Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784

by W. O. Raymond

“License is hereby granted to John Anderson to traffick with the Tribes of Indians on St. John’s River and in the Bay of Fundy, he conducting himself without Fraud or Violence and submitting himself to the observance of such regulations as may at any time hereafter be established for the better ordering of such commerce. This license to continue during pleasure.”

Anderson selected as his location the site of Villebon’s old Fort at the mouth of the Nashwaak, where he obtained in 1765, a grant of 1,000 acres of land, built himself a dwelling house and established a trading post convenient to the Indian village of Aukpaque, a few miles above. He had the honor to be the first magistrate on the River St. John, his commission dating August 17, 1765; the next appointed was colonel Beamsley P. Glacier, on 15th October, same year. John Anderson obtained his goods and supplies of Martin Gay, merchant of Boston, and one Charles Martin was his bookkeeper and assistant. He called his place “Monkton,” a name it retained for many years.[71] Early in 1768 Anderson had the misfortune 197 198 to lose a vessel laden with goods for the India trade. James Simonds mentions this incident in a letter to Hazen & Jarvis and remarks: “We imagine the loss of Mr. Anderson’s vessel will cause more trade to come to us than we should have had if she had gone safe.”

Captain Isaac Caton was granted a licence “to traffick with the Indians on Saint John’s river and the Bay of Fundy,” on Nov’r. 9, 1765. He probably made his headquarters at the old French trading post on the historic Island of Emenemic, in Long Reach, of which he was a grantee about thus time, and which has since been called Caton’s Island.

Simonds and White did not find the Indian trade entirely to their liking and after a few years experience wrote (under date June 20, 1767), “The Indian debts we cannot lessen being obliged to give them new credit as a condition of their paying their old debts. They are very numerous at this time but have made bad hunts; we have got a share of their peltry, as much as all the others put together, and hope soon to collect some more. There is scarcely a shilling of money in the country. Respecting goods we think it will be for our advantage not to bring any Toys and Trinkets (unnecessary articles) in sight of the Indians, and by that means recover them from their bankruptcy. They must have provisions and coarse goods for the winter, and if we have a supply of those articles, by keeping a store here and up the River make no doubt of having most of the Trade. Shall have a store ready by September next, and hope to have it finished by the last of that month.”

ICE-JAM ABOVE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, FREDERICTON, MARCH, 1902.

The store was built near the site of Government House and according to Moses H. Perley it was carried away by one of those periodical ice-jams for which the vicinity of St. Ann’s Point has been noted from time immemorial. See illustration on preceding page of a recent ice-jam at this place.

Another store was built and Benjamin Atherton took charge of it. In addition to trade with the Indians he did business with the white settlers under the name and title of Atherton & Co. Furs and produce were frequently transported to St. John from the post at St. Anns in summer in gondolas and in the winter on ice by means of horses and sleds.

The volume of business in the aggregate was quite large for those days. In addition to the exportation of furs and peltry to the value of $40,000, the company sent to New England and the West Indies large quantities of pollock, mackerel and codfish taken in the Bay. The gasperaux fishery at St. John was also an important factor in their trade; in the seven years previous to the Revolutionary war Simonds & White shipped to Boston 4,000 barrels of gasperaux valued at about $12,000. They also shipped quantities of bass, shad, salmon and sturgeon. Perhaps their profits would have been even greater had not many of the men who were at other times in their employ engaged in fishing on their own account. The community was not an ideal one for Mr. Simonds writes: “In the spring we must go into the Weirs every tide to keep our men from selling bait to the fishermen for rum, which is not only attended with the loss of the fish so sold, but of the men’s time who would drink so to excess as not to be able to do anything.”