UCL

Yorkshire plantation

Barbados | Christ Church

Estate Details

Associated People (10)

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
- 1785 [LA] → Owner
Benjamin Bostock

It is not clear when Benjamin Bostock first acquired the Yorkshire estate.

1785 [EA] - 1793 [LA] → Owner
Benjamin Bostock of Philadelphia
1793 [EA] - 1812 [LA] → Owner
Benjamin James Bostock
1805 [EA] - 1805 [LA] → Mortgage Holder
Dr. Thomas Lashley

In his will made in 1805 Dr Thomas Lashley, then in Kings Bench Prison in England, said he had a 'most just claim' secured by mortgage on the unnamed estate of the late Benjamin Bostock. LBS has tentatively inferred this was the Yorkshire estate.

1817 [EA] - 1829 [LA] → Owner
Samuel Drayton
1827 [EA] - 1830 [LA] → Joint owner
John Drayton
1827 [EA] - 1830 [LA] → Joint owner
William Drayton

Initially joint owner with John Drayton; but see notes on 1829 evolution.

1829 [EA] - 1829 [LA] → Manager
Abel Thomas Matthews
1829 [EA] - 1829 [LA] → Attorney
John Briggs

Probably this John Briggs though he may be distinct.

1832 [EA] - 1834 [LA] → Owner
Bezsin Reece

Associated Claims (1)

Barbados 3174 (Yorkshire plantation)
£3,054 13S 2D

Notes

The estate was also known as the Upper Gray’s plantation.

Estate Information (8)

What is this?

1812
[Number of enslaved people] 95(Tot)  
[Size] 270  
 

In 1811-12, Benjamin James Bostock came to Barbados to wind up the estates of his father (Benjamin Bostock, 1763-1793) and great-grandfather (also Benjamin, 1716-1785). Sold Yorkshire plantation to William Drayton for £22,000. [This William Drayton was probably a forebear of the brothers John and William Drayton who were later owners.]

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations; James C. Brandow (comp.), Genealogies of Barbados families: from Caribbeana and the Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (Baltimore, 1983), p. 183.
1817
[Number of enslaved people] 93(Tot) 49(F) 44(M)  
[Name] [No name given]  
 

Return of Samuel Drayton sen., his own property. No name given but virtually certainly the Yorkshire plantation.

 
T71/521 90-92
1826
[Number of enslaved people] 137(Tot)  
 

Return of Samuel Drayton, his own property. NB that in the return for 1826 the parish was given as St Michael, not Christ Church. Previous return 136 enslaved.

 
T71/534 166
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 140(Tot)  
 

Return of A. T. Matthews, Manager, the property of the estate of Samuel Drayton (deceased). Previous return showed 137 enslaved. Births: 3; purchased of Robert Butcher, 1. Bequeathed to John Drayton and William Drayton (q.v.), 140. Sold to John Clarke, 1. Net number of enslaved = 0.
The Return of John Briggs, Attorney, the property of John Drayton follows the return from Mathewes. The details of the return show:
Previous registration: 2;
'Gift of Samuel Drayton to John Drayton and William Drayton as a Joint Property but there being no division of said property the said John Drayton became the purchaser of the said Wm. Drayton's proportion of said slaves.'
That is: 134 enslaved acquired by John Drayton. In addition there were 9 births; 3 sold to Jno. Manning; 1 given to Abel Thos. Matthews and 1 sold to him.

 
T71/544 55-9; 59-63
1830
[Number of enslaved people] 130(Tot)  
[Size] 297  
 

Samuel Drayton died in 1827. William and John Drayton, brothers and (presumably) the sons of Samuel, inherited the Yorkshire plantation. In 1830 they sold it to Bezin Reece of St. Michael for £28,000.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 145(Tot) 81(F) 73(M)  
 

Return of Bezin Reece, his own property. No previous return but the following given for the numbers of enslaved: purchased from William Drayton: 154; purchased from others: 4; births: 16; deaths: 8 (including 1 in the hurricane); sales: 1. Of the 154 purchased from Drayton, there were 81 females, 73 males.

 
T71/549 154-58
1842
 

By his will of 1842, Bezin Reece of St. Michael bequeathed Yorkshire to his sons, who were charged with legacies to his daughter, Catherine Garrett. She married, in 1842, John Torrance Haynes who managed the estate. Bezin Reece owned Yorkshire, Christ Church and Pine, St. Michael.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations; James C. Brandow (comp.), Genealogies of Barbados families (Baltimore, 1983), p. 497.
1913
[Name] Yorkshire and Little Foursquare  
[Size] 363  
 

Listed in Christ Church, property of Arthur.

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