Part 30 (1/2)

In confidence of this, and being ourselves Soldiers, we apprehended we might with great safety prepare ourselves for settling the Lands we Pet.i.tioned for, and accordingly sold our Estates in New England, and have at near a Thousand Pounds Sterling expence Transported ourselves, Families and Stock, and are now Settled to the number of one Hundred persons, on St.

John's River seventy miles from the Mouth; and a large number of disbanded officers and soldiers in confidence of the same Encouragement have now sold all their Possessions in New England and are hiring Vessels to Transport themselves and Settle among us.

We were not a little astonished when we were informed by his Majesty's Governor and Council here that we could not have a Grant of the Lands we have settled ourselves upon.

We therefore humbly apply to your Lords.h.i.+ps to Lay our Cause before his most Gracious Majesty for whose service we have often exposed our lives in America, that he would be pleased to direct the Governor and Council here to Grant us these Lands, we are now settled upon, as the Removal therefrom would prove our utter Ruin and Destruction. We have been at no expence to the crown and intend to be at none, and are settled two hundred miles from any other English Settlement.

And your Memorialists as in duty bound shall ever pray.

Recd. & Read Decr. 16, 1763.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FIRM OF HAZEN, JARVIS, SIMONDS & WHITE.

The circ.u.mstances under which James Simonds, William Hazen and their a.s.sociates organized the first trading company at St. John have been already related. Their business contract was signed on the 1st of March, 1764. In the course of a year or two the character of the original company was essentially altered by the death of Richard Simonds, the retirement of Samuel Blodget and Richard Peaslie and the admission of Leonard Jarvis as a new partner. Questions had also arisen as to the rights of the several partners in the lands granted in 1765 to James Simonds, James White and Richard Simonds. In order to settle these questions a new business contract was signed at Newburyport, on the 16th April, 1767, by James Simonds, Leonard Jarvis and William Hazen. The original contract is yet in existence amongst the papers of the Hazen family. It is in the handwriting of Leonard Jarvis and is a well worn doc.u.ment which bears marks of having been repeatedly handled. This is not to be wondered at for this contract proved a veritable storm-centre in the litigation that ensued relative to the division of the lands between the partners. The legal proceedings a.s.sumed various phases and occupied the attention of the courts for a period of twenty years.[87]

[87] The second contract, or Articles of Partners.h.i.+p, entered into by William Hazen, Leonard Jarvis, James Simonds and James White is printed in Collections of the N. B. Hist. Soc., Vol. I. p.

191. It is entered also in the book of records of the old County of Sunbury. The original doc.u.ment bears the following certificate, ”Registered by me March 9th, 1782, Ja. Simonds, Dep'y Reg'r.”

Under the new contract Hazen and Jarvis were to have a half interest in the business, James Simonds one-third and James White one-sixth, and all the lands on the River St. John that had been granted to any or either of the partners (Mr. Simonds' lot in Maugerville excepted) were to be put into the common stock and divided in the following proportions, namely, one-half to Hazen and Jarvis, one-third to Simonds and one-sixth to White. The same division was to be made of any lands that should thereafter be obtained by the members of the company, either individually or collectively, during the continuance of the partners.h.i.+p.

Mr. Simonds sailed from St. John for Newburyport in the schooner Eunice on the 4th March, 1767, but owing to head winds he was twenty days in arriving at his destination. He submitted to Hazen and Jarvis the accounts of the business at St. John for the three years of the company's operations and then repaired to Haverhill, about fourteen miles distant, to visit his relations. On his return he was accompanied by his sister Sarah and by his young bride, Hannah Peabody, who were about to settle with him at St. John. On his arrival at the store of Hazen and Jarvis, the new contract was presented to him for his signature. The proposition relative to the division of lands led to ”a warm altercation and dispute.” Hazen and Jarvis positively declined to continue in the business or to furnish supplies unless they were allowed an interest in the lands. They stated further that the goods on board the schooner Eunice should not leave Newburyport, nor would they furnish anything for the spring trade but insist upon immediate payment of the balance due them unless Mr.

