A Lady in Jamaica 1879

Less than a year and a half before her death, a young woman from Virginia - a great (x3) niece of Thomas Jefferson - took ship in New York City for an extended tour of Jamaica. What she found there was exotic to her - the plants, the topography, the customs - not least the equality of races, which was still far in the future in her homeland. Martha was a teacher and published poet, and her journal and letters home are vivid, humorous, and often moving. She traveled in grand style in a four-in-hand carriage, visiting Kingston and Spanish Town in the south, Black River and Savannah La Mar in the west, and Lucea, Montego Bay, and Falmouth in the north. At Black River, she had her first ever experience of the seashore. She also visited some of the large sugar plantations that still flourished on the island. Martha endured several close calls on precipitous mountain roads and an ongoing struggle with a bad-tempered, unwanted suitor, the son of her hostess. Martha Jefferson Trice died unmarried at the age of 24 in 1880, but she lives on through her writings. This book includes a brief biography by her great (x2) nephew, Jasper Burns.