nd a further tract in that locality was applied
for by James Simonds in a memorial to the government of Nova Scotia.
The memorial stated that James and Richard Simonds and James White
had obtained a grant of 2,000 acres of mountainous and broken
land at the mouth of the River Saint John in the year 1765, which
had been improved by building houses, a saw mill and lime kiln,
and the company had settled upwards of thirty people on it who were
engaged in carrying on those two branches of business, but that
the wood and timber so necessary for them was all consumed,
therefore praying that 2,000 acres additional to the eastward of
the said tract might be granted to the said James Simonds.

It can scarcely be believed that all the wood from the harbor of St.
John to the Kennebeccasis had been consumed in the five years of the
company's operations at Portland Point. But probably the lumber in the
vicinity of the saw-mill and the wood most convenient to the lime
kilns had been cut and this was sufficient to afford a pretext for
another grant. Mr. Simonds' memorial was considered by the Governor in
Council December 18, 1769, and approved. The grant did not issue till
May 1, 1770. The bounds are thus described:

"Beginning at a Red Head in a little Bay or cove to the eastward
of the Harbor at the mouth of Saint John's River described in a
former grant to James Simonds in the year 1765, being the south
eastern bound of the said grant, thence to run north 75 degrees
east 170 chains, thence north 15 degrees west 160 chains or until
it meets the river Kennebeccasis, and from thence to run westerly
until it meets the north eastern bound of the former grant."

The boundaries of the second grant may be readily traced on the plan.
Like the former grant it included a good deal more than the 2,000
acres it was supposed to contain, and in this case, too, the grant
escaped curtailment. The grant was in the name of James Simonds, but
the other partners relied upon the clause in their business contract
as a sufficient guarantee of their interests.

It must be admitted that as the first adventurers to settle in an
exposed and at times perilous situation the first grantees of the
lands at the mouth of the River St. John were entitled to special
consideration. James Simonds had to make repeated visits to Halifax in
connection with the business at St. John and these visits were
sometimes attended with risk as will be seen from the