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Portland Point the following year at the patriarchal age of 96 years.
In the month of February, 1764, the Hon. Montague Wilmot, Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia, issued under the great seal of that province the first license of occupation at St. John:—
"License is hereby granted to James Simonds to occupy a tract or point of land on the north side of St. John's River opposite Fort Frederick, for carrying on a fishery and for burning lime stone, the said tract or point of land containing by estimation ten acres."
It was in the same month of February sixty-seven years later, that the sturdy old pioneer closed his eyes at his home on the "point of land" where he had first pitched his tent, and it is a curious coincidence that he and the controversy over the fisheries of the Portland Shore should have been laid at rest together.
For the sake of completeness it may be well to add to what has already been said respecting the fisheries, a short account of the way they were disposed of in early times. This was by what is known as the Fishery Draft. It was really a public lottery under the sanction of the laws of the time.
Up to about a quarter of a century ago, any male British subject might become a "Freeman" of the city of St. John on payment of a certain fee according to the qualifications of the applicant. The fees ranged from £1. 0s. 6d. to £6. 0s. 6d. The highest fee was paid by a man not native born, whose father had never been a freeman or inhabitant of the city. A freeman had certain privileges; he could vote at elections whether he had a property qualification or not, he was not obliged to take out a license to do business, and he was entitled (as were resident widows of freemen) to a chance in the fishery draft upon the payment of one shilling a Each year the City Council appointed two year