The establishment of Fort Frederick on the west side of the Harbor of St. John, by Brig. General Monckton, in the fall of the year 1759, contributed not a little to the advantage of the first settlers. The Indians were disposed to be troublesome to the English, and the presence of the garrison rendered their situation less lonely and added very greatly to their sense of security. Not only so, but the garrison brought quite an amount of business to the store of Simonds & White. In the old accounts of the year 1764 are to be found the names of Lieut. Gilfred Studholme of the 40th Regt., Lieut. John Marr and Commissary Henry Green. Captain Pierce Butler, of the 29th Regt., was in command at Fort Frederick the following year and his name also appears in the accounts. For a year or two after the fort was established the garrison was furnished by the provincial troops of Massachusetts, afterwards by detachments of British regiments under various commanders. In addition to the trade with the officers and soldiers, Simonds & White furnished wood and other supplies to the garrison, and doubtless it was not the least satisfactory incident in this connection that the pay-master was “John Bull.” The Indians were unreliable customers and bad debts were not infrequent, the white settlers on the river had but little money and their pay was chiefly in shingles, staves, spars, clapboards, musquash and beaver skins; John Bull paid cash.
About three years after the arrival of Simonds and White at St. John their trade with the garrison was interrupted by the removal of the troops to Boston in consequence of some riots in connection with the enforcement of the Stamp Act. Mr. Simonds speaks of this circumstance in a letter dated July 25, 1768, in which he writes: “The troops are withdrawn from all the outposts in the Province and sent to Boston to quell the mob. The charge of Fort Frederick is committed to me, which I accepted to prevent another person being appointed who would be a trader. I don’t know but I must reside in the Garrison, but the privilege of the fisheries on that side of the River and the use of the King’s boats will be more than an equivalent for the inconvenience.” The defenceless condition of the port of St. John brought disaster to the settlers there some years later, but of this we shall hear more by and by.
The names of most of the heads of families settled at Maugerville appear in the earlier account books of Simonds & White, and later we have those of the settlers at Gagetown, Burton and St. Anns. In the course of time branches of the company’s business seem to have been established at convenient centres up the river, and their account books contain the invoices of goods shipped to Peter Carr, who lived just below Gagetown, to Jabez Nevers of Maugerville, and to Benjamin Atherton at St. Ann’s Point. The goods appear to have been sold on commission and returns were made chiefly in lumber, furs and produce. The invoices of goods shipped to Hazen & Jarvis at Newburyport by Simonds & White included pine boards, shingles, clapboards, cedar posts, spars and cordwood, besides some 50,000 white and red oak staves, most of these articles having been taken in trade with the settlers on the river. Messrs. Hazen & Jarvis carried on quite an extensive trade with the West Indies where, in consequence of the manufacture 234 of rum and molasses, there was a large demand for hogshead and barrel staves, these were obtainable in considerable quantities on the River St. John, and the terms at which they were purchased may be seen in the following agreement:—
“St. Johns River, Nov’r. 10th, 1772.
“It is agreed between Simonds & White on the one part and Joseph Garrison & William Saunders on the other, that the said Garrison & Saunders make and lay at the bank of the said River, at convenient place to load on board a vessel, five thousand of White Oak barrel staves and the same number of White Oak hogshead staves, the hogshead staves to be well shaved and both to be merchantable according to the laws of Massachusetts Bay, for which the said Simonds & White are to pay, for Barrel Staves twenty-five shillings for each thousand and for the Hogshead forty shillings; the said staves to be ready by the 20th day of April next and at farthest to be received by the 20th day of June.
“To the performance of the above agreement each of the parties hereby bind themselves to each other in the sum of Twenty pounds currency, to be paid in default of fulfilment of either party. “Witness our hands,
JOSEPH GARRISON,
WM. SAUNDERS,
SIMONDS & WHITE.”
Joseph Garrison it may be observed was the grandfather of William Lloyd Garrison, the celebrated advocate of the abolition of slavery. He was one of the original grantees of Maugerville, and drew lot No. 4, opposite Middle Island in Upper Sheffield. He was on the River St. John as early at least as July, 1764, and is said to have been the first of the English speaking race to work the coal mines at Grand Lake. Another early miner was Edmund Price of Gagetown, who in the year 1775 delivered nine chaldrons of coal, to Simonds & White for which they allowed him 20 shillings per chaldron.
Nearly all the settlers on the river obtained their goods from the old trading company at Portland Point, and for their accommodation the little schooner “Polly” made frequent trips to Maugerville and St. Anns. Inspection of the old accounts shows that on the occasion of a trip up the river in May, 1773, goods were sold to thirty families at various points along the way. In November, 1775, goods were sold in like manner to more than forty families. At that time there were to be found in the company’s day book the names of 120 customers, nearly all of them heads of families. Of these, 25 were residents at Portland Point, 20 lived across the harbor in Conway, 45 belonged to Maugerville, 20 to other townships up the river and ten were casual visitors, fishermen and traders.
The partners amidst all their variety of business continued to make improvements upon their lands at St. John. They cleared up the Great Marsh and cut hay there, for in June, 1768, Mr. Simonds writes to Newburyport, “Please send half a dozen Salem scythes; Haskel’s tools are entirely out of credit here; it would be a sufficient excuse for a hired man to do but half a day’s work in a day if he was furnished with an axe or scythe of that stamp.” The next year plans were discussed for the general improvement of the marsh, and a number of indigent Acadians were employed to assist in the construction of a “Running Dike” and aboideau. These Acadians probably lived at French Village, near the Kennebecasis, and the fact that 235 they had some experience in dykeing marsh lands shows that they were refugees from the Expulsion of 1755. The situation of the first dyke was not, as now, at the mouth of the Marsh Creek but at a place nearly opposite the gate of the cemetery, where the lake-like expansion of the Marsh begins. The work was completed in August, 1774, by the construction of an aboideau. Those employed in the work were the company’s laborers, six or eight Acadians and a number of the Maugerville people—about twenty-five hands in all. William Hazen was at St. John that summer and he and James White gave their personal attendance, “not in overseeing the work only but in the active and laborious parts thereof,” the company providing the implements, tools, carts, several teams of oxen, gundolas and other boats, materials and supplies of every kind including rum for the workmen. This dyke and aboideau served the purpose of shutting out the tide from about 600 acres of marsh land. Ten years later Hazen & White built a new aboideau a little above the first one which had fallen into disrepair. A much better one than either was built at the mouth of the creek in 1788 by James Simonds at a cost of £1,300. The House of Assembly voted £100 towards building a bridge at the place and Mr. Simonds agreed to erect a structure to serve the double purpose of a public bridge and aboideau. The width of the structure was 75 feet at the bottom and 25 feet at the top. Not long afterwards Mr. Simonds built here two tide saw-mills. These were not a profitable investment, and in 1812 one had fallen into total decay while the other was so much out of repair as to be of little benefit to its owner.
After the first Marsh Bridge had been in existence about twenty-five years there arose a controversy as to what proportion of the cost of repairs should be borne respectively by the province, the City of St. John and the proprietors of the marsh. This controversy has continued to crop up at regular intervals during the last century and the end is not yet.
When the Loyalists arrived in 1783 the dyked marsh lands produced about 400 tons of hay, but it was said that “if tilled and ditched they would produce much more.” Today the marsh raises at least four times the quantity of hay named above.