Nearly all the settlers on the river obtained their goods from the old trading company at Portland Point, and for their accommodation the little schooner "Polly" made frequent trips to Maugerville and St. Anns. Inspection of the old accounts shows that on the occasion of a trip up the river in May, 1773, goods were sold to thirty families at various points along the way. In November, 1775, goods were sold in like manner to more than forty families. At that time there were to be found in the company's day book the names of 120 customers, nearly all of them heads of families. Of these, 25 were residents at Portland Point, 20 lived across the harbor in Conway, 45 belonged to Maugerville, 20 to other townships up the river and ten were casual visitors, fishermen and traders. The partners amidst all their variety of business continued to make improvements upon their lands at St. John. They cleared up the Great Marsh and cut hay there, for in June, 1768, Mr. Simonds writes to Newburyport, "Please send half a dozen Salem scythes; Haskel's tools are entirely out of credit here; it would be a sufficient excuse for a hired man to do but half a day's work in a day if he was furnished with an axe or scythe of that stamp." The next year plans were discussed for the general improvement of the marsh, and a number of indigent Acadians were employed to assist in the construction of a "Running Dike" and aboideau. These Acadians probably lived at French Village, near the Kennebecasis, and the fact that they had some experience in dykeing marsh lands shows that they were refugees from the Expulsion of 1755. The situation of the first dyke was not, as now, at the mouth of the Marsh Creek but at a place nearly opposite the gate of the cemetery, where the lake-like expansion of the Marsh begins. The work was completed in August, 1774, by the construction of an aboideau. Those employed in the work were the company's laborers, six or eight Acadians and a number of the Maugerville people--about twenty-five hands in all. William Hazen was at St. John that summer and he and James White gave their personal attendance, "not in overseeing the work only but in the active and laborious parts thereof," the company providing the implements, tools, carts, several teams of oxen, gundolas and other boats, materials and supplies of every kind including rum for the workmen. This dyke and aboideau served the purpose of shutting out the tide from about 600 acres of marsh land. Ten years later Hazen & White built a new aboideau a little above the first one which had fallen into disrepair. A much better one than either was built at the mouth of the creek in 1788 by James Simonds at a cost of L1,300. The House of Assembly voted L100 towards building a bridge at the place and Mr. Simonds agreed to erect a structure to serve the double purpose of a public bridge and aboideau. The width of the structure was 75 feet at the bottom and 25 feet at the top. Not long afterwards Mr.