From the 1640s, Guilford's first settlers harvested hay from salt meadows along the East River. Howlet's Bridge was constructed in 1699, and in 1708 Ebenezer Hubbard came to live in the section known as Howlet's, named from the lots where wolves howled, or Howl-lots. In 1815 Amos Dudley bought part of the Hubbard Farm where the nature trail now runs, erected tide gates to aid in salt haying, and established a potashery. In 1842 William L. Dudley built a Greek Revival house, and by 1851 he had pieced together a 60 acre farm. After the Dudley barn was struck by lightning in 1880, Samuel Cornell rebuilt it. Anne and Woolsey Conover purchased the Dudley/Cornell Farm in 1933. During the Depression in 1936, the Works Progress Administration dug mosquito ditches throughout the marsh. The 1938 Hurricane washed away the tide gates and brought salt haying to an end. In 1964, Anne Conover rallied neighbors to donate their salt marsh parcels to National Audubon Society as part of a movement that transferred thousands of acres of Connecticut tidal wetlands from private hands to conservation groups. In 1969, the Tidal Wetlands Act in Connecticut ended the filling and draining of the state's coastal marshes.