4. Sunbury, 125,000 acres, began at Old Mill Creek, a little below Fredericton, and extended up the river as far as Long’s Creek, including the City of Fredericton, the parish of New Maryland and the parish of Kingsclear. A part of this grant (20,000 acres) was added a little later to the Township of New Town on the opposite side of the river.
5. New Town extended about eight miles up the river from the Township of Maugerville on the east side opposite Fredericton and at first contained 20,000 acres, afterwards increased to 40,000.
It is an interesting circumstance that the site upon which Alexander Gibson’s mills at Marysville stand today, was selected by Beamsley Glasier and his associates in 1765 as the most desirable mill site along the St. John river. We even know the names of the pioneers of milling in that locality.
In the month of July, 1766, the sloop, “Peggy and Molly” sailed from Newburyport for St. John and on the way she called at Portsmouth and took on board Capt. Beamsley Glasier and five mill-wrights, Jonathan Young, Hezekiah Young, Joseph Pike, Tristram Quimby and John Sanborn each of whom paid Simonds & White 20 shillings passage money. Soon after their arrival they framed and erected the first saw mill on the Nashwaak, probably the first built by English hands in the province. In September, same year, the “Peggy and Molly” brought a large consignment from New England for Capt. Glasier, including all the mill gear, a quantity of seed corn, barley and garden seeds, some live stock and fowls, household utensils and provisions. Capt. Glasier says in a letter to Wm. Hazen written in August, 1766, “Young and all the Carpenters intend to stay and settle here and he begs you’ll be so good as to acquaint his wife and family of it.” No permanent settlement, however, seems to have been made at the Nashwaak at this time other than Anderson’s trading post at the mouth of that stream.
Shortly after obtaining the grants of their townships the Canada Company appointed Nathaniel Rogers of Boston their treasurer, and Colonel Beamsley Glasier their agent, and levied a tax of one hundred dollars on each member of the company to defray the expenses of management. The conditions of the grants required the grantees to settle one-fourth part of their lands in one year in the proportion of four Protestant[75] persons for every 1,000 acres, one-fourth part in the same proportion in two years, one-fourth in three years and the remainder in four years, all lands remaining unsettled to revert to the Crown.
An immediate attempt was made by Col. Glasier, Capt. Falconer and the more energetic of their associates to procure settlers and improve the lands, but the task was a gigantic one and settlers of a desirable class by no means easy to obtain. The difficulties the Company had to encounter will appear in the references that will presently be made to some very interesting letters and documents that have been preserved respecting the settlement of the townships.
As early as the 27th of January, 1765, the plans of the Canada Company had so far developed that Captain Falconer sent one Richard Barlow as storekeeper to the River St. John, where the company’s headquarters was about to be established under the supervision of Colonel Glasier. Barlow was promised a lease of 200 acres at a nominal rent, and at once removed with his family to the scene of operations. There were frequent business transactions in the course of the next six years between Simonds & White and the agents of the Canada Company, who figure in their accounts as “Beamsley Glasier & Co.”. In the years 1765 and 1766, for example, Mr. Rogers, the treasurer of the Canada Company, paid Hazen & Jarvis £146 for certain goods supplied by Simonds & White at the River St. John.
The value of the lands on the River St. John had not escaped the notice of the keen-eyed pioneers at Portland Point, and in the first business letter extant James Simonds writes to Wm. Hazen, “the lands are very valuable if they may be had.” Again on the 16th December, 1764, he writes, “I have been trying and have a great prospect of getting one or two Rights [or shares] for each of us concerned in our company, and to have my choice in the townships of this River, the land and title as good as any in America.” Hazen & Jarvis manifested much interest in the matter and soon afterwards obtained a footing among the proprietors and promoters of the scheme.
The arrival of Colonel Glasier with his millwrights and carpenters in the fall of 1766 has been already mentioned. The progress made in settling the townships during the first two years was, however, slow and the mills on the Nashwaak were some time in being completed. Simonds & White on the 20th June, 1767, wrote to their partners in Newburyport, “When Col. Glasier left this place he was in such a hurry, the vessel being bound directly to sea, that we could not make a complete settlement, not having the people’s accounts up the River that had worked on the mills, logging, etc. We have inclosed his order for what could be settled. The lots in Gage Town are drawn, Moses and William Hazen Nos. 53, 54, Mr. Simonds No. 12, none of them either the best or the worst in the Township. * * If young cattle are cheap at your place we recommend sending some every opportunity; the growth of them is profitable, and the King’s Instructions to the Government are that three cattle be kept on every fifty acres of land granted.”