Grants Town was named after General Sir Lewis Grant (1776-1852) who was Governor of the Bahamas when the town was laid out in 1825.
The settlement was established after an influx of Africans in 1807 required planned settlements and became one of the largest concentration of Africans that lived in the “Over-the-Hill” to the south of the city of Nassau. Most of the inhabitants of European descent lived on the island’s northern coastal ridges.