[Ganona] DOCHET (ST. CROIX) ISLAND 1583 
tion of novelist or poet will take up the theme where the historian has 
left it: — may the result then be worthy of the subject! 
HIsTorY. 
The history of Dochet Island falls naturally into four periods: — 
First,— its settlement by de Monts in 1604, and events to the grant 
of Razilly in 1632. 
Second,— its part in the boundary controversies and in the deter- 
mination of the River St. Croix in 1796-1799. 
Third,— its modern history from the first permanent settlement of 
the St. Croix to the present. 
Fourth,— its probable and desirable future. 
1. THE DiscovERY AND SETTLEMENT oF Sr. Crorx (DocHET) ISLAND 
IN 1604, AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS To 1632, 
The opening of the year 1604 found not a single European settled 
amid the endless forests of the northern parts of North America. 
Attempts at colonization had been made, it is true, but all had proved 
abortive. The very ownership of the country was in dispute, for 
England claimed it all by right of the discoveries of the Cabots, while 
France maintained a right to the same region by virtue of the later 
and better known discoveries of Verrazano. Such were the condi- 
tions when, in 1603, the Sieur de Monts, an energetic and prominent 
soldier and gentleman of France, proposed to the King of France to 
found a colony in Acadia, offering to bear all of the expenses if he 
could be given as compensation a monopoly of the fur trade. This 
was readily granted, and the Sieur de Monts, in addition to receiving 
the monopoly, was made Lieutenant-General of the King for the 
country of Acadie, a region covering the Atlantic coast of North 
America from latitude 40° to 46°, or from Philadelphia to Cape Bre- 
ton (Fig. 1). Accordingly, early in 1604, de Monts brought together 
a company of 120 men, some of them gentlemen in search of adven- 
ture, some of them artizans and other workmen, together with abun- 
dant stores and equipment for a permanent settlement, and embarked 
them upon two vessels, one of 120 and the other of 150 tons. With 
him as King’s Geographer, and, as it proved, historian of the expedi- 
tion, went Samuel de Champlain, a great man, afterwards the Father 
of New France. The vessels reached Acadia in safety in May, and, 
after sundry adventures and explorations, the vessel containing 
de Monts and Champlain reached St. Mary’s Bay in Nova Scotia on 
