Hazen and Jarvis sold one half of the Eunice for £133 to a Frenchman named Barrere, who sailed with her to the West Indies, where he was detained until the outbreak of the Revolution in America, and this was the last of her so far as the Company was concerned.
Of all the company’s vessels none seems to have done more excellent service than the little schooner Polly. For twelve years she bore an almost charmed life, and in that time was employed in a great variety of ways. At one time a fishing at Annapolis or Passamaquoddy, at another trading with the Indians up the River St. John, at another transporting settlers and their effects from Massachusetts to Maugerville, at another on a voyage to the West Indies.
Hazen & Jarvis for the accommodation of their trade had hired the Long Wharf at Newburyport and the stores on it at an annual rental of £70. In the month of March, 1765, Leonard Jarvis writes of the occurrence of a tremendous gale which was as severe as was ever known and which did great damage to the wharves and shipping. He adds: “We had the schooner Polly drove on one of the wharfs from whence we had to launch her.”
While returning from the West Indies in July, 1776, the Polly was taken by an American privateer sailed by one O’Brien and sent to Newburyport. She was claimed by William Hazen and after some little delay restored to her owners and 205 brought to St. John where she discharged her cargo. Not long after she was again captured and carried to Falmouth, where her super-cargo Peter Smith again succeeded in obtaining her release.
The first vessel built and launched at St. John was the little schooner “Betsy,” the construction of which was undertaken by Simonds & White at Portland Point in 1769. Little did her designers and builders imagine that they were the pioneers of an industry that would one day place St. John in the fourth place among the cities of the British empire as a shipowning port and lead her to claim the proud title of “the Liverpool of America.” And we may note in passing, that at the time of the turning of the first sod of the Intercolonial railway in 1853, employes from seventeen shipyards—1,090 men in all—marched in the procession and shipbuilding had not then attained its greatest development. It was an important industry indeed in its day.
The materials used in building, the Betsy were cut almost upon the spot, and the rigging was sent from Newburyport by William Hazen, while about half the iron was taken from one of the company’s old vessels. One Michael Hodge agreed to build the schooner for 23 1–3 shillings per ton. Adonijah Colby was his assistant. The schooner was launched in the autumn of the year 1769 and named the Betsy in honor of Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who about this time was married to James White. The little vessel sailed for Newburyport with her first cargo on the 3d of February following, Jonathan Leavitt going in her as master. She was sold the next year for £200, and Mr. Simonds expressed his satisfaction at the price as better than he had expected.
This first venture in the line of shipbuilding was followed in due course by others. Jonathan Leavitt and Samuel Peabody in 1773 built a schooner which they called the “Menaguash,” in honor of the old Indian name of St. John, and the following year William Hazen made an agreement with James Woodman and Zebedee Ring to build a vessel at St. John, Woodman’s wages to be art the rate of 4 shillings a day, and the payment in part to be one hundred acres of land at two shillings an acre. The land referred to was situated in the old township of Conway opposite the Indian House—probably at Pleasant Point.
With a view to pursuing the business of shipbuilding William Hazen at the time he settled at Portland Point brought with him one John Jones, a master ship-builder. The outbreak of the Revolutionary war put a stop to every kind of business, but it is said that Mr. Jones’ employers paid his wages for some time in order to retain his services under the expectation that the war would soon be over and they would be able again to build ships. Mr. Jones improved the waiting time by taking to himself a wife, Mercy Hilderick, who had come to St. John on a visit to her sister, the wife of Samuel Peabody. There being no clergyman at hand the ceremony was performed by Gervas Say, a Justice of the Peace for the county of Sunbury, who then lived on the west side of the Harbor in the Township of Conway.