& White and their employes, Edmund Black, Samuel Abbott,
Samuel Middleton, Michael Hodge, Adonijah Colby, Stephen Dow, Elijah
Estabrooks, John Bradley, William Godsoe, John Mack, Asa Stephens, and
Thomas Blasdel. To these may be added the wives of James Simonds, of
Black, Abbott and one or two other workmen; also a few settlers living
in the vicinity. It may be observed in passing that Edmund Black was
foreman in the lime burning; Abbott, Middleton and Godsoe were
employed in making hogsheads and barrels for lime and fish; Hodge and
Colby were shipwrights engaged in building a schooner for the company;
the others were fishermen and laborers. Doubtless the service held by
Mr. Wood was a very simple one, and if there were any hymns they were
sung from memory, for there is reason to believe that there was not a
single hymn book in the community, with the exception of a copy of
Watt's psalms and hymns owned by James White.

Notwithstanding the difficulties of the situation, the Rev'd. Thomas
Wood on the occasion of his first Sunday at St. John established a
record which, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, remains
unequalled for interest and variety. In the morning he held divine
service and preached to the English settlers and baptized four of
their children. In the afternoon he conducted a service for the
benefit of a number of Indians, who chanced to be encamped there,
baptized an Indian girl and addressed them in their own language. In
the evening, many of the French inhabitants being present, he held a
third service and preached in French, the Indians again attending as
many of them understood that language. These French people were
chiefly Acadians living at what is now called French Village, in Kings
county. They were at that time employed by Simonds & White in building
an aboideau and dykeing the marsh. In one respect the Indians perhaps
did better than the English or the Acadians, for at the close of their
service Mr. Wood desired them to sing an anthem which, he says, "they
performed very harmoniously."

The next day the missionary sailed up the river, visiting the settlers
in their homes as he proceeded. At Gagetown he baptized Joseph and
Mary Kendrick, twin children of John and Dorothy Kendrick. Mr. Wood
says the children were born in an open canoe on the river, two leagues
from any house, a circumstance that illustrates the exigencies liable
to arise in a region so sparsely inhabited as the valley