the very night of their arrival was born
James Quinton, the first child of English speaking parents, whose
birth is recorded at St. John.[58] The remainder of the party encamped
on the east side of the harbor at the site of an old French Fort, the
place since known as Portland Point, or Simonds' Point, where they
erected a dwelling into which the Quintons and others in Carleton soon
afterwards removed. Hannah Peabody was at this time about twelve years
old: she afterwards became the wife of James Simonds.

[58] John Quinton says he heard this story many times from his
grandmother's lips. She was a woman of remarkable memory and
lived until the year 1835. It would seem very improbable she
could be mistaken as to the date of such an event.

CHAPTER XVI.

PROGRESS OF THE MAUGERVILLE SETTLEMENT.

The township of Maugerville, as described in the grant of October 31,
1765, began "at a Pine Tree on a point of land a little below the
Island called Mauger's Island," extending 12-1/2 miles up the river
with a depth of nearly 11 miles. It embraced the principal part of the
parishes of Maugerville and Sheffield, including Oromocto Island and
"the Island lying off Wind-mill Point called Middle Island." In the
grant the "Rights" or "Shares" were fixed at 500 acres but the
surveyor-general of Nova Scotia, Charles Morris, had intended that the
grantees should have 1,000 acres each on account of their being the
first adventurers and also on account of the large proportion of
sunken lands and lakes within the limits of the township.

At the time the Maugerville grant was made out the obnoxious Stamp Act
was about coming into force in America and the Crown Land Office at
Halifax was besieged with people pressing for their grants in order to
save the stamp duties. In the hurry and confusion existing Mr. Morris
says that the shares of the township were inadvertently fixed at 500
acres each, whereas it had been his intention to lay out one hundred
farm lots, each forty rods wide and extending one mile deep into the
country, and to give each grantee the balance of his 1,000 acres in
the subsequent division of the rest of the township. It is quite
likely the Maugerville settlers were glad to accept the smaller shares
allotted them in view of the fact that they had been so near losing
the whole by the decision of the British government to reserve the
lands for the disbanded regulars of the army.

By the