Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/233

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AT PORTLAND POINT.
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tions required by their grants they built several new houses and settled four more families on the marsh, each with a small stock of cattle. They made a road to the Indian House along the route now followed by Main street, built a house on this road, and a wharf and two houses near the Indian House. They also made a road from Spar Cove to Langdon's on the Kennebecasis.

In the year 1782 James White was appointed deputy collector of customs under Henry Newton the collector at Halifax, but as the tonnage which entered the port in that year was only 144 tons and the tonnage that cleared only 165 tons, it will readily be imagined that the emoluments he derived from the office were small. Of the dozen vessels that entered and cleared the largest was of but 30 tons burden. William Hazen's position as commissary to the garrison was perhaps a little more remunerative. He and Mr. White furnished fuel and other articles needed by the garrison. We can readily imagine that the exposed situation of the barracks on the summit of Fort Howe hill rendered an abundant supply of fuel a thing essential to the comfort of the troops. The old fashioned style of heating by open chimney fires was at this time employed both at the barracks and in all private houses, consequently, there was a prodigious consumption of cordwood. The wood was at first procured in the vicinity of the fort, but the supply was soon exhausted and at the time of the arrival of the Loyalists it was brought in boats to the landing place at Portland Point. The task of transporting it to the magazine, or fuel yard, at Fort Howe was no easy one. A very primitive method indeed, seems to have been employed and no doubt it afforded a vast amount of healthy exercise to those of of the Loyalists desirous of earning an honest penny.