Reflection and musings on Trinidad's History

A narrative about official, and unofficial visits to Trinidad  by incumbent and past presidents. On November, 21 st , 1936, the USS Indianapolis refueled off Port of Spain harbour with US president Fanklin Delano Roosevelt on board. He went into a small craft while the ship was refueling and tried his hand at some fishing down-the–islands, but didn’t catch a thing. He was on his way to Argentina to attend a peace conference in Buenos Aires, the capital.  On the return journey on December 11 th , he visited Port of Spain, with his son James. This was the first visit to Trinidad by an incumbent US president. Roosevelt was met on board the Indianapolis by the Colonial Secretary, Alfred Wallace Seymour C.M.G. , acting in place of Governor Murchison Fletcher, who was visiting Tobago at the time. He toured Port of Spain by car and held a press conference for the local and US press, who had flown down to Trinidad aboard one of Pan Am’s flying boats for the interview. This was n

Onlookers at the scene of the 1885 train crash. Train crash at Champ Fleurs An unseasonal shower of rain greeted the lunchtime train from Arima as it pulled into the St Joseph Railway station. It was Tuesday, 28th, January, 1885. Trinidad Government Railway had been operating  since 1876. Those nine years passed without any fatal accident involving passengers on the railway. The line, at first, went from Port of Spain to Arima, but by 1882, it reached San Fernando, and Princes Town by 1884. The passing of a San Fernando train made it necessary for the Arima train to wait a while in St Joseph, while passengers boarded and detrained. The entire railways system back then was single-lined. This meant, to avoid collision, the line must first be cleared of other traffic moving in the opposite direction. The “staff system” was in place at Trinidad Government Railway at the time. Before a train began its journey through a section of line between stations, the Stationmaster

A duel in the Victorian era. In the early 1800s, two young friends, Messrs Smith and Naysmith, met at the back of an old sugar boiling house in La Brea, south Trinidad. They were bent on killing each other, as the purpose of the meeting was a duel between the two. In attendance were the seconds, Mr. Smithson and Mr. Powell. The disagreement between Smith and Naysmith was ludicrous. The two were dinner-guests at Powell’s house when Smith joked that his family name came from a line of Blacksmiths, and playfully suggested that one of Naysmith’s ancestors was once an apprentice of one of Smith’s ancestors. The apprentice was so inept, that the blacksmith dismissed him one day with the admonishment that he will never become a blacksmith: he was “nae smith”. Naysmith took offence to the pun, and challenged his friend to a duel. Warner Arrundell, the only doctor in the district, attended a duel for a promised fee of $100.  The temporary rivals fired three times and missed, until