Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/23

England, who came to America in 1630 with Governor Winthrop. His father Nathaniel Simonds of Haverhill, Mass., married Sarah Hazen, whose brother Moses was father of Capt. Moses Hazen just referred to as leader of the party of Rangers that destroyed the French settlements on the River St. John, and also father of William Hazen of Newburyport, who came to St. John in 1775. It is possible that the presence of Capt. Moses Hazen with the garrison at Fort Frederick may have led James Simonds to visit the place in the first instance. Mr. Simonds was a man of good education, resolute character, shrewd and enterprising. He was, moreover, possessed of a robust constitution, as is seen in the fact that in spite of the hardships and privations of his early life in St. John he survived all his contemporaries, as well as every official and appointee of the crown at the time of the organization of the province, and every member of the first provincial legislature, and quietly departed this life at his old residence at Portland Point Feb. 20, 1831, at the patriarchal age of 96 years.

About the same time that Mr. Simonds was laying his plans for establishing a fishing and trading post at the mouth of the St. John, Captain Francis Peabody, Israel Perley and others, were making arrangements for the settlement of the Township of Maugerville, and it appears that in the year 1762, James Simonds came with Capt. Peabody and his son Samuel Peabody, Hugh Quinton and some others to St. John in a small vessel from Newburyport. There were about twenty in the party besides the families of Captain Peabody and Hugh Quinton.

A frame for a small dwelling house with boards, to cover it, was brought by Capt. Peabody in the vessel, also a small stock of cattle. The spot selected for the erection of the house was near the site of an old French