Saint John Parish, Grenada

Guide to Saint John Parish family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, and military records.

Information
Saint John is one of the seven Parishes of Grenada. Its main town Gouyave is known locally for its vibrance and the place that never sleeps. Fishing is the main industry where can be found some of the Caribbean's freshest and most delicious seafoods such as the barracuda and Gouyave is also the home of Grenada's largest Nutmeg factory of the Dougladston Estate and old Spice Plantation. Despite these facts there is almost no tourism in this parish generally because there are only a few small guesthouses in Woodford.

History
The parish was called L'Anse Goyave or Guava Cove by its original French inhabitants of 1649, probably because the Guava fruit tree grew so well there, and only after it was ceded to the British by the Treaty of Paris in 1763 was it renamed "'Saint John'". The parishes town for a very short period was renamed Charlotte Town after the wife of then reigning monarch King George III of Britain but the local population continued to refer to the town as Gouyave at it has remained so to this day.

In 1889, an iron bridge was built on a new boulder bank between the town Gouyave and the neighbourhood of Florida. However, on the 8th of November 1897 there were heavy rains in the parish, which nearly flooded the Gouyave River, a by the following month on the 6th of December the Gouyave-Florida boulder bank and stone bridge were completely destroyed.