1891 Perron map KINGSTON & PORT ROYAL, JAMAICA (#157)

Description

Perron17_157
1891 Perron map KINGSTON & PORT ROYAL, JAMAICA (#157)
Nice small map titled
Kingston et Port-Royal,
from wood  engraving with fine detail and clear impression, nice hand coloring. Overall  size approx. 16 x 16 cm, image size approx. 10.5 x 7 cm. From
La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes
, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.
Kingston
city, capital, and chief port of Jamaica, sprawling along the  southeastern coast of the island, backed by the Blue Mountains. It is famous for  its fine natural harbour, which is protected by the Palisadoes, a narrow  peninsula that has been developed as a recreational and tourist resort.
Kingston was founded in 1692 after Port Royal, at the mouth of the harbour, was  destroyed by an earthquake. The core of the old city is a consciously planned  rectangle with streets in a grid pattern. In 1703 the city became the commercial  capital, and in 1872 the political capital, of Jamaica. On several occasions it  was almost destroyed by fire, and in January 1907 it suffered a violent  earthquake.
In the main streets of the city, modern buildings contrast sharply with the  decaying architectural relics of former centuries. The Church of St. Thomas, on  King Street, the chief thoroughfare, was first built before 1699 but was rebuilt  after the earthquake in 1907. At the eastern limits of the town stands Rockfort,  a moated fortress dating from the late 17th century and last manned in 1865. On  Duke Street stands Headquarters House (formerly the seat of government), built  by Thomas Hibbert, an 18th-century merchant; it is one of the few remaining  architectural showpieces of a city once renowned for its fine houses. The  Institute of Jamaica on East Street maintains a public library, museum, and art  gallery especially devoted to local interests. The University of the West Indies  (founded 1948) is at Mona, 5 miles (8 km) from Kingston's city centre. The Royal  Botanical Gardens are at nearby Hope.
By the 1980s most of the old wharves had been demolished and the entire  waterfront redeveloped with hotels, shops, offices, a cultural centre, and  cruise and cargo ship facilities. The airport at Palisadoes has domestic and  international service. A government-owned railway ran from Kingston to most of  Jamaica's 14 parishes over 210 miles (340 km) of track until 1992, when  operation ceased because of lack of funding and low passenger usage. A few rail  lines still function to transport bauxite.
Since 1923 the small parish of the original Kingston has merged physically and  administratively with St. Andrew parish. More than one-quarter of the population  of the whole country lives within the boundaries of the Kingston and St. Andrew  Corporation. Pop. (2011) Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, 662,426.
Port Royal
historic harbour town on the southern coast of Jamaica, once the busiest trading  centre of the British West Indies and infamous for general debauchery. The town  was founded on a natural harbour at the end of a 10-mile (16-km) sand spit  between what is now Kingston Harbour and the Caribbean Sea. In the late 17th  century it came to serve as the base of operations for buccaneers and privateers  who raided the Spanish islands and ships. When the notorious Captain Henry  Morgan established his headquarters there, the plundered gold poured in,  followed by merchants and artisans who eagerly catered to all the appetites of  the pirates. There were more than 8,000 inhabitants living in fine brick houses  of two and three stories in this “richest and wickedest city in the New World.”  Ultimately, however, the government in England and the landowners in Jamaica saw  prospects of greater profit in a regularized trade with Spain and a stable  economy based on agriculture, and they appointed Morgan the governor of Jamaica,  in which capacity he prosecuted his former comrades until his death.
An earthquake devastated the city in 1692, sinking much of its land beneath the  sea. The few survivors rebuilt on the site of the present Kingston, across the  bay. In 1735 a naval base was established once more at Port Royal for the  British West Indies Squadron in its struggle against the French.
Today Port Royal is a quiet community with only a few relics of its romantic  past: Fort Charles at the entrance to the harbour once under the command of  Horatio Nelson, St. Peter's Church, and a museum displaying some treasures  resurrected from the sea. Pop. (latest est.) 2,000.