Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/356

The fact that William Hazen did not take up his residence at St. John until the year 1775, more than ten years after the formation of the co-partnership under which James Simonds and James White entered upon their business and settled themselves at Portland Point, has rendered it difficult hitherto to connect him with the story of the first English settlement at St. John. Mr. Hazen, nevertheless, was a very important member of the company, and next to James Simonds its prime organizer, and had it not been for his financial aid it is doubtful if the business could have been continued. To him and Leonard Jarvis, his partner at Newburyport, were sent the various products received at St. John—furs and peltries from the Indians, lumber and country produce from the white inhabitants, fish of all kinds, lime from the kilns about Fort Howe, coal from the Grand Lake region, small vessels built at Portland Point, etc. To dispose of all these articles to advantage was in itself no easy task. Mr. Hazen had also to procure and forward such goods as were required for the settlers on the river St. John, and for the Indian trade, to supply machinery for the mills, materials for building houses and stores, rigging for schooners, farming implements, cattle, sheep, and horses. Nobody can read the correspondence that passed between Newburyport and St. John at this period or glance at the old invoices without being surprised at the great variety of articles he was obliged to provide sometimes at short notice. He had also to procure from time to time a variety of hands required at St.