in

Hibbit’s Bridge crossing the river below Les MacDonald’s house. Taken from Tom Dawson’s residence facing south east. Don Duncan collection.

of these first settlers were farmers, however carpenters, labourers, cloth fitters, fence viewers, school masters, blacksmiths, millers, store keep- ers, and cabinet makers came as well.14

When the Aboiteau bridge was built, the farmers installed gates to hold back the tides so they could work the marshland along the river. This marshland extended up the river to the Joseph Thomson farm (now owned by Richard Newsome). Records show that in the early years of English settlement the marshlands on the west side of the river were owned by Leards, Howatts, Groggetts, and Lords.15 The Aboz'teau is an Acadian word meaning dike. The Acadians had built a dike system on the river to hold back the water, thus permitting more land to be farmed along the banks of the river. Traces of this system were visible at low tide as late as the 1930s. The Aboiteau name stayed after the Acadians left the area but through the years the name has been shortened to Bito, pronounced Bite 0h.1

Farmers scythed the ripening marsh grasses in late August and left it to make for a day or two. Long wooden rakes were used to fashion the grass into coils. These coils were carried to the elevated, rectangular, wooden stack bottoms that were made from poled, notched wood, and arranged log cabin style. A perpendicular pole was nailed in place at the center. The hay was forked and tossed manually to the stack builder who positioned himself on top of the stack and fashioned the coils into a bee-hive mound. Four long, wooden poles were laced with criss crossed wire and were attached to the center pole to hang down over the mass to keep the hay in place. Farmers went to the marshland early