this time at Maugerville and
observes, "A Mr. Peabody was the principal inhabitant and
agent for the English settlers."

According to the late Moses H. Perley, whose well known and popular
lectures on New Brunswick history were delivered at the Mechanics
Institute in 1841, the government of Massachusetts sent a small party
to explore the country east of Machias in 1761. "The leader of that
party," says Mr. Perley, "was Israel Perley, my grandfather, who was
accompanied by 12 men in the pay of Massachusetts. They proceeded to
Machias by water, and there shouldering their knapsacks, they took a
course through the woods, and succeeded in reaching the head waters of
the River Oromocto, which they descended to the St. John. They found
the country a wide waste, and no obstacles, save what might be
afforded by the Indians, to its being at once occupied and settled,
and with this report they returned to Boston."

The result of this report is seen in the organization of a company of
would be settlers shortly afterwards.

There is in the possession of the Perley family at Fredericton an
old document that contains a brief account of the subsequent
proceedings:--

"In the year 1761 a number of Provincial officers and soldiers in New
England who had served in several campaigns during the then French war
agreed to form a settlement on St. John's River in Nova Scotia, for
which purpose they sent one of their number to Halifax, who obtained
an order of survey for laying out a Township in mile squares on any
part of St. John's River (the whole being then a desolate wilderness).
This Township called Maugerville was laid out in the year 1762, and a
number of settlers entered into it, encouraged by the King's
proclamation for settling the lands in Nova Scotia, in which, among
other things, was this clause, that people emigrating from the New
England Provinces to Nova Scotia should enjoy the same religious
privileges as in New England. And in the above-mentioned order of
survey was the following words--viz., 'You shall reserve four Lots in
the Township for Publick use, one as a Glebe for the Church of
England, one for the Dissenting Protestants, one for the maintenance
of a School, and one for the first settled minister in the place.'

"These orders were strictly comply'd with, but finding difficulty in
obtaining a Grant of this Township from the government of Nova Scotia
on account of an order from England that those