Saint Mary
Saint Mary exhibits founder effects: site of 1632 British landing at Old Road, now western parish overshadowed by later-developing neighbors.
Saint Mary preserves the origin story of British Antigua: Old Road, the parish capital, marks where settlers first landed in 1632—the seed from which the entire colonial enterprise grew. The divisions of Old Road, Bermudian Valley, and New Division compose a parish whose significance lies in temporal primacy rather than current economic weight.
This is founder effects in Caribbean settlement: the first colonists chose a location that made sense for 17th-century needs—shelter from hurricanes, access to fresh water, defensible position. But the harbor at St. John's proved better for large vessels, and economic gravity shifted north. Saint Mary's historical priority couldn't overcome Saint John's geographic advantage.
The parish now occupies a niche as western Antigua—bordering Saint Peter and Saint John to the east, Saint Paul to the south. Without the airport of Saint George, the cruise port of Saint John, or the heritage tourism of Saint Paul, Saint Mary maintains through path dependence what it could never claim through competition. The name persists because administrative boundaries fossilize even when the logic that created them dissolves. British settlers in 1632 couldn't know their landing site would become a historical footnote rather than a lasting capital.