Note 403 — Chapter IV

[This island, now known as Douchet Island, is a few miles within the mouth of the St. Croix River, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay. In the latter part of the last century, when the commissioners of Great Britain and the United States were endeavoring to define the St. Croix River, which by treaty had been fixed as the eastern bound of the new nation, this island played an important part. The maps were not conclusive respecting the historic St. Croix, some of them, like that of Bellin in Charlevoix’s History (1744), rather indicating the Magaguadavic River, on the eastern side of the bay; but the discovery in 1797 of the foundation-stones of De Monts’s houses on this island, with large trees growing above them, settled the question. The island bears evidence of having considerably wasted by the wash of the river, and its few acres are at present hardly large enough for the purpose it served in 1604. It is known that then the colonists resorted to the main shore for their planting. The island now has a cottage upon it, which bears aloft a small light, to aid river navigation, and is maintained by the United States Government, the deepest water being on the easterly side. The Editor examined the island in 1882, but could not find that any traces of De Monts’s colony now remained, though fragments of “French brick” were found there by William Willis twenty years ago. Cf. Hannay’s Acadia, p. 74; Parkman’s Pioneers of France, p. 227; Williamson’s Maine, i. 190; ii. 578; Holmes’s Annals, i. 149. In a survey of 1798 the island is called Bone Island; and it has sometimes been called, because of its position, Neutral Island. A plan of the buildings is given on the opposite page.—Ed.]