Saxham Road & Power

Our access to the property up to this time had been across the Spragg family land, based on a verbal agreement with the Spragg's. But if we wanted to bring the power in that way, we would need a written right-of-way across their land. Again we had verbal commitment from the senior member of the extended Spragg family, one Willy Vassil, that they would grant us the right-of-way. So Charlie flew down to get the paperwork completed.

Unfortunately, he got there only to find out that Willy had been buried three days before, and had left no one designated to sign on behalf of the family.

The only other alternative was to improve the donkey path leading north along the eastern edge of the Saxham property to Prospect. This is designated on the survey map as reserved for a parish road, so no right-of-way would be required. Our Jamaican lawyer provided us with the names and addresses of the other Saxham property owners, and Tom opened up correspondence with them. After a number of exchanges, they all (9 other American owners) agreed to help fund building the road and bringing in power along the road. Our unofficial name for this consortium was "Saxham Road & Power".

The road project had many adventures, but was ultimately successful. We built a mile of marl road from our property to Prospect, including building a 72 foot long, 5 foot high retaining wall at the saddle below our property. Unfortunately we were so busy building road that we didn't take very many pictures of the process.

At the end of the project we threw a block party for all of the folks in the neighborhood. The party was a huge success, and help - along with all the salaries we had paid - in improving our relations with the folks in the area.

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