Chasing Graveyard Ghosts by Melba Goodwyn

Author:Melba Goodwyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ghosts, haunting, graveyards, cemeteries, paranormal, paranormal phenomena
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2011-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

To the tourists who visit Tobago it may at first be just another exciting Caribbean destination; an island that once thrived on sugar plantations and is said to have been the island that the fabled Robinson Crusoe discovered. However, there is much more to Tobago than legend and folklore.

Tobago is a small island located in the Caribbean Sea. In 1498 Columbus claimed the island for Spain. However, because the Carib Indians who inhabited the island were so aggressive and warlike, they prevented colonization of the island until late into the seventeenth century. Over the next two centuries, the natives were taken into slavery by the Spaniards and exposed to hard labor and European plagues that virtually wiped out the entire population.

Tobago’s history was very volatile. After the Spaniards defeated the Caribs, the English, French, Dutch, and various bands of pirates made attempts at dominating the island. This colony of Spain developed slowly, attracting the Catalan Capuchin missionaries. During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1797, the British seized the opportunity to take the island from the Spaniards and in 1825, Tobago came under British rule.

The seaside village of Plymouth, settled by the Dutch in 1633, holds one of the island’s strangest mysteries. In the southwestern part of Tobago a grave marks the final resting place of a twenty-three-year-old woman named Betty Stivens, and her baby. Both died in 1783. The tombstone at this gravesite carries an unusual inscription that has puzzled generations of locals and many visitors to the island. Distinct cultures and faiths are blended amid the rhythmic beat of Calypso music, lush rainforest, white sands, and magnificent waterfalls to provide the backdrop for this enigmatic island mystery (www.trinicenter.com/Tobago, and www.Tobagotoday.com).

Here is the inscription:

Within these walls are deposited the bodies of Mrs. Betty Stiven and her child. She was the beloved wife of Alex. B. Stiven. To the end of his days [he] will deplore her death which happened upon the 25th of November in 1783 in the 23rd year of her age. What was remarkable of her, she was a mother without knowing it, and a wife without letting her husband know it, except by her kind indulgence to him.

Who was Betty Stiven? How did she die? What story does the inscription tell? Research reveals that antiquated records in the archives of the Anglican Church in Scarborough show an old register of baptisms, marriages, and deaths dated 1781– 1817. On page two of this old volume is listed the following information:

Three mulatto children of Alexander Stiven, one son by the name of Alexander and two daughters, one by the name of Sally and the other named Mary.

There is however no record of a marriage for Betty Stiven. Betty Stiven was an African woman and Alexander Stiven was a wealthy slave master who is reported to have paid to become warden for the area. Betty was not the woman’s real name as she was African, but was instead a pet name meaning “darling” that was bestowed by a white man with amorous feeling for a woman.

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