Birchtown

For a few years it looked as though Shelburne was not going to belie these hopes.

The autumn of 1783 brought a considerable increase to its population, and in 1784 it seems to have numbered no less than ten thousand souls, including the suburb of Birch Town, in which most of the Negro refugees in New York had been settled.

It became a place of business and fashion.

There was for a time an extensive trade in fish and lumber with Great Britain and the West Indies.