The Rockingham Club was partly literary and partly social. The members dined together at the hotel, which was styled the Rockingham House, in compliment to Sir John Wentworth, the head of whose family, the Marquis of Rockingham, was about that time in, or at the head of the British Ministry. The large room which extended along the south wing of the building, east and west, with the end to the water, was hung with the portraits of many of the members of the club painted by Field, a portrait painter of considerable talent who, at that time and for several years after, resided in Halifax, and from whose brush the portraits of many of the then principal citizens and their ladies still remain.60
In 1799 the prices of provisions in Halifax markets were as follows: Beef, by the quarter, from 4d. to 5d. per pound, pork, 6d., mutton, 7d. to 8d., veal, 8d. to 9d., fowls, from 3s. to 4s., oats, 2s. 6d. and 3s., butter, 1s. 3d. and 1s. 6d.
In 1798 the number of illegitimate children in the Halifax Poor House was fourteen, in 1799, seventeen, and in 1800, fifteen. The total cost of the establishment during the three years was £570 16s. 1d. Fines received at Halifax, 1798, £60; 1799 and 1800, £82 10s. Fresh Water Bridge was renewed and completed in 1798.
In 1799 the Legislature made some amendments to the Act for the erection of public buildings. The Commissioners appointed by the Governor and Council were authorized to purchase land for the site of a new Government House. The old House to be appropriated to the House of Assembly and Courts of Law. The Commissioners were Messrs. Wallace, Cochran, Hartshorne, and John Beckwith. The House of Assembly voted £10,500 for the building, etc. The old Government House having been found unfit for the accommodation of the Legislature, was sold and the block of buildings known as Cochran's, before mentioned, was leased this year for £300 per annum for the accommodation of the Law Courts, the Legislature, and the public offices connected with the Provincial Government. Commissioners were also appointed to build a new market house for the butchers and for a vegetable market. This was the wooden building which was removed during the administration of Governor LeMarchant, to make way for the present brick structure. A clerk of the market was appointed. There being then no convenient accommodation for the vegetable market, the country people were permitted to sell in the streets and the square in front of the market house.
This has once more become the custom; the portion of the new market appropriated to the country people having been lately taken for city offices. The want of sufficient space in the central parts of the town for the convenience of markets and the erection of public buildings, has been always an impediment to the improvement and embellishment of the city. The small dimensions of the lots as originally laid out, being only forty feet by sixty, and the short space between the streets, the narrow spaces allowed for the public landings, and the small size of the water grants for the erection of wharves in the old town, have been a continual drawback to the convenience of trade and the progress of improvement in front of the town. And it is a subject of regret that at the present day so little attention is paid by the public authorities to the future welfare of the city in respect to laying off building lots and streets by private owners and speculators.
The regular packet between Halifax and Boston, the Schooner Nancy, usually occupied three days in her trips. She was commanded by Capt. J. Huxford. He was afterwards known in Halifax as Crazy Huxford. He was on board the Shannon, frigate, in the engagement with the American ship Chesapeake, and had been wounded in the head, from which he never fully recovered. He was one of the best pilots on the coast and was, until his death, a naval branch pilot attached to the Dockyard. When under the influence of liquor he became frantic and was continually shouting through the streets of the town without hat or coat. This poor old man died about twenty-five or thirty years ago at a very advanced age.
In May the small pox made its appearance in the town and strict quarantine regulations were enforced. Dr. Gschwint (pronounced Swint) was appointed health officer.
The elections took place this autumn. Messrs. William Cochran and John George Pyke were again returned. The former polled 104 votes and the latter 346. At this time the electors were confined to freeholders only. The franchise was not altered till about the year 1836. Mr. Cotnam Tonge, Edward Mortimer, Messrs. Fulton and Morris were elected for the county. Only two resident in the town succeeded, Tonge and Morris; Wallace, Stewart and Hartshorne were rejected by the Pictou votes.
On Saturday, the 11th August, attempts were made by persons unknown to set fire to the Dockyard, Government house and the engine house. The Governor and Council offered a large reward for discovery. A night patrol of militia and inhabitants was ordered out under the superintendence of the magistrates.
