To mark Black History Month, we highlight the life of the great Bermudian Charles Roach Ratteray. This story first appeared in theMid-Ocean News in 1998

St George’s Town councillor Gladstone Trott discovered by accident a letter in an ancient Bible that had lain dormant in the family archives for decades. Written by his grandmother, Mary Hamilton Seymour Trott, the letter shed light on the life of her father, Charles “Roach” Ratteray.

Born in 1799, he left an indelible imprint on the pages of Bermuda’s slave period history as a highly skilled builder of ocean-going boats and a successful entrepreneur. He built the Wesley Methodist Church on Long Bay Road, Somerset, and donated the land on which Allen Temple stands in Somerset.

Roach was facing almost certain death when a violent storm wrecked one of the cargo ships he was sailing to the West Indies. He promised the Lord he would dedicate the remainder of his days to Him if his life was spared.

He was born in Nassau and brought to Bermuda by his mother when he was 18 months old. She had taken sick soon after having the child for her slave master, a Scottish nobleman named Ratteray who was, at the time, Acting Governor of the Bahamas.

She died in Bermuda, leaving the child in the care of two white spinsters who, together with the two white godfathers they provided him, ensured he had a good start in life.

Roach married at age 18. His first wife died after bearing 31 children, including a set of twins and triplets and nine daughters.

According to Mary’s narrative, three months after his wife’s death he married a widow of five years, who bore him five children.

Mary became the bride of a widower, William Horatio Trott, who was born in 1829 in the Bailey’s Bay area known as Sea Breeze Oval.

They married 15 years after Horatio’s first wife died, leaving him with eight children. One of the sons she bore for Horatio was Charles Stuart Hamilton Trott; two of his five children are Gladstone and Almeria June Mavel Trott Wilson.

Mary revealed how Roach was instrumental in securing the land on which the Wesley Methodist Church stands and how, as a child, she and her brother held kerosene lamps while their father nailed down the flooring for the new edifice.

Also how the distinctive “blinds” of the church were made in his carpenter’s shop and the roof laid out by himself.

At this stage in life, Roach was a local preacher in the church. Mary wrote as follows: “As time went on persecution set in from the white members and oh, what a blow after labouring so hard to build the church.”

Mary did not go into detail about the persecution but added: “Then came a call from Halifax to have a coloured bishop start the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Bermuda.

“Two others beside [Roach] were responsible for bringing the coloured men of talent together to discuss the advisability to bringing Bishop Nazery here from Canada to establish the BME Church. The meeting took place in the City Hall.

“The Bishop was invited to preach in all the Wesleyan Churches ... he spent a week with [Roach] at Herman’s Hill, preached in the Chapel of Somerset, Port Royal and the Dockyard. Returning to the city, the GUO of Oddfellows Hall was hired and services held.

“On his return to Canada, Bishop Nazery deputised for Rev Morris as the first minister of the BME Church, which soon became the AME Church.”

Mary continued: “Charles Ratteray had a plot of land allotted to present to the BME Church. While waiting on the lawyer to draw up the documents conveying the land to the church, he was taken ill with a paralytic stroke and died.

“Thus the church was unable to claim the land. His wife and daughter were so grieved when they discovered they could not give the land, they formed a Ladies Aid Society and set to work to collect funds to repurchase the acre of land. Having repurchased the spot they presented it and a church was built thereon of wood. This building was blown down and a larger stone building was erected to the glory of God. All the way the Saviour leads us.”

So wrote Mary about what is now Allen Temple, of which she was an ardent worker until her death.

One final note in her narrative about her father, who was not only a successful dairy farmer and a boatbuilder, but one of the village undertakers: he made his own coffin four times.

The last time he would not part with it on any account as he feared he might die on a Saturday after the closing hours.

The last time he was, in fact, correct as he died on the August 24, 1872, at the age of 72 years and six months. Mary went on with her young life becoming, as we stated earlier, the second wife of William Horatio Trott in 1884.

Horatio had the distinction of being one of the first two black men to be elected to the House of Assembly, representing Sandys.

When he died in office, the minutes of the House noted: “Not only has the parish which he represented for eight years sustained a loss by his death, but the colony was also sustained a loss in his removal.”

Horatio’s fellow Sandys MCP, H.H. Gilbert, at the meeting on Wednesday, January 11, 1905, according to the minutes, moved for the adjournment of the House as follows:

“Your Honour, I wish to make the following motion: That the House do now adjourn without proceeding to business, as a tribute of respect to the memory of the late William Horatio Trott, a member of this House for Sandys Parish who died on the 10th instant.

“It is my melancholy duty to make this proposition. Of course, the subject of it is well known. Personally, I have known him since 1848, and I have known him intimately during that time.

“His worth in this particular profession as a cabinet maker and as a joiner was recognised by the Dockyard authorities where he was at the head of his profession for 47 years.

“There are few men who had such a long service in His Majesty’s Department, and he took first place in this particular line of business.

“He identified himself with Sandys parish by marrying twice, both wives being taken from the parish, and he lately removed to Somerset, since when he has been a representative of that parish … for eight years and has always taken a great interest in the moral and material interests and the wellbeing of the people.

“With those remarks I ask the House to adjourn as a tribute of respect according to the motion.”

Other members speaking in support of the motion, including Mr Missick and Mr West, lauded him as a liberal and progressive man who had served his country well, “dying in harness” — as one colleague put it.