ACADIAN STRUCTURES ON THE MOUNT STEWART SALT MARSH by Bruce Pigot 
     
    
   
   
    
     Mr. J. Bambrick of Glenroy near Mt. Stewart wrote of the Acadians in 
     
     1901 as follows. They were an industrious people. Only located here a few 
     
     years, they left traces of great improvement in the old clearings and the 
     
     diked marshes. 
     
    

    
     In the past forty years the author has spent many hours observing the 
     
     remains of the structures that they created on the Mount Stewart marsh. This 
     
     article is an attempt to put down the author's theory of the construction 
     
     method used on the marsh and an attempt to explain the use the structures had 
     
     to their builders. 
     
    

    
     A description of how they constructed 
     
     their drainage system on the Mt. Stewart 
     
     marsh would be as follows. They began by 
     
     sealing off the marsh from the river by 
     
     throwing up the clay off the shore to form 
     
     a dike three or four feet high. The dike 
     
     was then sodded with marsh sod top to 
     
     bottom. In two or three years when the sod 
     
     took good root, the dikes wOuld be 
     
     practically indestructible. 
     
    

    
     When they were building the dike they 
     
     left an opening where they thought a drain 
     
     could bring water from the marsh. Probably 
     
     some of the material excavated during 
     
     ditching would be used in the sodding, the 
     
     rest for other purposes. 
     
    

    
     They used the larger tidal creeks above Ht. Stewart as the main drainage 
     
     system of the surrounding marsh. They dug drains in the marsh so they emptied 
     
     into the creeks above an abideau, which was placed by using good judgment, not 
     
     to far up the creek, so there would be a reservoir large enough to hold the 
     
     run—off between tides. 
     
    

    
     The abideau was an ingenious device, a box like structure open at both 
     
     ends fitted with a clapet or swing valve that shut when the water tried to get 
     
     back through the abideau when the tide was rising. When the tide receded the 
     
     clapet opened and the impounded fresh water drained through the abideau into 
     
     the lower creek. The abideau was held in place by a bridge like structure made 
     
     of marsh sod, poles, brush, and stakes. 
     
    

    
     In order to do their everyday farm work on the marsh which included the 
     
     maintenance of dikes, ditches, abideaux, and roads, it would have been very 
     
     convenient to use the abideau sites on the creeks to cross to the other side. 
     
    

    
     Botanical and other evidence tends to point out that a system of roads 
     
     once serviced the marsh. The best place to look for a road on the creek is the 
     
     place where the dikes end on the creeks. It is here that they placed the 
     
     bridge like structure across the creek that held the abideau in place. The 
     
     roads were built to each end of this structure. 
     
    

    
     Spotting evidence of Acadian work on the marsh is not an exact science. 
     
     Ditches are best seen just after the ice leaves the marsh and the vegetation is 
     
     pressed into the marsh making them visible. Roads and dikes are noticed by 
     
     their elevation above the marsh, by botanical clues such as a line of standing 
     
     vegetation or an old field type of vegetation growing on raised places on the 
     
     marsh and foreign to the surroundings. 
     
    

    
     One area of dike at the mouth of St. Andrews creek has been obliterated 
     
     by wave action generated by the prevailing south-west winds of the warmer 
     
     seasons. The wind builds the waves high in the near mile stretch from the 
     
     railroad bridge fronting on st. Andrews creek. other places above Mt. Stewart 
     
     have not suffered similar damage because of the way the shore runs or the 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
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