The Rev. Bernard Michael Houseal, minister of St. George's, in the north suburbs, died on the 9th March, this year, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was a native of the Duchy of Wurtemberg, was educated at one of the German universities, and was esteemed a good scholar and a pious minister of religion. He had been chosen by the learned consistory of Stuttgart for the ministry of the Lutheran Church, and embarked for America in 1752. After being several years in the ministry he took charge of a congregation of Germans in New York, and came with the Loyalists to Halifax in 1783. He was buried in the old German burial ground attached to his church in Brunswick Street, and his tombstone remains there. Mr. Houseal was succeeded in the Church of St. George by the Rev. George Wright, who was also principal of the Halifax Grammar School and chaplain to the garrison. The Round Church, in Brunswick Street, was at this time only in process of erection and was not finished until the year 1811, or thereabouts.
On the 30th October, H. M. Ship Porcupine, Capt. Evans, arrived from New Providence, having on board the Duke of Orleans and his two brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and Count Beaujolie, attended by Count Montjoye. They had been waiting for a passage to England and had proceeded here in the Porcupine in hope of meeting with an opportunity of going to Europe. Finding no immediate opportunity to England, they both took their passage in a merchant ship for New York. Though considered as prisoners on parole, they dined with the Governor, and paid a visit to the Duke of Kent at the Lodge. They also attended a public ball at Government House on the 17th November. The Duke of Orleans was afterwards elected to the French throne as Louis Philippe, King of the French, and eventually died in exile in England. After he became king, on meeting with several persons from Nova Scotia, he very kindly enquired after several gentlemen of Halifax by name and spoke with much feeling of the kindness he experienced while in Halifax. On arrival he was found to be in very straitened circumstances and the Duke of Kent was believed to have given him pecuniary assistance to enable the party to proceed on their voyage.
CHAPTER VI
1800. At the commencement of the century Halifax presented a prosperous condition. The population now approached 9,000. Trade was brisk, and the place was enlivened by a large garrison and the presence of a Prince of the Blood Royal. The harbor was the resort of the fleet and was the principal station of the naval commander. The war was at its height and the Prize Court in full operation. Several privateers had been fitted out by the merchants of the town and captures of French vessels were frequent, though the trade of the port occasionally suffered from the French cruisers on the coast. Among the captures from the enemy at the time, the most remarkable was that of two prizes, one French and one Danish, brought in by Captain William Pryor, commander of the Privateer Nymph, of Halifax.
Several public buildings were commenced this spring. On the 5th June the Prince laid the corner stone of the Masonic Hall. His Royal Highness was Grand Master of the Masons of Lower Canada, and acted for the Hon. Richard Bulkeley, Grand Master of Nova Scotia, when age and infirmities prevented him from attending. A masonic procession was formed and the ceremony is said to have been one of the finest which Halifax ever witnessed. The band of the Prince's own regiment, the 7th Fusiliers, performed under the direction of Mr. Selby, organist of St. Paul's, one of the craft.
On the 10th April, Sir John Wentworth laid the corner stone of the Round Church (St. George's) in Brunswick Street. The Legislature this session voted £500 towards its completion. The land on which the church was erected had been purchased some time previously by the Committee of Superintendence. The design is said to have been the work of the late John Merrick and Mr. J. Fliegar of the Surveyor General's department, and for some years surveyor to Governor Wentworth while Surveyor General of Woods and Forests in Nova Scotia. St. George's old church, then known as the Dutch Church, was at this time occupied by the congregation of the north suburbs, many of whom were the descendants of the first German settlers. Though always an independent congregation, it had been considered part of the parish of St. Paul's, the whole Township of Halifax having been originally included in that parish, and it continued so until legally erected into a separate parish by the name of St. George's parish, under the Act of the Legislature passed for that purpose in 1827. The Rev. George Wright was at this time minister of St. George's congregation. He had lately succeeded Mr. Houseal, who was styled Missionary to the Germans.
A sum of money, as we have seen, had been voted by the Legislature for the erection of a Government House. Much discussion had arisen in the House of Assembly and with the Executive authorities, the funds to be appropriated for this purpose, and some difference of opinion existed regarding the site for the building. It was finally arranged that it should be placed in the field between Hollis and Pleasant Streets, to include the site of the old hospital. The corner stone of this edifice was laid by the Duke of Kent on the 11th of September. A procession was formed which proceeded from the old Government House, accompanied by a band of music, and the ceremony was concluded by a prayer by the Rev. Doctor Robert Stanser, Rector of St. Paul's. Isaac Hildrith was the architect, and John Henderson chief mason. No building since erected in Halifax exceeds Government House in neatness of design and solidity of workmanship. Some of the old brick buildings now remaining in the city were erected by Mr. Henderson.
