Walter Kennedy

On 31st October 1775 by order of the proprietor Walter Kennedy, a sugar estate called Cove in St Patrick Tobago was to be sold at Garraways Coffee House,' together with 128 slaves, all seasoned, 10 mules and 10 head of horned cattle', with a separate sale of 500 acres of woodlands in the Barbadoes Bay division. The estate, which was described by Lots nos. 20, 22 and 23, has not yet been identified in the compensation records. Sandy Bay division (St Patrick Parish) Lots nos. 20, 23 (each 140 acres) were originally purchased 19/03/1767 by Archibald Kennedy, and Lot no. 22 (also 140 acres by Allan Camoren [sic]: by 1773 Walter Kennedy was shown as the 'Present Proprietor' of all three. Finally, Walter Kennedy by 1773 was shown as the owner of Barbados Bay division Lots nos. 10 and 17, originally bought by Robert Wynne, which became the Greenhill estate.

The will of Walter Kennedy [formerly of Paramaribo in Surinam now residing in] Suffolk Street Charing Cross Middlesex, proved 20/02/1776, left his Tobago property in trust (his trustees included William Kennedy, Professor of Greek at the University of Aberdeen), with instructions to sell the estates and pay £10,000 to his wife Ann Catharina Wried with the remainder to support his son Hugh John in his minority and then to be his, with contingent remainder to William Kennedy, identified as Walter Kennedy's brother, and their two sisters. The creditors of this Walter Kennedy, formerly of the town of Paramaribo in the colony of Surinam but late of Suffolk Street Charing Cross deceased, were called to prove their debts pursuant to a Chancery cause of Wried, otherwise Kennedy versus Fraser dated 4th February 1785. Annette Kennedy, the daughter of Hugh John Kennedy and grand-daughter of Walter Kennedy, married John Cornwell Ellis: their family also had Surinam connections later in the 19th century.

London Gazette 11591 26/08/1775 p. 2. In Henry Iles Woodcock's History of Tobago Lots nos. 20, 21, 22 and 23 are shown with no estate name and 'Unknown' present possessor, implying that the land covered by these lots had been abandoned or absorbed into neighbouring estates.

PROB 11/1016/259; London Gazette 12644 03/05/1785 p. 221.