In the autumn of the year 1764, Leonard Jarvis, then a young man of twenty-two years of age, entered into partnership with William Hazen at Newburyport and became, by common consent, a sharer in the business at St. John. He was a man of ability and education. The accounts kept at Newburyport in connection with the business are in his handwriting, and he conducted the correspondence of Hazen & Jarvis with Simonds & White in a manner that would do no discredit to a modern business house. In a letter of the 3rd April, 1765, Mr. Jarvis informs James Simonds that “Mr. Peaslie has determined to settle down in Haverhill and to leave this concern, and as by this means and the death of your Brother, in which we sincerely condole with you, one-eighth part of the concern becomes vacant, we propose to let Mr. White have one-eighth and to take three-eighths ourselves—this you will please consult Mr. White upon and advice us. * * * We must beg you will send all the accts. both you and Mr. White have against the Company, and put us in a way to settle with Mr. Peaslie.”
James White, the fifth signer of the articles of partnership, was born in Haverhill in 1738, and was a lineal descendant of the Worshipful William White, one of the well-known founders of the place. He served as Ensign or Lieutenant in a Massachusetts regiment, but after the fall of Quebec retired from active service and entered the employ of William Tailer and Samuel Blodget, merchants of Boston, at a very modest salary, as appears from the following:—
“Memorandum of an agreement made this day between William Tailer & Co., with James White, that we, the said Tailer & Co., do allow him the said James White twenty dollars pr. month as long as the said White is in their service at Crown Point as Clark.
“William Tailer & Co.
“Test: Geo. Willmot.
“Crown Point, July 1st, 1762.”
James White’s papers, now in possession of a gentleman in St. John, show that he was engaged in the business of Tailer and Blodget at Crown Point continuously from September, 1761, to July, 1763; consequently the statement, commonly made, that he came to St. John with Francis Peabody, James Simonds, Hugh Quinton and their party in 1762 is a mistake.
In the early part of 1764 James White was employed by Samuel Blodget in business transactions in Haverhill, New Salem and Bradford. The first occasion on 193 which he set foot on the shores of St. John was when he landed there with James Simonds and the party that established themselves at Portland Point in the month of April, 1764. The important part he played in the early affairs of St. John will abundantly appear in these pages. He was one of the most active and energetic men of his generation and filled several offices in the old county of Sunbury, of which county he was sheriff. This office seems to have had special attractions for the White family, for his son James was sheriff of the city and county of St. John for more than thirty years, and one of his daughters married Sheriff DeVeber of Queens county. Mr. White was collector of customs at St. John when the Loyalists landed. The emoluments of this office were small, for in the year 1782 only a dozen vessels entered and cleared at St. John, the largest of but 30 tons burden. James White spent the closing years of his life on his farm at the head of the marsh about three miles from the City of St. John. His residence was known as Gretna Green, from the fact that a good many quiet weddings were celebrated by the old squire, who was one of the magistrates specially commissioned to solemnize marriages. He died in 1815 at the age of 77 years.
Having now spoken of the individuals composing St. John’s first trading company, the nature of the business pursued claims a little attention. The task that lay before James Simonds and James White was no easy one. Difficulties, many of them entirely unforseen, had to be faced and the great diversity of their business rendered their situation arduous and sometimes discouraging. At one time the fishery claimed their attention, at another bartering with the Indians, at another the erection of houses for themselves and their tenants, at another the dyking of the marsh, at another the erection of a mill, at another the building of a schooner, at another laying out roads and clearing lands, at another the burning of a lime-kiln, at another furnishing supplies for the garrison at the fort, at another the building of a wharf or the erection of a store-house.
Communication with New England in these days was slow and uncertain and often the non-arrival of a vessel, when the stock of provisions had run low, caused a good deal of grumbling on the part of the hands employed. This was particularly the case if the supply of rum chanced to run out. The wages of the laborers employed by the company were generally 2s. 6d., or half a dollar, a day and they boarded themselves. As a rule the men took up their wages at the store and the item most frequently entered against their names was New England rum. The writer had the curiosity to examine the charges for rum in one of the old day books for a period of a month—the month selected at random—when it appeared that, of a dozen laborers, four men averaged half a pint each per day, while with the other eight men the same allowance lasted three days. Tea, the great modern beverage, was rather a luxury and appears to have been used sparingly and rum, which retailed at 8 pence a pint, was used almost universally. Human nature was much the same in the eighteenth as in the twentieth century. The men often drank to excess, and some of them would have been utterly unreliable but for the fact that Simonds and White were masters of the situation and could cut off the supply. They generally doled out the liquor 194 by half pints and gills to their laborers. On one occasion we find Mr. Simonds writing, “The men are in low spirts, have nothing to eat but pork and bread, and nothing but water to drink. Knowing this much I trust you will lose no time in sending to our relief.”
At various times the privations were exceedingly great and even after the little colony had been for some years established at Portland Point they suffered for lack of the necessaries of life. Mr. Simonds thus describes their experience in the early part of 1770:
“Most difficult to remedy and most distressing was the want of provisions and hay. Such a scene of misery of man and beast we never saw before. There was not anything of bread kind equal to a bushel of meal for every person when the schooner sailed for Newbury the 6th of February (three months ago) and less of meat and vegetables in proportion—the Indians and hogs had part of that little.”
He goes on to say that the flour that had just arrived in the schooner was wet and much damaged; no Indian corn was to be had; for three months they had been without molasses or coffee, nor had they any tea except of the spruce variety.