1736 -- DELAWARE RIVER FERRY
              SERVICE INAUGURATED

That Dupui's business actually thrived during these early years is borne out by the establishment of a ferry service at his locale.  Having spotted the growth potential of Dupui's trading post operation and having recognized the opportunity to launch his own business, New Jersey entrepeneur James Gould  applied for a warrant on the lands across from the trading post.  Upon completion of the requisite survey (performed by deputy surveyor Joseph De Cou on 26 March 1736), Gould then launched his Delaware River ferry service.

Thus, a full eight years prior to the opening of Dupui's general store operation, business activity at the trading post site was apparently already sufficiently ample and appeared to be poised to be sustainable (in spite of the earlier departure of the Shawnee tribe).   Such an observation begs the question: "just how many customers did Nicholas Dupui actually have at his trading post prior to later reorganizing as a General Store?"  The Dupui ledger itself provides us with a significant clue.

Initial purchases made by Anderus Van Flera on the general store’s opening day (a pair of garters, a knife, a cap, salt, venison, wheat and pork), are recorded in the ledger on 10 December 1743 and are followed by an accounting entry indicating that the incurred debts are “Transferred to Folio 125”.  As other accounting notes advised that Moses Dupui’s debts were located in Folio 3, that the debts of John Atkins, Esq. were in folio 11, and that the debts of Benjamin Schoonmaker, Samuel Holmes Sr., John McMichael and William Clark were in folios 27, 87, 114 and 117 respectively, it becomes clear that the trading post maintained a large quantity of accounts that, at a bare minimum, represented at least 125 customers handled on the basis of credit terms.  ...and these customers would routinely transit back-and-forth across the Delaware River. 

Unfortunately, Gould's ferry did not enjoy an overly long tenure.  While the customer base was initially sufficient, the ferry's locale was not as ideal as one might imagine.  Local transit patterns eventually shifted to the area's River Road (that functioned as a highway linking the river crossing at the Walpack Bend to Dupui's trading post in Shawnee).  In time, Gould's Ferry would be supplanted by this other upriver ferry.  Historically, one notes that the region would, in due course, come to see a great many ferry operations:  Decker's Ferry, Grube's Ferry, Smith's Ferry, the Rosencrans Ferry, the Shoemaker Ferry, the Lutz Ferry and the Zimmerman Ferry.