1889 map of Thetford Pen in the Parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica, containing 2,034 acres, the property of Louis Verley Esq.
A pen was a
livestock farm on the Island of
Jamaica. Pen-keeping included the breeding of cattle, horses, mules, sheep and dairy farming.[1] Gardner (1873), referring to the 1750s, stated: "The life of a tolerably successful pen-keeper was at this period, as it is now, the most enviable to be found in the colony. Cattle thrive well, and few servants are required when once a pen is well established."[2]
Batchelors Hall Pen was owned by
Chaloner Arcedekne; it supplied Golden Grove Plantation, owned by the prominent
Simon Taylor. Correspondence between the two men survives.[3]
Shepherd, Verene A., Pens and pen-keepers in a plantation society: aspects of Jamaican social and economic history, 1740–1845, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1988.
Carol Stiles, Vineyard: A Jamaican Cattle Pen, 1750–1751, A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History, College of William and Mary in Virginia, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, 1985