Clark’s Town is a community located in the parish of Trelawny, Jamaica. Established in the post-Emancipation period, it was originally part of the Swanswick Estate owned by G.M. Clarke. The town’s initial name was Swanswick Town and Church, as identified on an 1843 plan, but it evolved over time to Clarke’s Town and eventually Clark’s Town. The town was likely named after Reverend John Clark, rather than the estate owners. Central to the town’s early development was the St. Michael’s Anglican Church, built around 1843. Historically, Clark’s Town was surrounded by sugar cane plantations, and at one point, there were ten sugar factories in the area. The Clarke family owned all the properties surrounding the present-day town. Following Emancipation, a notable confrontation occurred between freed slaves and the militia on a field opposite the trash-drying house, now the office of Long Pond Estates; this field is still referred to as Martial Law.
In recent years, Clark’s Town has undergone…
