erica, bearing the familiar names
of Peabody, Perley, Beardsley, Carter, Hayward, Reed, Lawrence,
Cleveland, Davis and Peters. In 1643 Judith Phippen became the
wife of William Simonds. The house in which they lived at Woburn,
Mass., and where their twelve children were born, is probably yet
standing--at least it was when visited a few years since by one of
their descendants living in this province. William Simonds' tenth
child, James, was the grandfather of our old Portland Point pioneer.
He married Susanna Blodget and their sixth child, Nathan, was the
father of James Simonds, who came to St. John. Nathan Simonds married
Sarah Hazen of Haverhill, an aunt of William Hazen, and their oldest
child James (the subject of this sketch) was born at Haverhill,
December 10, 1735.

James Simonds, as mentioned in a former chapter, served in "the old
French war" and was with his cousin Captain John Hazen in the campaign
against Fort Ticonderoga. His subsequent career we have already
touched upon and he will naturally continue to be a leading character
in the story of the early history of St. John. He was evidently a man
of stout constitution and vigor of body, for he not only survived all
his contemporaries who came to St. John, but he outlived every member
of the first New Brunswick legislature and every official appointed by
the crown at the organization of the province. He passed to his rest
in the house he had built at Portland Point at the patriarchal age of
95 years. His widow Hannah (Peabody) Simonds died in 1840 at the age
of 90 years.

Of James Simonds' large family of fourteen children several were
prominent in the community. Hon. Charles Simonds was for years the
leading citizen of Portland. He was born the same year the Loyalists
landed in St. John, and was a member for St. John county in the
House of Assembly from 1821 until his death in 1859, filling during
that time the positions of speaker and leader of the government.
Hon. Richard Simonds, born in 1789, represented the county of
Northumberland in the House of Assembly when but twenty-one years of
age and sat from 1810 to 1828, when he was appointed treasurer of the
province. He filled for a short time the position of speaker of
the assembly, and from 1829 until his death in 1836 was a member of
the Legislative Council. Sarah, one of the daughters of James
Simonds, married (Sept. 10, 1801) Thomas Millidge, the ancestor of the
Millidges of St. John; her youngest