James Simonds, whose name is second among the signers of the business contract of 1764, may be regarded as the founder of the first permanent settlement at the mouth of the River St. John. His most remote ancestor in America was William Simonds of Woburn, Massachusetts. This William Simonds married Judith Phippen, who came to America in the ship "Planter" in 1635. Tradition says that as the vessel drew near her destination land was first described by Judith Phippen, which proved to be the headland now called "Point Judith." Among the passengers of the "Planter" were the ancestors of many well known families in America, 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.