Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/303

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AT PORTAND POINT.
269

The only other individual of whom we have any evidence as regards his being concerned in any attempt to settle the townships is Philip John Livingston. This gentleman was a member of a distinguished New York family. In the American Revolution he adhered to the Loyalist cause with his entire family—father, brothers and sons. His mother was Catherine de Peyster, and his wife was a daughter of Samuel Bayard. His brother, John W. Livingston, and his brother-in-law, Abraham de Peyster, were captains in Colonel Edmund Fanning's Kings American Regiment. Philip John Livingston himself was high sheriff of Dutchess county, New York, and after the outbreak of the Revolution filled important positions.[1] He appears to have sent to the river St. John in 1767 some tenants for his lands, among them Peter Carr and Thomas Masterson (who lived at Musquash Island), John Hendrick and James Marrington. Some dispute occurred between Livingston and Simonds & White concerning the charges of the latter for supplies furnished his settlers which led Mr. Simonds to write:

"We are surprised that he should mention anything as to the sums not being- due, when not only that, but near as much, more has been advanced to save the lives of the wretched crew he sent. We have ever found that ye doing business for others is an office the most unthankful and equally unprofitable."[2]

The proximity of the township of Conway to the settlement at Portland Point naturally led Messrs. Hazen, Simonds and White to make special efforts for its improvement and it appears that through their instrumentality a number of very respectable people settled there, including Jonathan Leavitt, Samuel Peabody, Daniel Leavitt, Hugh Quinton, Peter Smith, Thomas Jenkins, William McKeen, James Woodman,

  1. ↑ See Jones' Loyalist History of New York.
  2. ↑ In a subsequent letter James Simonds writes: "Mr. Livingston's account we sent with the order that was returned; have enclosed a letter and order which must convince him that not only the sum drawn for has been advanced him, but as much more to his settlers."
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