Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/27

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AT PORTLAND POINT.
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situation by procuring the following license from the governor of Nova Scotia:—

Licence is hereby granted to James Simonds to occupy a tract or point of land on the north side of St. John's River, opposite Fort Frederick, for carrying on a fishery and for burning lime stone, the said tract or point of land containing by estimation ten acres. (Signed) Montagu Wilhot.
Halifax, Feb. 8, 1764.

The accounts that James Simonds gave his friends in New England of the admirable situation he had secured for himself caused numbers of them to make proposals to be concerned with him in the business about to be undertaken, of whom Wm. Hazen was the first that joined him in a trial. Mr. Hazen had intimate business connections with Samuel Blodget a merchant of Boston, and the latter became a partner in the enterprise. It was agreed that Messrs. Blodget, Hazen and Simonds should each have one fourth part in the company about to be organized, and that the remainder should be taken by Richard Simonds, James White and Robert Peaslie as junior partners. The partnership was in its way "a family compact," Richard Simonds being a younger brother of James Simonds, while Robert Peaslie had married Mr. Hazen's sister Anna, and James White had been for some years a clerk in Mr. Blodget's employ, and was moreover a cousin of Mr. Hazen.

Articles of partnership[1] were carefully drawn up and signed on March 1st, 1764, under which it was arranged that Messrs. Blodget and Hazen should remain at Boston and Newburyport to forward supplies and receive whatever was sent them in return, and James Simonds, with Messrs. White, Peaslie, and R. Simonds as his aides, should proceed immediately to St. John and there "enter upon and pursue with all speed and faithfulness the business of the cod fishery, seine fishery, fur trade, burning of lime and every other

  1. ↑ See Collections N. B. Hist. Soc. Vol. 1. p. 187.
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