Glenwood Spring is Quiet & Nice
The breathtaking views and acres of farmlands with bountiful springs running through are just a few of the reasons residents in the community of Glenwood Spring love their community.
Nestled in the cool hills of Clarendon, close to the Manchester border, the quiet farming community is blessed with a plethora of flora and fauna.
Nehemiah Manning, 88, who is one of the community’s eldest residents, is totally at home in Glenwood Spring, which is close to Ritchies.
“If you come to Glenwood Spring, you would love to live in Glenwood Spring because the area is quiet. You don’t have those heap of crime and violence.”
Though peace has always been a reigning champion, Manning said the community has changed for the better in the past few decades. He said that life there, before the development of its infrastructure and housing stock, was not easy.
“We never have any road. Everything that we have to [carry] we have to put it pon our head. Me walk on foot from here to May Pen carry load pon me head, with my mother and others,” he said. According to Google Maps, this 23mile trek would have taken them just over seven hours to complete.
“Every morning, before day [we would set out], and the road did bad. We left before day and sometimes when you reach [some part] out deh, news come back to daddy a yaad say the beast (donkey) dem fasten in the mud, and them have to get man come dig them out,” Manning said.
Through bouts of laughter, Manning said he was an excellent rider when roads allowed for it.
“Mule, horse, anyone, especially donkey, we good. A gone me gallop gone, move fast. Boy, when you young and no know danger sometimes,” he said while laughing.
In the early days, red dirt was a key material used in the construction of houses. Manning told THE WEEKEND STAR that it wasn’t uncommon for people to be seen on donkeys travelling to Bellefield in Manchester to get the material.
“People guh get them dirt to build their house… All fi me daddy use to have to go woodland go chop down wood fi weeks fi burn and mix it with the same red dirt and stone fi build house,” Manning said.
The elderly resident said that things began looking up for the area after the roads were rehabilitated in 1967 by the then political representative. With improved infrastructure, more people began investing in the area and the population began to grow.
“The people put together, do them little farming and save up and build up them self… Is not outside people come and build in the area, is the same people around here that build up.”
Manning said the farming community was previously known for supplying the export market with yam and dasheen.
“It wasn’t a lot of money in those days, but what we got sweet we because it was when the export people come that we use to get the things sell,” he said.
Much like Manning, farmer Godfrey Donaldson said he has never thought of leaving the community, as it has been good to him and his farming.
“I get opportunity to leave permanently to the US, but I just travel and come back, travel and come back each time. I not giving away Glenwood Spring and my farming for anything,” he said.
“I have lived here for about 50 years and I was born in farming. I didn’t go to school, I run around the school. Just few days I go to school and it has just been farming, farming, farming… My property where I work on, God bless me with water on it. Anything I put in I am 95 per cent sure of it.”