The old market house was taken down this year and the new one commenced. This old market occupied the site of the recent City Court House. The new one was erected in the open space opposite the King's wharf, where the new brick market house now stands. It was a flat-roofed wooden building intended to accommodate the butchers only. A pitched roof was afterwards put on this building. There was a small green market built at the same time next the north line of the fuel yard, which was afterwards removed. These buildings were erected at the expense of Government, the sum of £2,252 having been granted by the House of Assembly to be appropriated to the erection of this new meat market, also to the repair and extension of the market slip or public landing, and for the fish-market, and, at the same time, £250 was voted to the heirs of the late Joseph Gerrish who claimed some interest in a portion of the old market house lot. A small piece of ground at the corner of the military fuel yard, next to the new market house, was about the same time purchased from Mr. Kidston who then occupied it for weigh scales and other purposes. The Grand Jury refused to accept the grant from the Crown of the old market house lot in the way it had been drawn by the Secretary of the province. The Council declined to make the alterations in the grant required, and concluded that the old building and the lot should remain under the control of the Commissioners of Public Markets, and ordered the old buildings to be taken down and the ground leased.
In March the House of Assembly was in session. The elections of Mr. Tonge for the County and Mr. Pyke for the Town were declared void by the House in consequence of some defect in their qualifications. On the 9th April following, the new election for the town took place, and on the 14th, Andrew Belcher was returned by a majority of 65 votes. Mr. Michael Wallace was returned for the County. Mr. Tonge, having been also chosen by a country constituency, fell back on the double return and retained his seat. On the 12th March, the House attended at St. Paul's church in a body, when the Rev. Dr. Stanser, then chaplain, preached before them.
This summer His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent took his final departure from Halifax. The usual addresses were presented by the House of Assembly, His Majesty's Council and the people of the Town. He embarked in H. M. Ship Assistance on the 3rd August, and sailed on the 4th. His embarkation was attended with full military ceremony, the troops lining the streets. His Royal Highness, accompanied by the Governor and Council and the principal Naval and Military Officers, proceeded on foot through the avenue formed by the troops to the King's Wharf, whence he reached the ship under salutes from the batteries, the artillery corps and the ships of war. Several of the old inhabitants not many years since recollected the scene, and could describe the feelings evinced by the townspeople on the occasion. His tall commanding figure in full military uniform, his hat surmounted by the lofty white plume, then worn by the fusiliers, could be seen above the heads of the surrounding crowd as he walked down the line with a smile of recognition for his friends, on passing them, amidst the plaudits of the crowd.61 Though the Duke exhibited on all occasions the most kind temper in civil life, and his manner and conversation with those he liked almost amounted to familiarity, yet his sternness in military affairs never forsook him. Eleven soldiers had been sentenced to death for mutiny and desertion, and had been left by the Duke for execution, which was carried into effect under his orders a few days after he left our shores. On the 7th August, those unfortunates were brought out on the Common, dressed in white, with their coffins, accompanied by the Revd. George Wright, the Garrison Chaplain, and Doctor Burke, the Roman Catholic clergyman, in the presence of the whole garrison. Eight of them were reprieved under the gallows, and the three who belonged to the Newfoundland Regiment were hanged. Public feeling was against the Duke in this affair. It was thought that on the eve of his departure he should have granted a remission of the death sentence, which, as General Commanding, he had power to do, until the King's pleasure should be known. Three executions only a day or two after his departure, produced a disagreeable impression of His Royal Highness in the minds of the people of Halifax, who had just taken leave of him with so much kind feeling.
The Quarter Sessions having authorized the establishment of a military exercising ground on the north end of the Common, an act for which they had no authority, laid the groundwork of much dispute and controversy with subsequent military commanders, who on several occasions later undertook to interfere with the City authorities in beautifying and improving the Common.
The death of the Hon. Richard Bulkeley, late Secretary of the Province, occurred this year; he was in his 83rd year. Mr. Bulkeley came to Halifax as Aide-de-Camp to Governor Cornwallis in 1749, and had twice administered the Government as Senior Councillor. Also that of Anthony Henry, the King's printer. He published the Royal Gazette at Halifax for about 40 years. John Howe was his successor in the office of King's printer.
