Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784Raymond, W. O. (William Odber)
History
Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784
Raymond, W. O. (William Odber)
New Brunswick -- History; Saint John River Valley (Me. and N.B.)
Two projects especially claimed Glasier's attention in the summer of
1766: The first the founding of a town, the second the building of his
saw-mill. "I propose," he says, "to lay out the Town at Grimross in 80
squares, in addition to public squares; then they are to be numbered
and drawn for by some person on the spot in the form of lottery
tickets, which I shall have sent to the proprietors so that we may fix
as many families as can be had this Summer on the Town lots. * * I
must have young Mr. Morris from Halifax to survey and lay out the
Town, as nothing can be done at Grimross before he arrives."
In connection with the erection of the Nashwaak mills Capt. Glasier
acknowledges his obligation to Hazen & Jarvis of Newburyport. He says:
"They have procured me men to build the mills and stores of all kinds
for the workmen." The mill geer came this season, but on the 25th
October Glasier writes, "The mills won't be finished this fall, it is
such a work it was not possible to get through with it. * * * * My
time has been divided between the Mills and the Surveying. I am
condemned to tarry here this winter and can know nothing of what is
doing in the world."
On the 2nd February following, he writes Mr. Nath'l Rogers of Boston,
"We are now employed in getting logs to the mills. I hope we shall get
them going early in the summer. They will begin to pay something of
the expense before the fall. It's impossible for me to tell you in a
letter the expenses of the different branches of business which I am
obliged to carry on to complete the whole. It is not only building
mills, surveying, etc., but clearing up the land, building houses,
making roads, hiring oxen (for we have not half enough of them) and in
fine so much I shall never pretend to write it. James Simonds, Esq.,
who is the Bearer of this, will be able to inform you much better than
I can. * * * I am determined to finish what I have undertaken and then
quit it. I am not in the best situation in the world, as I believe
you'll think when I tell you I am not only shut out from all society
and know nothing of what is carrying on in the world, but my stores
are all expended, nor is there one thing to be bought here, pray send
me last year's magazines and some English newspapers as well as the
Boston ones. * * * I should be glad if you'd send the oxen, they may
be not old nor of the largest kind but good to draw. I pay half a
dollar a day for each yoak I hire so that they'll almost pay for
themselves in one year in work. Those that we have here have worked
more than one hundred days since I came, so that if we had been
obliged to have hired them at the rate I pay others it would amount to
a large sum. Twelve is the least that can be employed always at the
mills hauling logs, as they will cut 8,000 feet a day, I am told, when
they are finished. * * * * I told you I would not write you a long
letter, as there is nothing I hate so much; it's the D----l to have
ten thousand things to say."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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