User:RGKMA/sandbox/Sturge Town, Jamaica

Sturge Town is a village town located in the Dry Harbour Mountains of the Saint Ann Parish of northern Jamaica. It was one of the first Free Villages in Jamaica. The population of the town was 6,928 in 2010. https://www.geonames.org/11495652/sturge-town.html

History
Sturge Town was established in 1839 by Joseph Sturge and the Rev. John Clarke, a pastor at the nearby Brown's Town Baptist Church. In Clarke's report to Sturge, he describes that the land he bought contained "120 acres of good land, about eight miles from Brown's Town" and the cost was "£700 sterling." The report also stated:

"Nearly 100 building lots, and an equal number of acres for provision grounds, were surveyed. Small neat cottages were speedily built, and the land brought into good cultivation. There was a house and two or three acres of land left clear after the whole cost was paid. The house was converted into a schoolroom, and placed in trust for the benefit of the villagers, who erected a large booth, as a temporary place of worship, capable of containing 400 or 500 people. A chapel and mission house have subsequently been built."

They purchased 500 acre of land at Mt. Abyla for to help 500 newly freed families settle after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Each house had its own acre of land. The original establishment included a Baptist church and a school which were built in 1840.