A Taste of History - Richmond Park Great House

RICHMOND PARK GREAT HOUSE
BY BRETT ASHMEADE-HAWKINS
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Richmond Park Great House, near Half-way Tree was built between 1800 and 1805 by John Mais, a wealthy Kingston Merchant, who later became the owner of several coffee plantations in the St.Andrew and Port Royal Mountains. The Great House originally stood on 24 acres of land and was marked on James Robertson’s Map of St.Andrew in 1804 simply as “Mais’s”.

John Mais was the founder of the Mais family in Jamaica and had come out from England a few years before and established the merchant firm of Mais & Co. on Harbour Street in Kingston. His store can actually be seen on the right-hand side in James Hakewill’s famous view of Harbour Street painted in 1820.

John Mais married a Miss Weise, the daughter and heiress of Frederick Jacob Weise of Halberstadt Plantation in the Port Royal Mountains, and through this marriage he soon became the owner of Halberstadt, one of the largest coffee plantations in Jamaica. By 1831, now the Hon. John Mais, he
was Custos and Member of Assembly for St. Andrew and the owner of Richmond Park, Halberstadt, Montpelier, Hall’s Delight, Hall Green and Tweedside, making him one of the wealthiest Coffee Planters in Jamaica. He died about 1840 and Richmond Park and his other properties were inherited
by his son, the Hon. Stephen Weise Mais.

The Hon. Stephen Weise Mais was a prominent Barrister and Coffee Planter. He was a Master in Chancery and a Member of Assembly for St. Andrew from 1851 to 1866. He later became Custos of Port Royal in 1865 and a Member of the Legislative Council. He was also Auditor to the Jamaica Mutual Life Assurance Company and a Justice of the Peace for five (5) different Parishes.

Like his father, the Hon. Stephen Weise Mais also resided at Richmond Park Great House but by 1878 he had sold the property to the Hon. E.L. O’Malley, who was Attorney General of Jamaica.

The Hon. E.L.O’Malley in turn sold Richmond Park about 1885 to Thomas Hendrick, a prominent Attorney-at-Law. He was a Solicitor of the Supreme Court, Surrogate of the Court of Vice-Admiralty, Registrar of the Supreme Court and Registrar of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica. He died in 1895 and his widow remained at Richmond Park Great House until about 1900 when she sold the estate to E.D.Kinkead, the owner of the famous Kinkead’s Drug Store on King Street in Kingston. The Kinkead family lived at Richmond Park Great House until 1936 when they sold it to Mr. and Mrs. H.R. Muschett.

Mr.and Mrs. Muschett had been living in Cuba but they wanted to return to Jamaica and so they bought Richmond Park as their home. When Mr. Muschett died shortly after, Mrs. Muschett turned Richmond Park Great House into a small private Guest House. She later sold the property in the
early 1950s to Sprostons (Jamaica) Ltd. for the then staggering sum of twenty five thousand pounds
sterling (25,000).

In 1976 the house became the offices of the DAILY NEWS and in 1991 it was sold to the
C.D.Alexander Co.Ltd. which later became a part of the Mussons Group of Companies.