The Landing of the Loyalists

Year
1881
Month
10
Day
1
Article Title
The Landing of the Loyalists
Author
----
Page Number
2
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
THE LANDING OF THE LOYALISTS. In a little more than a year and a half from the present time the centenary of the landing of the Loyalists at St. John will be upon us, but as yet we see no signs of preparation for that event. Yet the coming of the Loyalists was the beginning of anything like real progress in New Brunswick and raised St. John at once from a position of insignificance to the status of a city. Such an event is worthy of being suitably commemorated by every inhabitant of this city, whether descended from the Loyalists or not. The first English settlement on the river St. John was made in 1764 or nineteen years before the Loyalists came. It was made by James Simonds, James White and Francis Peabody, who arrived at the mouth of the St. John on the 16th of April of that year. Simonds and White erected dwellings in Portland near the present Rankine’s wharf, the house of Simonds being on the site of an old French fort which was probably the one erected by D’Aulnay Charnisay in 1645, after he had destroyed Fort Latour. Mr. Simonds was the father of the late Hon. Chas. Simonds and grandfather of Messrs. Bradford and Thomas Gilbert. Mr. White was the father of the late Sheriff White. Simonds and White were in partnership and did business at Portland Point under that name, their principal trade being the burning of lime for export and the fisheries. They also traded with the Indians, and supplied goods to the considerable settlement which had been formed up river at Maugerville. They had close relations with the firm of Hazen & Jarvis at Newburyport, the latter not being related to any of the same name now here, but the former, William Hazen, was the grandfather of the late Hon. Robert L. and Robert F. Hazen. When Simonds and White came to St. John there was a small garrison at Fort Frederick, on the Carleton side opposite Navy Island, the old Fort Latour. This garrison was withdrawn in 1768 with the exception of a corporal and four men. This seems to have caused the Indians to grow somewhat troublesome, but no very serious mischief was done until the breaking out of the war. In 1775 a party from Machias burnt Fort Frederick and the barracks and captured the corporal’s guard there. From that time until the latter part of 1777, when a garrison under Major Studholm was established at Fort Howe, the loyal inhabitants at the mouth of the St. John River had an uneasy time of it and were exposed to much annoyance both from rebel parties and Indians. At that period and for a year or two before, Wm. Hazen had been residing at Portland Point with Simonds and White. They had large grants of land and most of the few inhabitants in the vicinity were their tenants or had purchased from them. The place where they resided was known by the name of Portland as early as 1776; it is now a town of 15,000 people, but no one could ever discover that such a place exists from the closest study of the geography taught in our New Brunswick public schools. When the Loyalists came there were not half a dozen houses in Portland. In the township of Conway, now Lancaster, there were a few settlers with small clearings, who had settled there under agreements with Hazen and Simonds. Their names and the size of their clearings, as detailed in a report made in 1783, may be of interest to their descendants: -- ……………………………………………….No. of acres Cleared…………Settled on lot. Hugh Quinton……………………………………...15………………………...1774 Sarah Smith (widow)………………………………10………………………...1774 Thos Jenkins……………………………………….12………………………….1774 Samuel Peabody…………………………………...55………………………….1770 Jonathan Lovet…………………………………….60………………………….1770 Wm McKeene……………………………………..45…………………………..___ Daniel Lovet………………………………………30………………………......___ James Woodman……………………………………5………………………….1774 Elijah Estabrooks…………………………………...7………………………….1775 John Bradley………………………………………..4………………………….1775 Zebedee Ring……………………………………….3………………………….1775 Jervis Say………………………………………….10………………………….1775 Of the above, Jenkins, Estabrooks, Bradley, Ring and Say had abandoned their lots and gone up river prior to the year 1783, owing to the danger to which they were exposed from plundering parties. From this it will be seen that the population at the mouth of the St. John River at that period was very small. Before the Loyalists came, Amos Botsford and others were sent in advance to explore the country and find suitable places for the proposed settlements. A letter written by Botsford on the 14th of January, 1783, from Annapolis, to his friends in New York is still extant. In regard to the St. John River he says: -- After viewing this we proceeded to St. John River, where we arrived the latter part of November; at this season we found the passage up the river difficult, being too late to pass in boats and not sufficiently frozen to bear. In this situation we left the river and (for a straight course) steered by compass through the woods, encamping out several nights in the course, and went as far as the Oromocto, about seventy miles up the river, where there is a blockhouse, a British post. **** The St. John is a fine river, equal in magnitude to the Connecticut or Hudson. At the mouth of the river is a fine harbor accessible at all seasons of the year – never frozen or obstructed by the ice which breaks in passing over the falls; here stands Fort Howe, twelve leagues north of Annapolis Gut. This fort effectually secures the harbor and the passage up the river. Half a mile above are the falls at a narrow place in the river; the falls are very curious and deserve a particular description. At low water the descent is several feet down the stream, and at high water several feet up the steam. The tides in the Bay of Fundy rise and fall from thirty to sixty feet; were it not for the falls the whole country up the river would be deluged by the tides. The falls obstruct the tide up the river to such a degree that the water rises but one foot and a half above the falls, and rises about as high as that seventy or eighty miles up. It is navigable for vessels of seventy or eighty tons burthen for about eighty miles up the river and for boats much further, extending, as we are told, three hundred miles, its course being for a considerable distance parallel to the River. St. Lawrence; this route is frequently taken to Quebec across the country; it is about five hundred miles from Fort Howe. There are many settlers along