Under the title “A narrative of the proceedings of the first settlers at the River St. John, under the authority of the Government of Nova Scotia,” Mr. Fisher tells us that “In the year 1761, a number of persons from the County of Essex, province of Massachusetts, presented a petition through their agent (Francis Peabody), to the Government of Nova Scotia, for the grant of a township twelve miles square at the River Saint John; they received a favorable answer and obtained full authority to survey a tract of that dimension, wherever it might be found fit for improvement. In consequence many of the applicants proceeded in the course of the winter and spring following to prepare for exploring the country and to survey their township; they provided a vessel for that purpose and on the 16th May, 1762, embarked at Newburyport and arrived in three days at the harbor of Saint John. * * * *
“The exploring and surveying party proceeded to view the lands, round the harbor and bay of Saint John in a whale boat they brought with them, for they could not travel on the land on account of the multitude of fallen trees that had been torn up by the roots in a violent gale of wind nearly four years previous.[56] The same gale extended as far up the river as the Oromocto, and most of the country below that place was equally incumbered with the fallen trees.
“After making all the discoveries that could be made near the harbor, it was the unanimous opinion that all the lands near that part of the country were unfit 156 for their purpose and in about ten days from their first arrival they set out to view the country as far as Saint Anne, ninety miles up the river, where they expected to find an extensive body of cleared land that had been formerly improved by the French inhabitants. On their way they landed wherever they saw any appearance of improvement. All such spots as far up as Mill Creek[57] were supposed not to exceed one hundred acres, most of which had been very roughly cleared.
“On the arrival of the exploring party at St. Anns, they lost no time in making a shelter for themselves nearly opposite the river Nashwaak ... and they commenced their survey at the small gravelly point near Government House, with the intention of surveying a township to terminate twelve miles below that place, but after surveying the courses of the river about four miles downward, a large company of Indians, came down about nine miles, from their Priest’s residence with his Interpreter, all having painted faces of divers colours and figures and dressed in their war habits. The chiefs, with grave countenances, informed the adventurers that they were trespassers on their rights; that the country belonged to them and unless they retired immediately they would compel them.”
“The reply made to the chiefs was to this effect: that the adventurers had received authority from the Governor of Halifax to survey and settle any land they should choose at the River Saint John; that they had never been informed of the Indians claiming the village of Saint Anne, but as they declared the land there to be their property (though it had been inhabited by the French, who were considered entitled to it, till its capture by the English) they would retire further down the river.
* * * The surveying party removed their camp, according to their promise, almost as far down as the lower end of Oromocto Island on the east side of the river, whence they finished their survey twelve miles below the first mentioned bounds and returned to Fort Frederick.”
The circumstances that led to delay in procuring the grant from government have already been mentioned in this chapter.
There can be no doubt that Mr. Fisher’s statement—corroborated by Moses H. Perley—that the township was laid out in lots in the earlier part of 1762 is correct, for on Sept. 2nd a meeting of the intending settlers was advertised to be held for the purpose of drawing the lots which were described as “already laid out.” But the statement of Mr. Fisher (in which he is again followed by Moses H. Perley) that one or two families from Newburyport accompanied the surveying party in the month of May, and brought with them the frame of a small dwelling house and boards to cover it, together with a small stock of cattle, and that on the third day after their arrival the house was finished and inhabited—is probably a misapprehension resulting from the confounding of incidents, which occurred in the course of the same year but were separated by an interval of several months. At any rate the late John Quinton, who was born in 1807, states most emphatically in a letter to Joseph W. Lawrence that it was not until the 28th day of August that his grand-parents, Hugh and Elizabeth Quinton, Capt. Francis Peabody and family, James Simonds and others came to reside at the River St. John. He says that accomodation 157 was provided for Quinton and his wife, Miss Hannah Peabody and others in the barracks at Fort Frederick, where on the very night of their arrival was born James Quinton, the first child of English speaking parents, whose birth is recorded at St. John.[58] The remainder of the party encamped on the east side of the harbor at the site of an old French Fort, the place since known as Portland Point, or Simonds’ Point, where they erected a dwelling into which the Quintons and others in Carleton soon afterwards removed. Hannah Peabody was at this time about twelve years old: she afterwards became the wife of James Simonds.