Freetown is a village in Antigua. It is located in the southeast of the island, on a peninsula between Willoughby Bay to the south and Nonsuch Bay to the north.
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History
The settlement arose in the course of the abolition of slavery in 1834, when numerous freedmen settled here on Farrs Hill, where there was a public water pond. After Liberta, Freetown was the second free village, the origin of its name. The place had a population boom as early as 1843. After the great Caribbean earthquake, the settlement on Willoughby Bay (Bridgetown) was abandoned, the inhabitants there moved to Bethesda and Freetown. The Methodists, who had been based in Bethesda since 1813, had built a small chapel and a school in Freetown in 1841 when they moved the congregation from Willoughby Bay to Bethesda. This was also destroyed in the quake, and a larger mission house was built by 1847.
The place grew rapidly– around 1855 it was the largest freedmen's village on the island at about two to three thousand people. In 1882, the church was rebuilt and dedicated to the 'glory of God'. Until the 1960s, the Methodists ran the only school on site, then a state school was established.
With the economic upheaval brought on by the 20th century's end to colonialism and independence, the population gradually declined throughout the nineteenth century. The area is now a modest, self-sufficient agricultural community with a developed structure, but it contrasts sharply with the eastern noble, contained hotel and villa area between Half Moon Bay and Mill Reef, which is popular with tourists from other countries. Only the road from Newfield leads to the village, which then terminates at the Mill-Reef region at the tip of the peninsula. To reach Nonsuch Bay and Harmony Hall, a terrible road splits off. Today, the town has a small hospital (Freetown Clinic), the nearby Crossroads Centre, an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, a police station, a primary school (Freetown Primary School), as well as a Methodist church.
Geography
It is a sparsely populated area with one beach – Half Moon Bay with its beautiful white and pink sand. Freetown has an area of 1 square kilometre.
Climate
Freetown is often ranked as the coldest town in Antigua and Barbuda, often achieving low temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius in the winter.
Demographics
Freetown has four enumeration districts.
60600 FreeTown-North
60700 FreeTown-West
60800 FreeTown-South