Petersfield is a small town in Westmoreland Parish

Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica

Westmoreland is the westernmost parish in Jamaica, located on the south side of the island. It is situated to the south of Hanover, the southwest of Saint James, and the northwest of Saint Elizabeth, in the county of Cornwall. The chief town and capital is Savanna-la-Mar...

, Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

. It shares its name with five other places in Jamaica.

The town was founded in the 18th century and named after Peter Beckford

Peter Beckford

Colonel Peter Beckford was acting Governor of Jamaica in 1702.Peter was the son of another Peter Beckford, of Maidenhead. Sir Thomas Beckford, Sheriff of London was his uncle as was Captain Richard Beckford, who was trading in Jamaica from 1659...

, a slave

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 owner who settled the Roaring River Estate

Roaring River Park

Roaring River Park is a heritage and nature park near Petersfield, Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica.The park is on the site of the Roaring River Estate which belonged to the Beckford family: Peter Beckford, William Beckford....

. Petersfield was a dormitory community for workers on that estate.

Nowadays it is one street town with a community health centre at one end and a cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

 at the other. It is the home of many of the workers at the Frome Sugar Estate. The town has a reputation of being a quiet respectable community.

The reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 artist Winston Hubert McIntosh was born in Petersfield, and later on, when he lived in Jamaica's capital Kingston, he changed his name to Peter McIntosh (Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...

).

External links

• Aerial view.
• Photos: