"Beginning at a point of upland opposite to his (Simonds') House
and running East till it meets with a little Cove or River; thence
bounded by said Cove till it comes to a Red Head on the east side
of the Cove--thence running North eleven degrees fifteen minutes
west till it meets Canebekssis river, thence bounded by said
river, the river St. John and harbour till it comes to the first
mentioned boundary."

The bounds of this tract are shown in the accompanying plan. It was
supposed to contain 2,000 acres "more or less," but in reality it
contained upwards of 5,000 acres. Elias Hardy in 1785 claimed that the
grant must have originated in misrepresentation, either in the
application or survey, otherwise the quantity could not have been so
much mistaken. To this Ward Chipman replied that the land had never
been actually surveyed, but making allowance for lakes, sunken and
broken ground, etc., it was supposed not to contain much if any more
than the number of acres mentioned in the grant. The grant was made in
accordance with the return of the surveyor describing its boundaries
and expressing them to be "with allowance for bad lands, containing in
the whole by estimation 2,000 acres more or less." Chipman adds, "no
misrepresentation can well be supposed to have taken place at the time
of passing this Grant when the lands upon the river St. Johns were
considered as of very little value and there could be no inducement to
such a step."

However, in view of the fact that when surveyed the grant was found to
contain 5,496 acres, it must be admitted that the allowance for "bad
lands" was tolerably liberal, and the grantees were fortunate to
escape without the loss of at least half of their property. The line
running from Mr. Simonds' house eastward to Courtenay Bay is that now
followed by Union street. It will be observed that the peninsula south
of this street which now contains the business part of the city of St.
John, and which was laid out for the Loyalists in 1783 as Parr-town,
was not included in the grant. The primary object of the grantees was
evidently to obtain possession of the limestone quarries and the big
marsh, and they probably deemed the land south of Union street to be
hardly worth the quit rents.

[Illustration: Plan of Grants to Simonds & White]

The first grant at the mouth of the River St. John included only
a small part of the great marsh--then called by the Indians,
Sebaskastaggan--a