Page:The-new-brunswick-magazine-v3-n5-nov-1899.djvu/13

garters, crimson broadcloth, scarlet, blue and red cloth, red and blue stroud, a variety of buttons (brass, silver plated, double gilt, scarlet, blue mohair), Indian needles, colored thread, beads (white, red, yellow and lilac), etc.

Although the Company had not been at work quite three years they had quite a respectable amount of debts outstanding which were very nearly equally divided between the white inhabitants and the Indians.^[1]

Considerate information respecting the state of affairs at Portland Point in early times is to be found in the depositions of witnesses examined by the courts in the proceedings connected with the winding up of the affairs of the Company. One of the most interesting of these is the deposition of Jonathan Leavitt, who came to St. John with Simonds and White immediately after the formation of the Company in April, 1764. being at the time only a lad in his eighteenth year. However he seems already to have had some experience as a mariner, and from the first was a master of one or other of the Company's vessels. For the most part he sailed between St. John and Newburyport, but occasionally went with a cargo to Santa Cruz in the West Indies. He received the modest compensation of £4 per month for his services. During the time his vessel lay at St. John harbor he lived in the family of Simonds & White, who lived for several years together at the Point, and when they separated their families he staid sometimes with one and sometimes with the other. He married, about the year 1772, Captain Francis Peabody's youngest daugher, Hephzibeth (then about 16 years of age), and