T&T.Count Charles Joseph de Loppinot village

Lopinot: Where history, heritage and mystery meet

Nestled deep within Trinidad’s Northern Range, just a 20-minute drive from the bustling Eastern Main Road, the village of Lopinot feels like a place where time stands still. The story of Lopinot is inseparable from the man who gave it its name: French Count Charles Joseph de Loppinot de la Fresilliere. Having fled the Haitian Revolution and travelled through Louisiana, the Count eventually arrived in Trinidad in 1800. By 1806, he had been granted 478 acres of land by the British Crown. Overjoyed, he named his estate La Reconnaissance (an old French term for gratitude) and transformed the lush, mountainous terrain into one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative cocoa estates in the region.

However, the wealth of La Reconnaissance was built on the backs of enslaved Africans. The physical architecture of the estate still bears witness to this brutal reality, most notably in a structure that leaves modern visitors speechless. “We have a jailhouse in a cocoa plantation that’s a shocking thing,” Mora explains, noting the disbelief of international tourists and local schoolchildren alike. “He was also brilliant; he had a cocoa house on top of the jailhouse, so the enslaved still had to dance the cocoa with shackles on their feet.”

Beyond its agricultural significance, Lopinot is arguably the epicentre of Trinidadian folklore and the supernatural. The valley’s isolation historically prompted elders to invent cautionary tales of the Soucouyant, Douens and La Diablesse to keep children from wandering into the dense forest. According to Mora, the tactic was a complete success—no one has ever been lost in the Lopinot woods.But locals argue that these stories have taken on a life of their own. From sightings of a faceless, short man darting across the estate bridge to the legend of the Count himself roaming the property on horseback in the rain, the supernatural is woven into the village’s daily fabric.Recently, the valley’s haunted reputation gained fresh evidence. Adonai, a well-known violinist who performs with soca star Machel Montano, was filming a video at the estate, playing the classic tune Bring Back the Old Time Days. During the recording, a strange, gliding anomaly was captured moving between the trees—a video that has since circulated widely on YouTube.