Simonds should execute the contract. Much as he disliked the proposal the situation of Mr. Simonds did not admit of delay. He was anxious to settle his family at St. John, his workmen and tenants needed his supervision and the Indian trade for the season would be lost unless the goods on board the Eunice were delivered as speedily as possible.

Under these circ.u.mstances he deemed it best to sign the contract.

Hazen & Jarvis claimed the company were at this time indebted to them in the sum of 3,135, but in the subsequent proceedings in the court of chancery this was disputed by Mr. Simonds and the statements of the parties interested are so much at variance that it is difficult to determine the exact truth in the matter.

James White declined to sign the new contract stating:

”That having one-fourth part of the duties, trouble and services to undergo and perform in transacting the business of the Copartners.h.i.+p, yet he was by the said Contract ent.i.tled to one-sixth part only of the lands to be divided under the contract.

But that, although he disliked as aforesaid his having no greater share than one-sixth part in the Concern, he nevertheless joined with James Simonds in carrying on the business in full confidence that some equitable allowance would be made him for his services over and above his proportion of the said profits and lands.”

On the occasion of James Simonds' visit to Halifax early in 1764 he obtained a license to occupy ten acres of land at Portland Point for carrying on the fishery and burning limestone, but it was not until the 2nd October, 1765, that a grant was made to him, in conjunction with his brother Richard, and James White, described as follows:

”Beginning at a point of upland opposite to his (Simonds') House and running East till it meets with a little Cove or River; thence bounded by said Cove till it comes to a Red Head on the east side of the Cove--thence running North eleven degrees fifteen minutes west till it meets Canebekssis river, thence bounded by said river, the river St. John and harbour till it comes to the first mentioned boundary.”

The bounds of this tract are shown in the accompanying plan. It was supposed to contain 2,000 acres ”more or less,” but in reality it contained upwards of 5,000 acres. Elias Hardy in 1785 claimed that the grant must have originated in misrepresentation, either in the application or survey, otherwise the quant.i.ty could not have been so much mistaken. To this Ward Chipman replied that the land had never been actually surveyed, but making allowance for lakes, sunken and broken ground, etc., it was supposed not to contain much if any more than the number of acres mentioned in the grant. The grant was made in accordance with the return of the surveyor describing its boundaries and expressing them to be ”with allowance for bad lands, containing in the whole by estimation 2,000 acres more or less.” Chipman adds, ”no misrepresentation can well be supposed to have taken place at the time of pa.s.sing this Grant when the lands upon the river St. Johns were considered as of very little value and there could be no inducement to such a step.”

However, in view of the fact that when surveyed the grant was found to contain 5,496 acres, it must be admitted that the allowance for ”bad lands” was tolerably liberal, and the grantees were fortunate to escape without the loss of at least half of their property. The line running from Mr. Simonds' house eastward to Courtenay Bay is that now followed by Union street. It will be observed that the peninsula south of this street which now contains the business part of the city of St.

John, and which was laid out for the Loyalists in 1783 as Parr-town, was not included in the grant. The primary object of the grantees was evidently to obtain possession of the limestone quarries and the big marsh, and they probably deemed the land south of Union street to be hardly worth the quit rents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Grants to Simonds & White]

The first grant at the mouth of the River St. John included only a small part of the great marsh--then called by the Indians, Sebaskastaggan--and a further tract in that locality was applied for by James Simonds in a memorial to the government of Nova Scotia.

The memorial stated that James and Richard Simonds and James White had obtained a grant of 2,000 acres of mountainous and broken land at the mouth of the River Saint John in the year 1765, which had been improved by building houses, a saw mill and lime kiln, and the company had settled upwards of thirty people on it who were engaged in carrying on those two branches of business, but that the wood and timber so necessary for them was all consumed, therefore praying that 2,000 acres additional to the eastward of the said tract might be granted to the said James Simonds.

It can scarcely be believed that all the wood from the harbor of St.

John to the Kennebeccasis had been consumed in the five years of the company's operations at Portland Point. But probably the lumber in the vicinity of the saw-mill and the wood most convenient to the lime kilns had been cut and this was sufficient to afford a pretext for another grant. Mr. Simonds' memorial was considered by the Governor in Council December 18, 1769, and approved. The grant did not issue till May 1, 1770. The bounds are thus described: