Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/21
trade of the country and the natural convenience of burning Lime, caused numbers of them to make proposals to be concerned with me in those branches of business, among whom Mr. Hazen was the first that joined me in a trial. Afterwards in the year 1764, although I was unwilling that any should be sharers with me in the certain benefits of the fur trade, which I had acquired some knowledge of« yet by representations that superior advantage could be derived from a Cod fishery on the Banks and other branches of commerce which I was altogether unacquainted with I joined in a contract for carrying it on for that year upon an extensive plan with Messrs. Blodget, Hazen, White, Peaslie and R. Simonds.
When Mr. Simonds first visited the St. John river the Indian were hostile to the English, but the capture of Quebec and the consequent discomfiture of their French allies inclined them to sue for peace, and a treaty was made at Halifax by the Chiefs of St. John and Passamaquoddy early in the year 1760. In accordance with this treaty an Indian trading post was to be established near Fort Frederick, at the mouth of the river, and a tariff of prices was arranged which the savages were to receive for furs and peltries and to pay for such supplies, etc., as they needed.
The complete ascendancy of the English over the Acadians on the river St. John was secured by one of the most cruel and unjustifiable forays that ever sullied the annals of civilized warfare. The story in brief is as follows:—
In the month of March, 1759, a company of rangers under Captain McCurdy started up the St. John river, on snowshoes, to strike a blow at the French settlements. The first night they encamped on a hillside near the mouth of the Belleisle river. Here the party had the misfortune to lose their commander, Capt. McCurdy, who was killed by the falling of a birch tree cut by one of his own men. Lieut. Moses Hazen[1] succeeded to the command and under him the party proceeded to Ste. Anne's Point, where they set
- ↑ Moses Hazen was a cousin of James Simonds and a brother of Wm. Hazen one of the preloyalist settlers of St. John. He distinguished himself under Gen. Wolfe on the plains of Abraham. He fought against the British in the Revolutionary war, raised a corps known as "Hazen's own", and attained the rank of Major General in the American army.