where he met his death by
drowning in 1815. His son, the late Hon. John A. Beckwith, born in
Fredericton, December 1st, 1800, filled many high offices. He was for
a time mayor of Fredericton, chairman of the provincial Board of
Agriculture, a director of the Quebec and New Brunswick railway and
for many years agent of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land
Company. His son Harry Beckwith was for several years mayor of
Fredericton; another son, Charles W. was for years city clerk, and a
third, Adolphus G., filled for some time the position of chief
engineer of the provincial public works department. A daughter married
James Hazen of Oromocto, Sunbury County, and is the mother of J.
Douglas Hazen, M. P. P.

QUINTON.

Hugh Quinton, who was one of the pioneers who came to St. John in 1762
with Captain Francis Peabody, was born in Cheshire, New Hampshire, in
1741. Being of an adventurous spirit he served, while only a lad in
his teens, in one of the provincial regiments at Crown Point in the
French war. His wife, Elizabeth Christie of Londonderry, New
Hampshire, was born in the same year as her husband. They were married
at the age of twenty and came to St. John a year later. According to
the late John Quinton (who was Hugh Quinton's grandson and derived
much of his information directly from his grandmother's lips) Hugh and
his wife Elizabeth arrived in St. John on the 28th August, 1762, and
on their arrival found shelter at the Old Fort Frederick barracks in
Carleton where, on the night of the day of their arrival, their first
child James Quinton was born: to him therefore appertains the honor of
being the first child of English speaking parents born at St. John.
Not long afterwards Hugh Quinton went up the river to Maugerville, of
which township he was one of the first grantees. He is described in an
old legal document as "Inn-holder," from which it is evident he
furnished entertainment to travellers, or kept a "tavern." In those
days the keeper of a tavern was usually quite an important personage.
Many of the first religious services at Maugerville were held at Hugh
Quinton's house, as being centrally situated and more commodious than
those of the majority of the settlers. He was himself a member of the
Congregational Church. In 1774 he sold his lot of land opposite Middle
Island, and removed to Manawagonish in the township of Conway where,
as we learn from an enumeration of the settlers made 1st August, 1775,
(yet