this river upon the intervale land. They are chiefly poor people, who come here and get their living easily. The intervale lies on the river, and is a most fertile soil, annually manured by the overflowings of the river, and produces crops of all kinds with little labor, and vegetables in the greatest perfection, parsnips of great length, etc. They cut down the trees, burn the tops, and put in a crop of wheat or Indian corn, which yields a plentiful increase. These intervales would make the finest meadows. The uplands produce wheat, both of the summer and winter kinds, as well as Indian corn. Here are some wealthy farmers, having flocks of cattle. The greater part of the people, excepting the township of Maugerville, are tenants or seated on the bank without leave or license, merely to get their living. For this reason they have not made such improvements as might otherwise have been expected, or as thoro’ farmers would have done. Some of our people chuse Conway (now Digby), others give the preference to St. John. Our people who came with us are settled here for the winter; some at the fort, some in the town, and others extended up to Annapolis river near 20 miles, having made terms with the inhabitants; some are doing well, others are living on their provisions; their behaviour is as orderly and regular as we could expect. Immense quantities of limestone are found at Fort Howe and at the mouth of the river. We also went up the Kennebeccasis, a large branch of the St. John river, where is a large tract of intervale and upland, which has never been granted, it is under a reserve; but we can have it. Major Studholm and Captain Baxter, who explored the country, chose this place, and obtained a grant of 9,000 acres. On each side of this grant are large tracts of good land, convenient for navigation. A title for these lands may be procured sooner than for such as have already been granted, such as Gage, Conway, etc., which must be obtained by a regular process in the Court of Escheats. The lands on the river St. John are also sufficiently near the cod fishery in Fundy Bay, and perfectly secure against the Indians and Americans. The inhabitants are computed to be near one thousand men, able to bear arms. Here is a county and court established, and the inhabitants at peace, and seem to experience no inconveniency from the war.’ In the spring of 1783, the war being ended, the Loyalist exodus from New York began, for that city which was held by the British throughout the war was the place of refuge for Loyalists from all the revolted colonies. The first ship load arrived at St. John on the 10th May, and between that date and the 18th May twenty vessels arrived. The names of these vessels with their captains, so far as can be ascertained, were as follows: -- Name of Vessel, Captain’s Name. Camel, Capt. Tinker Union, Capt. Wilson Aurora, Capt. Jackson Hope, Capt. Peacock Otter, Capt. Burns Spencer, _____ Emmett, Capt. Reed Thames, _____ Spring, Capt. Cadish Bridgewater, ______ Favorite, Capt. Ellis Ann, Capt. Clark Commerce, Capt. Strong William, Capt. _____ Lord Townshend, Capt. Hogg Sovereign, Capt. Stuart Sally, Capt. Bell Cyrus, Capt. ______ Britain, Capt. ______ King George, ______ On the 18th May the formal landing took place. The spring was wet and late and there was snow on the ground when the first ships came. The whole of the site of the present city of St. John was a wilderness at that time, all the previous settlements having been in the granted land in Portland. This first fleet brought upwards of three thousand Loyalists, and many more arrived in the course of the summer and autumn. Most of the first arrivals landed at Lower Cove near the Sydney market, but a number landed at the Market slip at the front of King street. To obtain shelter was, of course, the first care of everyone. The more wealthy had brought the frames of houses with them and planks for boarding them in; the poorer people had to depend on erecting log huts for themselves or to live in tents which the government had provided for their temporary use. A survey of the future city was made by Paul Bedell, who did his work so admirably that the streets and squares of St. John have, with hardly an exception, remained ever since precisely as he laid them out. He was a firm believer in straight lines, and he ran his streets through mountains of rock, which have cost millions of dollars to cut down or cut through, in order to carry out the original idea embodied in his survey. When the survey was completed two grants were passed conveying lots to each of the Loyalists who proposed to settle in St. John, and every man had immediately to busy himself with clearing the timber off his lot and erecting a house thereon. In most cases the timber off the lot built the house. The favorite places were along the line of Dock street, Prince William street, King street and Lower Cove. The latter at one time bade fair to become the business centre of St. John. The total number of grantees in these two grants was 1,277. The city corporation (afterwards created) received the balance of the ungranted lots. The British Government had undertaken to supply the Loyalists with rations for three years; but the first year they were not forwarded as regularly as they should have been, and there was a good deal of dissatisfaction. In the two subsequent years the arrangements were better. Great jealousy also arose during the first summer on the subject of land grants, and in August, 1783, the dissatisfaction was so great that four hundred persons at St. John had signed an agreement to remove to Passamaquoddy. There were, even at that early day, charges of favoritism for the benefit of particular Loyalists, and certain leading families were disposed to seize the lion’s share of everything and leave humbler people very little. St. John lost population rapidly after the first year, as was to be expected, for there was really no business to keep so large a community together, and great numbers drew lots in other parts of the Province or in Nova Scotia and settled there. The first winter at St. John was a severe one and many died. The seasons were then much more severe than now and, of course, the means of warding off the cold incomparably less. It was but natural that there should be much suffering and discouragement, for certainly, in those early days, the prospects of the infant settlement looked gloomy enough. Such is the story of the coming of the Loyalists to St. John, an event which we trust to see suitably commemorated in 1883.