Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/147

carry it out on the same scale as he began it. In the enumeration of the first twenty-two families we have the names of the girls as well as of the boys, but as to the remainder only the names of the boys are given. This makes it more difficult to trace family connexions due to marriages, but perhaps we ought to be grateful to M. Molin that he has given us so much, rather than critical because he has omitted something we would have liked to obtain. As it is, we have the materials for, in a manner, reconstructing the story of the first settlement of Acadia, and determining with almost absolute certainty which were in reality our first families.

The first settlement of Acadia was made by De Monts and Champlain at St. Croix Island in 1604. This place was abandoned in 1605, and the colony established on the north side of Annapolis Basin, opposite Goat Island. This settlement was broken up by Argal in 1613 and we have no authentic information in regard to it for many years. It is said that Biencourt, who was the proprietor of Port Royal, and Charles La Tour, his lieutenant and companion, lived among the Indians for several years, trading, and that the settlement was abandoned. This theory is supported by the fact that a Scotch colony was established there by Sir William Alexander in 1628. This colony was in its turn broken up in 1632, when the French secured possession of Acadia under the terms of the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye. Most historians state that one or more of the Scotch families of this abandoned colony remained in Acadia and joined the French colony which was established by Commander Isaac de Razilly at La Have. La Mothe Cadillac speaks of one Scotch family having remained in Acadia, and says that in 1685, he saw at Port Royal two men of this family who had become Catholics and married French wives. Their