Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/295

Rh on four hundred acres in the almost unbroken wilderness, and here, after six years, Jason Lee, the youngest of a family of fifteen children, was born. Upon this homestead is now Rock Island, which, together with Derby Line, forms a continuous village, through which runs the boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States—Rock Island in Canada and Derby Line in the United States.

Quoting from "Forests and Clearings": "The State of Vermont previous to that time had been surveyed, but the line of demarkation had been so imperfectly defined that the early settlers hardly knew at first whether they were in Vermont or in Canada. In process of time, however, as the settlements on the frontier began to increase, the parallel of 45 degrees was supposed to have been ascertained, but it was not finally determined until many years afterward."

Rev. Wm. H. Lee, a grand nephew of Jason Lee, who visited the town of Rock Island to ascertain some facts regarding the family, says: "His (Daniel Lee's) house stood within a stone's throw of the boundary line, just on Canadian soil. The monuments that mark the boundary line between Vermont and Canada bear the date 1842, showing clearly that at the time Daniel Lee settled there the boundary was not definitely established. It is entirely unlikely that a soldier of the Revolution would, fourteen years after the close of that struggle, of his own volition, place himself under British dominion, and it is entirely probable that when Daniel Lee settled at Rock Island, he supposed his new home was on American soil."

Quoting from a communication to F. H. Grubbs from Principal Wm. I. Marshall of Chicago, 1905, illustrating the indefinite knowledge of the boundary line: "Soon after the War of 1812 closed our Government bought a tract of land at Rouses Point, which commanded the entry to