1801. Early this year it was proposed to establish a bank in Halifax by means of a joint stock company whose capital was to be £50,000 in shares of £100 each. A committee of management was named consisting of Edward B. Brenton, William Forsyth, Foster Hutchinson, Lawrence Hartshorne, James Forman, James Fraser and Captain John Beckwith. They required a monopoly, which was refused them by the House of Assembly, and the project fell through.
The winter of 1800-1801 had been very sickly. Smallpox had made its appearance in town early in the autumn, and 182 persons had died of it between September, 1800, and the month of February following.
Several fires occurred during the winter. Sir John Wentworth's stables at the lodge were burned down. The most disastrous fire which had occurred in the town for many years took place on the 5th February, when the block fronting the old Government House on Hollis Street was partially destroyed.
On the 13th February this year, the society known as the Sun Fire Company was established at Halifax. It was, perhaps, the first Fire Company ever instituted in the town. Those known as the Phœnix Fire Company, the Hand and Hand and the Heart and Hand were of a subsequent date. The Sun Fire Company in the year 1810, included most of the principal inhabitants of the town. Their names will be found in the Appendix.
1802. A considerable outlay of money appears to have been made on the streets of the town about this time. The commissioners appointed for this purpose were Charles Morris, J. G. Pyke, Lawrence Hartshorne, Michael Wallace and William Lyons. The expenditure this year on the streets amounted to £930, and in the two succeeding years to £696 and £808. The sum of £500 had been granted in 1801 towards the expense of paving some of the streets; the remainder probably was raised by assessment.
The names of the town magistrates in 1802, were John Newton, Custos, Jonathan Binney, Geo. W. Sherlock, J. G. Pyke, Dr. Michael Head, W. Taylor, Stephen H. Binney, Jas. Gautier, Wm. Cochran, Charles Morris, Junior, Daniel Wood, William Thompson, Michael Wallace, Charles Hill, Richard Kidston, P. Marchington, Jonathan Tremain, James Clarke, William Schwartz, Hibbert N. Binney and John Bremner. These are the Magistrates for the County of Halifax. They all appear to have been residents in the town. Lewis M. Wilkins was Sheriff; John Newton and H. N. Binney were joint Collectors of the Customs; Daniel Wood, Inspector; John Cleveland, Collector of light duties; and John H. Fliegar, Gauger. The Firewards of the town were Mr. Pyke, Mr. Wallace, Mr. Hill, Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Clarke, William Millet, Elias Marshall, Thomas Fillis, Andrew Liddell, John Fillis, Wm. Lyons, Thomas Boggs, John Howe and Garret Miller.
The Royal Nova Scotia Regiment on being disbanded this year, presented an address to Sir John Wentworth, their Colonel, in August. The names of the officers of this Regiment were Lt. Cols. Francis Kearney and Samuel V. Bayard,62 Major Geo. Thesiger, Capts. John Solomon, Jones Fawson, Alexander Howe,63 John Allen, William Cox and Joshua W. Weeks, Capt. Lieutenant John G. Degreben; Lieutenants Thomas Morris, Otto W. Schwartz, Phillip Kearney, Eric Sutherland, George H. Monk, Michael Pernette, Charles Rudolf, John C. Ritchie, John Emerson, Timothy Ruggles, Richard Green, Isaac Glennie, Hebbert Newton, Thomas A. C. Winslow, Alexander Hamilton, Charles W. Solomon and John Fraser; Ensigns James Moore, Robert Bayard, Henry Green, Thomas Wright, Richard Gibbons; Paymaster Benning Wentworth, Surgeon John Fraser.
Governor Wentworth directed his reply to this address from "the Lodge."
The population of Halifax had again decreased towards the end of the year 1802. The returns of the number of inhabitants in the town and on the peninsula were as follows: —
There were 1000 dwelling houses in the town and peninsula. In taking the census, the wards of the town were distinguished as follows: North Barracks Ward, Pontac Ward, Market House Ward, Governor's Ward, Meeting House Ward, South Barracks Ward, South Suburbs and North Suburbs.
