On April 15, the parish of Gran Couva will be 100 years old. It was on that date in 1905 that the old parish of Montserrat was split into two: Gran Couva to the north and Tortuga to the south. Technically, Tortuga parish is also 100 years old on that date but since they kept the parish records and continued with the Montserrat parish priest, their beginning is usually credited to that of Montserrat parish – 1872.

The earliest ecclesial establishment in the area dates from 1687 when the Catalan Capuchin monks established Missions at Savanetta and Montserrat . These missions were for the conversion and education of the native Amerindians.

Each contained a church, presbytery and cabildo as well as houses for the Amerindians. The missions also developed cocoa plantations around the missions – exporting cocoa to Spain for cash to fund the running of the missions. Cocoa was to be highly important to the future of the area.

The mission of Montserrat lasted until 1797. Thereafter the land reverted to impenetrable forest and became a haven for runaway slaves, bandits and for Venezuelan refugees escaping the civil wars across the Gulf of Paria .

These Venezuelans were quietly and quickly re-establishing cocoa plantations in the fertile Central Range soils and exporting cocoa to Spain again.

The government of the day took note of all this unregulated economic activity and established the Ward of Montserrat on Feb 11, 1869 – moving to regularise the general squatting and to bring roads and schools to the area.

In the wake of the ward, the parish of Montserrat was established in 1872. The first parish priest was Abbé Marie-Julies Du Poux who celebrated his first Mass on Saturday, March 9, 1872 in the Tortuga police station where 3/4 of the congregation were in the yard or in the road because they could not fit in the building.

Born in Avignon , France the 28-year -old Abbé Du Poux was architect, musician, poet, “brilliant liturgist” and all round bundle of energy. The beautiful church of “Our Lady of Montserrat” in Tortuga – opened on Christmas Eve 1878, was designed and built by him.

All through the end of the nineteenth century, cocoa prices were rising and forests throughout Monteserrat were being cleared for cocoa plantations. The five and ten acre blocks of the Venezuelan pioneers were gradually bought out by (mostly) French Creole planters under the contract system.

This established the “plantocracy” – the network of 200 – 600 acre cocoa estates that would define Gran Couva for the next century.

The parish expanded with the cocoa fields. Land had been obtained for chapels in Gran Couva in 1881 and in Chickland in 1891. By the time French Dominican Eusebe Poulet became parish priest in January 1894, the parish was becoming too big for one priest's duties.

It was Père Eusebe who recommended the lines along which the parish was halved. On April 5, 1905, Tortuga, Mayo and Tabaquite comprised the new parish of Tortuga. And Gran Couva, Chickland, Brasso and Flanagain Town became the new parish of Gran Couva.