History

In 1861 Henry Oswald purchased the Trial Farm Estate and the Indian Hill Estate. An “enthusiastic agriculturalist,” Oswald began to experiment with cacao and coffee, but while he did well at first, he found the plants died when their roots reached the subsoil^[1]. In 1872 he too played a heroic role in the Battle of Orange Walk, rescuing the town magistrate “from the clutches of hostile Indians,” and escorting a group of refugees (including his own wife and children) down river to San Estevan.

Thereafter, however, he had a series of setbacks: a fire and an explosion ruined his cane fields, rum stores, and distillery at Indian Hill. He tried to plant at Trial Farm, but the swampy nature of the land required him to invest in an extensive series of drains. He took a loan, at typically high interest, from Mr. Hodge, of British Honduras Company, to expand his acreage and purchase a new steam mill, mortgaging both properties and consigning his produce to Hodge. Hodge of course thereby obtained both properties not long afterward. Oswald died in 1877, and Francisco Escalante shortly thereafter purchased the sugar estates from the Belize Estate and Produce Company.

Francisco’s two plantations were willed to his son Tiburcio, with shares to his brother Eliodoro, a merchant in Orange Walk. After Tiburcio’s death in 1920 the land remained in the estates until 1964, when Indian Hill was acquired by the government on behalf of the Belize Sugar Company. By then, there were other fortunes to be made in sugar, and the Escalantes were among those who made them.^[2]

Trial Farm relied on the Orange Walk Town Police Station until March 6, 2025 when a police substation was built in Trial Farm at a cost of $300,000.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}