Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/163
In addition to other branches of business started at St. John by Simonds & White, they built the first saw mill there, which was in operation as early at least as the year 1767. The site of the mill is a matter of some uncertainty. It may have been at the outlet of Lily Lake, where a little later a grist mill was built, but it is quite as probable it was a tide mill and in that case the site would undoubtedly have been at the outlet of the old Mill Pond not far from where the Union Railway depot stands today. Probably a tide mill would have been more inconvenienced by drifting ice than a mill situated at the outlet of Lily Lake, hence some argument may be deduced from the following statement in one of Mr. Simonds' letters: "The mill could not go before the middle of April and the ice has been continually breaking the dam ever since."
The hands first employed in running the mill were "slow and unfaithful" and gave so little satisfaction that Simonds and White were compelled to write to Newburyport for assistance and in their letter state:
The mill we cannot operate without more and better hands; we want three men, one that understands tending a mill and two teamsters, which we beg you will send in the next vessel. Four oxen more than we have may be employed to good advantage."
The logs first sawn were cut on the surrounding hillsides and hauled to the mill by oxen. A good deal of the lumber manufactured was used by the Company in the erection of their buildings, but some of it was exported. Up to the year 1774 most of the clearings around the harbor were made incidentally by the cutting of logs for the mill, fuel for the settlers and the garrison, and wood for the lime burners. No lands other than the marsh had at this time been cleared or enclosed for cultivation, with the exception of a small patch or two at Portland Point for the purpose of raising potatoes.
About the year 1770 the company built a grist mill