Mount Bruce Garrison

The Morne Bruce Garrison is the remains of the main military garrison on the Morne, for the troops defending Roseau.  It was named after James Bruce, a Captain in the Royal Engineers, who designed many of Dominica’s forts in the 1700s. He organized a line of signal stations with gun salutes and flag signals to give coded messages between Scotts Head AND the Cabrits Garrison at Portsmouth in less than half an hour.  Signals could reach Cape Melville at the northern tip of the island.  The Garrison was closed in 1854. The old garrison graveyard still exists at Kings Hill. It is said that the Morne has its own ghost, a headless drummer who marches with muffled drumbeat at midnight.  The signal cannon from those days is still in place.  It was made in cast iron in England.  It is marked 51-1-7, representing its weight in old measurements – 51 hundredweights, 1 quarter, 7 pounds.  It, therefore, weighs 5,747 lbs.