The parish is the birthplace of established dancehall reggae artists, including Capleton, Lady Saw, Ninjaman, Ini Kamoze, Sizzla, and Tanya Stephens.

Other notable residents of St. Mary parish include author Colin Simpson, who is the great-great grandson[2] of abolitionist James Phillippo, Jamaican writer and community activist Erna Brodber, and music producer Chris Blackwell, who is credited with discovering reggae icon Bob Marley.

The property offered a commanding view of the St. Mary harbour and provided Morgan with a strategic vantage point and featured a secret escape tunnel to Port Maria.

They fought alongside hundreds of other slaves for five months but their rebellion was ultimately quashed by the British colonial authorities and the skilled Jamaican Maroons from Scott's Hall.

[7] Descendants of the Maroons carried on their struggle after the abolition of slavery and they joined with Reverend James Phillippo in his quest to establish one of his Free Villages in St. Mary.

Phillippo built the first church in Oracabessa and led a defiant protest against the local landowner’s refusal to sell land to former slaves.

The Maroons joined Phillippo in a show of force that led to the landowner’s capitulation and the sale of enough land to build homes for the local population.

Blanche sold plots of land from Oracabessa to Port Maria to her coterie of friends, including playwright Noël Coward, U.S.

In the 1990s, the Island Outpost Corporation developed one of St. Mary's best-known tourist attractions, the James Bond Beach and the facility includes a concert pavilion as well as a large bar/restaurant.

[10] The eastern perimeter of the Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary is located on the edge of the Cayman Trough with walls that begin at 60 ft. and drop down to over 150 ft.

The walls contain many overhangs and ledges and are home to lobsters, king crab, green and spotted moray eels, and a host of other marine creatures.