Existing comment:
The Edens of Pedro St. James:
The Edens were the owners and occupants of Pedro St. James for nearly two centuries.
Five generations of Edens have lived here, beginning with William Eden I, who built Pedro Castle around 1780. The first two generations were planters and slaveholders, who were counted among the "principal inhabitants" of the island. When William Eden II died around 1850, he left the property to his adopted son, John Samuel and Joseph Eden. The brothers raised large families here. They abandoned the "Big House" after a violent storm in 1877, during which a child was killed by lightening and they built smaller houses near it. Matilda Eden continued to live here, as a tenant, after the property left the family's ownership in 1954.
Born in 1737 in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, William Eden I emigrated to the West Indies as a young man. In 1765, he settled on Grand Cayman. His first wife was Dorothy Bodden, the daughter of the "governor" of the Cayman Islands. Sometime after building the Castle, Eden left Cayman for Pearl Lagoon, Nicaragua, where he died and is buried.
By 1773, when surveyor George Gauld drew this map, William Eden I was well established at Spotts, 3 miles west of here.
Artist's impression of William Eden II relaxing. After emancipation in 1835, he lived quietly and was known to have been particularly fond of reading on the veranda.
Caroline Hurlston, the grand-daughter of both Joseph and Samuel Eden, was born in Pedro Castle in 1910. At that time her family lived in a house on the property, but had fitted up a room in the Castle. "Miss Carrie" generously devoted considerable time relating her memories of Pedro St. James. |