Norwood Witter

1. Member of Assembly for St Elizabeth 1736 and Westmoreland 1745, 1749, 1752, 1754, 1755, 1756; Member of Council 1757.

2. Married first to Bonella, daughter of Col. William Williams of Deans Valley, Westmoreland; she died in 1751. They had a son John (baptised St Elizabeth, 03/09/1735). Married, second, in May 1753, to Rosa Ash nee Kelly, daughter of Rev. Dr. John Kelly of St Elizabeth.

3. Feurtado gives him the rank of Brigadier-General. He was “Colonel Witter” when among the planters who dined with the Maroon leaders Cudjoe and Quao at the height of Tacky’s rebellion, July 1760.

4. Norwood Witter was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 2290 acres of land in St James, 3247 acres in Westmoreland and 1000 acres in St Elizabeth, total 6537 acres.

5. Witter, Norwood, Esquire. The Honourable. Bur 5/25/1765 in Westmoreland. d 5/20/1765. B0003, I, p. 54

6. Norwood Witter of St James, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1767. Slave-ownership at probate: 108 of whom 51 were listed as male and 57 as female. 17 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £7856.53 Jamaican currency of which £6056 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £0 currency cash, £0 currency debts and £30.61 currency plate.

1. Fuertado's Personages transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/b/bfeurtado07.htm.

2. Mary Sarah Bilder, 'The Relevance of Colonial Appeals to the Privy Council', Boston College Law School Faculty Papers (2016), available for download at lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2028&context=lsfp [accessed 27/11/2018] pp. 420-423; Familysearch.org, Jamaica parish records, St Elizabeth, Baptisms, marriages, burials 1705-1820 p. 6; Geoffrey S. Yates, 'Rose Hall - death of a legend', http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/mpalmer.htm.

3. Feurtado’s Personages; Helen M. McKee, 'Negotiating Freedom in the Circum-Caribbean: the Jamaican Maroons and the Creek Nation compared', Newcastle University doctoral thesis (2015) p. 95, citing p110 of Thomas Thistlewood: In Miserable Slavery, ed.Douglas Hall (1989).

4. A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm

5. 'Parish Registers and Civil Registration', http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/rw_n-w.htm.

6. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.