UCL

Mount Gay (Mount Gilboa)

Barbados | St Lucy

Estate Details

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Associated People (4)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
1793 [EA] - 1826 [LA] → Owner
Cumberbatch Sober
1817 [EA] - 1823 [LA] → Attorney
John William Perch
1826 [EA] - 1832 [LA] → Attorney
Edward Thomas
1834 [EA] - → Trustee
Thomas Thornhill

Associated Claims (1)

Barbados 4629 (Mount Gay)
£2,860 9S 7D

Notes

  1. According to a publicity handout from the Mount Gay Rum distillery, the first documented evidence of the distillery dates to 20 February, 1703, the oldest record of rum distillation in the world. After various distillery and plantation owners in the early C18th, in 1747, the property was sold to John Sober. He enlisted Sir John Gay Alleyne to manage the estate. "Alleyne introduced new strains of cane, improved crop yield and enhanced the production process, innovations so significant that on his death in 1801, the Sobers named the estate for him."

    In 1858, the Thornhill family bought the estate.

  2. The claim on the enslaved of the state names Thomas Thornhill as awardee (trustee): see claim Barbados 4629 (Mount Gay).

Sources

  1. Story of Mount Gay Rum.

  2. Barbados 4629 (Mount Gay).

Estate Information (8)

What is this?

1747
[Number of enslaved people] 100(Tot)  
[Size] 280  
 

In 1747 William Sandiford of St. Lucy borrowed £1,000 from Mordecai Nunez of St. Michael secured by mortgage on Sandiford’s plantation called ‘Mount Gilboa’ - 280 acres in St. Peter & St. Lucy, with 100 enslaved people. Sandiford mortgaged the property to John Sober: £6,000 secured on Mount Gilboa.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1793
[Number of enslaved people] 100(Tot)  
[Size] 280  
 

Cumberbatch Sober bought the plantation in Chancery Sale, 280 acres with 100 enslaved.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1817
[Number of enslaved people] 150(Tot) 73(F) 77(M)  
[Name] Mount Gay  
 

Return of John William Perch, Attorney, the property of Cumberbatch Sober.

 
T71/522 682-85
1823
[Number of enslaved people] 148(Tot)  
[Name] [No name given]  
 

Return of John W. Perch, Attorney, the property of Cumberbatch Sober. Previously 150 enslaved.

 
T71/532 161
1826
[Number of enslaved people] 145(Tot)  
 

Return of Edward Thomas, Attorney, the property of the estate of Cumberbatch Sober, deceased. Previously 148 enslaved.

 
T71/537 294
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 137(Tot)  
[Name] Mount Gay  
 

Return of Edward Thomas, Attorney, the property of the estate of Cumberbatch Sober, deceased.

 
T71/545 82-3
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 121(Tot)  
[Name] [No name given]  
 

Return of Edward Thomas, Attorney, the property of the estate of Cumberbatch Sober, deceased.

 
T71/551 331-2
1913
[Name] Mountgay  
[Size] 385  
 

Listed in St Lucy, property of Thornhill.

 
Barbados 1913 list from the Hughes-Quere indexes transcribed at https://creolelinks.com/1913-barbados-plantation-owners-names.html.