Green Island was once a thriving market town in the days when sugar was king supported by
sugar plantations such as Harding Hall, Prospect, Saxham, Winchester, Rhodes Hall, Haughton and Glasgow.
Sugar and other produce were exported in small
schooners from the five or six
wharves (such as Dixon Wharf) which were located in the
harbor. Very little remains of these wharves today. Saturdays were always bustling with activity as fishermen from as far as
Negril, local rice farmers from Santoy and Westmoreland, and
corn growers from St. Elizabeth selling their produce.
Tobacco farmers would roll their dried leaves into a shape resembling rope, thus earning the name "Jackass Rope", and sell it by the yard for smoking in chalk pipes. Since the development of Negril and easy access to public transportation, commercial activities have dwindled. ==References==