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of romance as the world has found the story of Evangeline, as related by America's greatest poet. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of going into such details with regard to the early French settlers of the St. John as the poet was able to evolve from his imagination with reference to the fictitious heroine of the Acadian exile. Yet, enough can be gathered from the records of that time to give us a fairly accurate idea of the manner of men who were living on this great river, amidst the vast Acadian wilderness, two hundred years ago.

In 1670 Acadia, which had been seized by the English in 1654, was restored to the French under the terms of the treaty of Breda, and the Chevalier de Grand Fontaine became governor of the colony. The English had held Acadia for sixteen years, yet they had done nothing to increase the number of its inhabitants, and when their fishing establishments were broken up and their forts surrendered to the French, no traces of their occupation remained, with the exception of the fort at Jemseg which they had built, and which was nothing more than a post for trading with the Indians. Fort Jemseg stood on the east side of the St. John river, and just south of the entrance to Grand Lake. It was 120 feet long by 90 wide, enclosed by pickets 18 feet in height. On it were mounted four small guns, and within it was a house for the garrison 60 ft. by 30. Old Fort Latour, at the mouth of the river, was then in ruins, and in 1670 there does not appear to have been a single settler, French or English, on the banks of the St. John from the Bay of Fundy to the river's source. Rich as the territory was in every natural resource, its very vastness and the gloom of the impenetrable forest which shaded the waters of the great river seem to have deterred the humble tiller of the soil from seeking a home there. The great solitude was only broken by the passing of the canoe of the savage or the