The sum of £8,900 had been expended by the Commissioners on the building of Government House, and but the first story had been completed. Much dissatisfaction was expressed in the House of Assembly with the course pursued by the Commissioners. Belcher, Hutchinson, Cochran and Beckwith had kept no minutes of their proceedings. Wallace appears to have had the principal supervision. He was censured by the House for having acted without the concurrence of those associated with him, and for exceeding the limits prescribed him by law. But his zeal and ability were commended and no corrupt motives were attributed to him. In 1804 an additional sum of £2,500 was voted to complete the building, a considerable sum having been voted and expended the previous year.64
Several fires occurred in June which were supposed to be the work of incendiaries. It had been proved beyond all doubt that buildings in several parts of the town had been set on fire. A patrol of militia under Colonel Pyke was ordered to patrol the streets from sunset to sunrise, and all suspected persons who could not give a good account of themselves at night were ordered to be arrested. A reward of £100 was offered for discovery, and several arrests were made. A boy who confessed to having attempted to set fire to the Dockyard was sent out of the province.
On the 2nd September the 97th regiment arrived in the harbor and landed immediately at the King's Wharf. On the 14th the fleet arrived from Jamaica under the command of Commodore Baynton, consisting of the Cumberland, 74, Bellerophon, 74, Ganges, 74, Vanguard, 74, Goliah, 74, Thesis, 74, Elephant, 74 and the Pelican, Brig. The 7th regiment embarked shortly after, and the town people presented a farewell address to Col. Layard and Lieut. – Col. Edwards. In April the Governor and Council were prevailed on to grant a press warrant to Capt. Bradley of the Cambrian for ten days in the town to enable him to fill up the number of his crew, it being 50 short of its complement.
The Rev. Dr. Burke was at this time Roman Catholic Vicar General of Nova Scotia under the Bishop of Quebec; he afterwards administered the Episcopal office in Halifax as Bishop of Zion. Dr. Burke was a gentleman of education and highly esteemed in the community.
The death of a very aged inhabitant, John Murphy, occurred this year. He was 90 years of age, and had been one of the first settlers of the town. He had acquired a large property in fields in the south suburbs, where he kept a large number of cows, and for a great many years supplied the principal inhabitants with milk and butter. The fields extending northward from Smith's tan yard to the corner house formerly occupied by the late Sheriff Sawyer, were known formerly as Murphy's fields.
1803. The following is an account of the butchers' meat sold in the Halifax market for six months commencing July 1st and ending December 31st, 1802.
The above is exclusive of the meat issued under contract for the Navy, but it is to be assumed it included the Army contract.
1804. This spring the House of Assembly recommended that the old market house should be taken down and a new building erected on the ground for the purpose of a County Court House and police office. This was the brick building lately used for city purposes. An Act was passed in 1804 with that object.
The trade of the port was much depressed this season by the number of captures made by the enemy, and from the low prices obtained for fish in the West India market, where the merchants of Halifax were undersold by U. S. fishermen.
Among the events of the year was the arrival of several distinguished prisoners, among whom was General Brunet and suite, who put into Halifax on their way to England, having been made prisoners at St. Domingo. Governor Wentworth assigned them the old Rockingham Inn, near the Prince's Lodge on the Basin, as a place of abode while here. They were shortly after removed to England.
In the autumn General Boyer, commandant of the garrison, undertook to try the metal of the Haligonians by causing a false alarm of invasion. The report was spread early in the morning that the French were off the harbor. Before 10 o'clock, A.M., about 1,000 militia men were embodied and at their respective posts. Two hundred of them were artillery men. The dress companies were all in uniform and fully equipped. Among the first who appeared on the parade ground with their guns were Parson Wright, head master of the grammar school, and the Solicitor General, James Stewart, better known as Judge Stewart.
1805. Press warrants were granted by the Council on the 6th May to Vice Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell, then in command of the station, for fourteen days. He afterwards demanded an extension of his warrant for six months, which was refused by the Council at their meeting on the 18th. In their reply to the Admiral they mention that the number of seamen engaged in the West India trade, etc., had been so reduced by captures, imprisonment and other causes that there were not sufficient in the port to man the vessels, and that all the seamen to be found in the town would not now be enough to meet half the demand for one sloop-of-war in the fleet. Moreover, that there were many at the time in French prisons whose families were supported by charity in the town. This, together with the high rate of wages in the United States, had reduced the commerce of the port to the greatest necessity. Finally, that the execution of impress warrants on shore were attended with much disturbance and annoyance to the laboring poor and others not fit for service, and the Council were of opinion that it should only be resorted to on the most urgent occasions and when advantage from it was to be reasonably looked for.
