before 1899
Fishing is good at Rockfort. A sporting medico of this city visited that spot on Friday, and after using up half-a-pound of shrimps bait, succeeded, by hard struggling, in landing a fish weighing nearly half an ounce.
(on a personal note - I am not a fisherman, but I believe I did catch a 'mud-fish' at Rockfort long ago!)
I am trying to get some idea of the Rockfort area in the later 19th century, but so far I only have bits and pieces of information, so for now that is all I can give you. There was, of course, the fort itself, but the story of that will have to stay for another time.
Daily Gleaner, February 6, 1883
Extract from an editorial:
'Speaking
of the Rock Fort road leads us to
a few words as to Rock
Fort itself. Jamaicans are continually complaining that they have
no-where to go to, while here is
a place within an easy distance of
the
city, which might, with a little outlay, be made a fashionable
resort for pleasure
seekers. The Baths are unexcelled; the view
along the way is pretty, and with a
few of those necessary adjuncts
to the personal comfort of the traveller, the
place, in the hands of
an enterprising man might be made to pay a handsome
return on
investment.'
The Rockfort site was cleaned up in 1935:
This is a picture of Rockfort showing the Fort on
the right and the road to the east of the island
passing through an archway on the left. In the
mid-1940s a roadway to by-pass the arch was
constructed, presumably on dumped-up land,
between the Fort and the sea.
