Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/28

William Hazen and James White assisted in the undertaking, the latter all the time and the former the greater part of the time, "not in overseeing the work only but in the active and laborious parts thereof." The company provided implements, tools, provisions, rum, carts, several teams of oxen, gondolas and other boats, and materials and supplies of every kind required. The dyke and aboideau served the purpose of shutting out the tide from about 600 acres of marsh. Ten years later Messrs. Hazen and White built just above the first aboideau a new one at considerable expense which was in fair condition as late as the year 1795, at which time the one first built was in a dilapidated state, the gates broken out and sluice undermined. Both the aboideau of 1774 and that built ten years later were rendered unnecessary by the building of a much better one at the mouth of the Marsh Creek by James Simonds in 1788. The circumstances under which this last structure was built are of interest.

The House of Assembly of New Brunswick in 1788 voted the sum of £100 towards the expense of building a bridge across the Marsh Creek. Hazen, Simonds and White thereupon decided to reclaim the entire marsh by building an aboideau and dyke which might not only shut out the tide from all marsh lands above it but also serve as a public bridge. The partners agreed to contribute £400 in addition to the sum voted by the legislature and for the £500 thus provided, James Simonds undertook the task of building the first "Marsh Bridge." He did not find it a profitable undertaking, so far at least as the bridge building was concerned, for by reason of many unforseen difficulties, more particularly the rapid rush of the tide after the passage for the water had been cleared and straightened, and also by the construction of the aboideau upon a larger scale than had at first been contemplated, the