Mitchell, finding he could not prevail on the Council, undertook, in the following October, to send press gangs through the town without warrant. An armed party of sailors and marines from the Cleopatra, frigate, under the command of one or more officers, were sent out. The citizens resisted and a riot ensued, which resulted in the death of one person and the wounding of several others. One of these encounters occurred in the store of Messrs. Forsyth & Co., where a number of merchant sailors had secreted themselves. General Wentworth called a meeting of the Council on 23rd November, and it was ordered that the Solicitor-General should proceed to prosecute all persons belonging to the ships war who had been engaged in impressments. The Attorney General, R. J. Uniacke, Mitchell's father-in-law, was in England at the time, on leave of absence. The Admiral's gang had broken open the store of Forsyth & Co. under the pretense of looking for deserters, and Sir Andrew defended his conduct under the authority of a warrant from the Admiralty, but he was condemned in heavy damages for his illegal proceedings.
The town artillery at this time consisted of three companies commanded by Captains Charles Morris, Bremner and Fillis, and there was another under Capt. McIntosh of Spryfield, which did duty at York Redoubt, composed principally of market fisherman who were regularly trained to battery exercises. Governor Wentworth appears to have been assiduous in his efforts to keep up the local defences of the town, and to have placed much reliance on the volunteer companies for that purpose.
There was a plentiful harvest this year throughout the whole province. Provisions of all sorts were plentiful in the town, so much so that the arrival of the fleet and a large export to Bermuda and Newfoundland did not augment the prices. The importations of flour from the United States, both this and the following year, were very extensive.
In October an unfortunate French prisoner named Pierre Paulin was executed on the common for the murder of a fellow prisoner. The Governor and Council refused to reprieve him.
In December the town was illuminated and other joyful demonstrations made by the inhabitants on the news of the Battle of Trafalgar.
1806. In the month of February, Lieut. – General Gardner, the commandant of the garrison, died at Halifax; his funeral was attended with much military pomp and ceremony. He was buried under old St. Paul's Church.
A general election occurred in 1806, when Edward Mortimer of Pictou, Simon B. Robie, S. G. W. Archibald and William Lawson were returned for the county, and John George Pyke and Foster Hutchinson for the town. Cochran, the old member, petitioned against Lawson on the ground of qualification.
The Government House remained still unfinished. The sum of £4,292 had been expended on the building since the last session, which was £2,000 more than had been voted.
On the 29th April Halifax was thrown into alarm by the appearance of a number of large vessels in the offing. Signal guns were fired from the alarm posts in the harbor, and the military and militia were under arms. There was another alarm of French invasion on or about the 20th May, when several large vessels were again reported off the harbor. The militia of the town were again assembled, but the greater part of them were without arms. Governor Wentworth had previously made several applications to the Imperial Government for arms for the Halifax Militia, but it does not appear that much attention was paid to his solicitations.
Among the advertisements which appeared in the Gazette this year was notice of a periodical publication to be called the "Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Magazine or Historical Library," which was offered for sale at the book stores of Messrs. Morrison, Bennet, Edmund Ward and William Minns. Morrison kept his book and stationer's shop at the corner of Duke and Granville Streets, afterwards known as Joseph Robinson's hat store, now owned by Mr. Kiezer. He was succeeded in his business by George Eaton, who was the principal book seller and stationer in the town for several years. This old building, with others along the upper side of Granville Street was destroyed by fire about 1827. At this time there was a law in existence to prevent persons building wooden houses in the town above a certain height. The present wooden building at the corner was then erected under this law and did not exceed what by measurement was deemed one story and a half. Several stone and brick buildings were erected in consequence of this law. That to the south of Kiezer's corner occupied by Mr. Simonds and others, another in the same block built by the late William Macara, druggist, and the large double three story stone building in Barrington Street, nearly opposite St. Paul's, were all erected about this time by Mr. Matthew Richardson on the site of the late Andrew Belcher's garden. Several old gamble roofed houses, the remnant of the first settlement, were destroyed by the above-mentioned fire.