.”   Sammy also said  P99, “Almost every plantation too would have its springs or wells, but they would use a fan mill to pump out the water.   General Spring, the biggest one and the one the slaves used to call Genal Spring was at North Sound.   At North Sound, too, there was the Hundred Steps Spring with a grip on every other step to make it safe for when you would have to go down in the spring from time to time to clean it out.”

1940: – The Antigua Sugar Estates had reissued 18,000 shares at £1 each to three DuBuissons (James Memoth DuBuisson, Mrs. Edith Manus DuBuisson, and William Herman DuBuisson), Alexander Moody-Stuart, and Judith Gwendolyn Moody-Stuart. This signaled the final shift to the next generation, as George Moody-Stuart was offered shares but declined (Antigua Syndicate Estates minutes, 4 January 1940; 1 May 1940). The estates to be controlled by the new company were the “Gunthorpe’s” estates: Cassada Gardens, Paynter’s, Tomlinson’s, Fitche’s Creek, Donovan’s, Gunthorpe’s, North Sound, Cedar Valley, Galley Bay, and Five Islands.

1941: Antigua Sugar Factory, Ltd. Cane Returns for 1941 Crop.   North Sound.    Estimated 9964 tons, 400 acres estate, 40 acres peasant land on the estate, tons of cane delivered 8512 at 20.33 tons per acre.

1943: On August 1st, Gunthorpe’s Estates Ltd was restructured into a ‘new’ company renamed Antigua Syndicate Estates Ltd.   The original company’s estates were Cassada Garden, Cedar Valley, Fitches Creek, and North Sound were bought for £30,700;  while Delaps was bought for £7,734. 

The Syndicate Estates divided their estates into three groups A, B, & C under a Superintendent.   In 1945, the Superintendent for Group C was N.S. Slack and included North Sound, Fitche’s Creek, Cassada Gardens, Langford’s and Jolly Hill.   The Manager at that time was Mr. Mandeville and the Overseer was Edric Hewlett.   In 1955, Group C consisted of 726.8 acres.

Enslaved People’s History

As far as we know about North Sound, the number of enslaved peoples started small–less than 50. When Dr. Walter Tullideph married the young widow, Mary Burroughs, in the mid-1700s, he increased the plantation’s size and its number of enslaved people. What was 63 enslaved peoples working on the plantation became 247 over Dr. Tullideph’s 18 years heading North Sound. From that point, the number increased to 295 enslaved people in 1829, and the plantation reached its maximum of 303 enslaved people right before the 1850s.

Legacies of British Slave-ownership.  
North Sound was awarded £4303  3s 1d for 303 enslaved.
Marmaduke Robinson was the awardee.   Sir William George Thomas 4th Bart was unsuccessful.

Ownership Chronology

  • 1700 William Thomas (d.1718)
  • 1718 Hon. Geo. Thomas (d.1774)
  • 1736 Dr. Walter Tullideph (Between 1736 and 1754, he increased the size of his plantation from
  • 1777 Sir George Thomas (1748-1815) 1777/78 Luffman map
  • 1780 William G. Thomas
  • 1829 Sir Geo. Thomas, Bart (662 acres – 295 slaves)
  • 1852 Sir Geo. Thomas, Bart. (602 acres)
  • 1860 George Estridge
  • 1870 Ms. Estridge
  • 1883 Heirs of Shand
  • 1891 George Estridge 1872
  • 1921 T DuBuisson & GM & AM Moody-Stuart
  • 1933 Camacho map
  • 1943 Antigua Syndicate Estates Ltd. (400 acres estate)
  • 1968 The Antiguan Government – Crown Land