Rev. Ephraim Peabody introduced me to Samuel Eliot, Esq., who was kind enough to examine carefully into all my representations, and to draw up a sketch of them, which was afterwards presented to Amos Lawrence, Esq., and others. By means of this a collection of money to aid me was made, to which many of the leading gentleman of Boston contributed, amounting to about fourteen hundred dollars.
With this money I returned to Canada, and immediately set myself about building a saw-mill in Camden (then Dawn). The improvement in the surrounding section was astonishing. The people began to labor, and the progress in clearing up and cultivating the land was quite cheering.
But after the frame-work of my mill was completed and covered, my scanty funds were exhausted. This was a trying time. I had begun the work in faith, I had expended the money honestly, and to the best of my judgment, and now should the whole enterprise fail? I immediately returned to my Boston friends. Amos Lawrence, H. Ingersoll Bowditch, and Samuel A. Elliot, Esqs., listened to me again, and gave me to understand that they deemed me an honest man. They encouraged me in my business enterprise, and the approval of such men was like balm to my soul. They endorsed a note for me and put it into the bank, by which I was enabled to borrow, on my own responsibility, about eighteen hundred dollars more. With this I soon completed the mill, stocked it with machinery, and had the pleasure of seeing it in successful operation. I ought here to add, that the mill was not my own private property, but belonged to an association, which established an excellent manual-labor school, where many children and youth of both sexes have been educated. The school was well attended by both colored children, whites, and some Indians.
This enterprise having been completed to a great extent by my own labor and the labor of my own sons, who took charge of the mill, I immediately began to consider how I could discharge my pecuniary obligations. I chartered a vessel, and loaded it with eighty thousand feet of good prime black walnut lumber, sawed in our mill, and contracted with the captain to deliver it for me at Oswego, N. Y. I entered into a contract there with a party to have it delivered at Boston, but the party having forwarded it to New York, failed to carry it any farther. There great efforts were made to cheat me out of the lumber, but, by the good friendship of Mr. Lawrence, of Boston, who furnished me the means of having it re-shipped, I succeeded in bringing the whole eighty thousand feet safe to Boston, where I sold it to Mr. Jonas Chickering for forty-five dollars per thousand feet. The proceeds paid all expenses, and would have cancelled all the debts I had incurred; but my friends insisted that I should retain a part of the funds for future use. After that, I brought another large load of lumber by the same route.