184 THE STORY OF THE BETTISCOMBE SKULL. 



skull at once flashed across my memory, and I thought how 

 strange and withal interesting it would be if I had come 

 across the actual home or source of the legend ! 



A day or two later I was paying a visit to Fig Tree church 

 in the same island to inspect the marriage register of the great 

 Nelson and his widow-bride Mrs. Nisbet when, on entering 

 the edifice, which had been restored a few decades ago, my 

 attention was arrested by a handsome marble armorial slab 

 inserted in the floor of the centre aisle, bearing a long Latin 

 inscription in memory of John Pinney, only son and heir of 

 Azariah Pinney. Both father and son were styled " Armiger." 

 The latter is stated to have been born on May 3rd, 1686 ; 

 to have served several high offices in the island, including 

 that of Capitalis Judiciarius (Chief Justice) (all of which 

 offices were, of course, abolished since, if not before, the 

 federation of the Leeward Islands in 1871) ; to have married in 

 1708 one Mary Helme ;* and to have died on December llth, 

 1720, leaving him surviving " duos puerulos, filiolam unam," 

 which, genealogically speaking, means two sons and a daughter. 

 The old-fashioned name of " Azariah " Pinney at once struck 

 me as familiar, and as peculiarly applicable to the many 

 Puritans in West Dorset ; and a reference to my Hutchins' 

 " Dorset " on my return to Antigua told me that it was 

 one of the family names borne by the old owners of Bettis- 

 combe and Blackdown. The arms, too, engraved on the 

 stone are the same as those mentioned by Hutchins as be- 

 longing to the Dorset Pinneys, namely, Gules : three crescents 

 or, from each a cross-crosslet fitchee argent. 



Here was indeed a find and a great help towards the 

 theory that I was beginning to form as to how a negro skull 

 if negro it was could have got to Bettiscombe ! 



* These Holmes must have been connected with persons of that name in 

 Gillingham, Co. Dorset, for in the Nevis " Common Records," Vol. II. (1740). 

 is registered a Power of Attorney from Thomas Helme, of Gillingham, in the 

 County of Dorset, Butcher, to John Frederick Pinney, Esq., and others in 

 America (sic). 



