There is also an inventory of the goods in the company’s store at this time, which were valued at £613. The goods were such as were needed by the white settlers up the river as well as for the Indian trade. There was quite a varied assortment, yet the many deficiencies indicate the simplicity of living then in vogue.
The list of household goods and chattels, the property of Simonds and White, was a very meagre one indeed. The more common and necessary articles of furniture such as bedsteads, tables, benches, etc., were probably manufactured on the premises by means of the carpenter’s axe, adze, hammer and saw. In addition they had a small supply of bedding, 6 camp chairs, 1 desk, 1 writing desk, 1 lamp, 4 iron candlesticks, 1 ink stand.
Dishes—4 pewter plates, 2 pewter platters, 2 pewter porringers, 2 metal teapots, 8 stone plates, 1 stone platter, 1 stone jug, 1 earthen teapot, 3 china cups and saucers, 2 quart basons, 2 punch bowls.
Cutlery, etc.—1¼ doz. case knives and forks, 1½ doz. spoons, 1 large spoon, 6 silver tea spoons. Kitchen utensils—2 frying pans, 2 tea kettles, 1 chafing dish, 1 cullender, 4 iron pots, 1 brass kettle, 2 quart pots, 2 two-quart pots, 3 pints, 2 tin kettles, 1 pail, 1 pair dogs, 1 shovel and tongs, 1 tea-chest, 1 coffee mill, 2 pairs steel yards, 1 beam scale, 2 sets weights.
The total value of household articles was but £33, 17, 5, and it is doubtful whether the personal belongings of Simonds and White would have added much to the common stock. No wonder James Simonds observed with grim humor, as he described life at St. John in those days, “gentility is out of the question.”
William Hazen was afraid the business during the first year had been unprofitable, and at the end of the year called for a settlement of accounts in order to find out the exact state of affairs. James Simonds wrote: “We are sensible of the necessity of settling our accts. soon, but have always been obliged to work so much abroad as not to be able to have our books posted up, besides the necessity of taking an exact acct. of all goods on hand and making an exact computation of the cost of all buildings and works cannot be hurried over and would require time. We could have had all those things ready, but must have neglected completing preparations for the winter’s work, which we think would be far greater damage to us than the accts. remaining unfinished for a few months and for us to finish them in the winter evenings.”
Doubtless the winter evenings were entirely at their disposal. There were no social engagements to fill, no societies to attend, no places of amusement to while away the hours. The church, the lodge room, the club were reserved for coming generations. Even the satisfaction to be derived from good, general reading was wanting for an inventory of household effects made in 1775 shows that Mr. Simonds owned a Bible and Prayer Book and Mr. White a Bible and a copy of Watt’s psalms and hymns, and the only other book of which mention can be found is an almanac. It would seem that one at least of the partners was fond of fiction, for Samuel Blodget writes in a letter to James White—the latter then at Crown Point—Dec. 8, 1762: “I confess I was a little surprised att your opinion of Roderick Random, for it is allowed by all that I ever heard judg of it, that it is a well wrote Novell.”
No account of the business of St. John during the period of the operations of its finest trading company, would be complete without some mention of its shipping. Naturally it was the day of small things with the future “winter port” of Canada. The ship that bore de Monts and Champlain to the Bay of Fundy in the month of June, 1604, was a little vessel of 150 tons, smaller than some of our coasting schooners of today; but the vessels employed in the business of Hazen, Simonds and White and their associates, were smaller still, ranging from ten to eighty tons burden.
The qualities essential to successful navigation—pluck, enterprise and skill—were admirably displayed by the hardy mariners of New England, the pioneers of commerce in the Bay of Fundy. In their day there were no light houses, or beacons, or fog-horns and even charts were imperfect, yet there were few disasters. The names of Jonathan Leavitt and his contemporaries are worthy of a foremost place in our commercial annals.