Page:The-new-brunswick-magazine-v3-n3-sep-1899.djvu/28
the mouth of Little River, which he called "little Red Head," to be the Red Head intended in the grant. (See Red Head, No. 2 in the plan at p.). Mr. Simonds failed to establish his contention mainly because his antagonists proved by a number of witnesses that "Great Red Head" (or Red Head as commonly known) had always been considered as the bound referred to in the grant, not only by Hazen and White, but by Mr. Simonds himself. The depositions of Jonathan Leavitt, Samuel Emerson, William Godsoe, Moses Greenough, Samuel Webster and others established the fact that, prior to the coming of the Loyalists in 1783, the entire marsh was considered by all the settlers at St. John to be included in the first and second grants made to Simonds and White and their co-partners. Upon this supposition the marsh was improved and enclosed, houses were built, families and cattle established on the lands at various places as far out as the present Coldbrook railway station, a dyke and aboideau built to reclaim the marsh from the sea, and other improvements effected.
Shortly after the arrival of the Loyalists the first survey of the lands was made by Samuel Peabody, and it was then ascertained—greatly to the surprise and alarm of Hazen, Simonds and White, that by far the larger portion of the marsh lay beyond the east line of their second grant, and they had in point of fact no legal claim to it. This unfortunate discovery was remedied, so far as Hazen and White were concerned, by an arrangement with one William Graves,[1] for whom a grant of 2,000 acres, (including all the marsh in the vicinity of Coldbrook) was obtained by the efforts of Wm. Hazen, which lands Graves immediately conveyed to Hazen and White for a small consideration.
- ↑ William Graves had served as lieutenant in the old French War and was entitled to 2,000 acres of land as a disbanded subaltern officer. His grant is dated June 19, 1784.