diff --git a/spacy/tests/doc/test_token_api.py b/spacy/tests/doc/test_token_api.py
index 5713c5c07..22da293a8 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/doc/test_token_api.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/doc/test_token_api.py
@@ -192,3 +192,9 @@ def test_tokens_sent(doc):
     assert doc[7].sent.text == "This is another sentence ."
     assert doc[1].sent.root.left_edge.text == "This"
     assert doc[7].sent.root.left_edge.text == "This"
+
+def test_token0_has_sent_start_true():
+    doc = Doc(Vocab(), words=["hello", "world"])
+    assert doc[0].is_sent_start is True
+    assert doc[1].is_sent_start is None
+    assert not doc.is_sentenced
diff --git a/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx b/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
index e1c2fc575..97ac10f76 100644
--- a/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
+++ b/spacy/tokens/doc.pyx
@@ -188,13 +188,18 @@ cdef class Doc:
 
     @property
     def is_sentenced(self):
-        # Check if the document has sentence boundaries,
-        # i.e at least one tok has the sent_start in (-1, 1)
+        """Check if the document has sentence boundaries assigned. This is
+        defined as having at least one of the following:
+
+        a) An entry "sents" in doc.user_hooks";
+        b) sent.is_parsed is set to True;
+        c) At least one token other than the first where sent_start is not None.
+        """
         if 'sents' in self.user_hooks:
             return True
         if self.is_parsed:
             return True
-        for i in range(self.length):
+        for i in range(1, self.length):
             if self.c[i].sent_start == -1 or self.c[i].sent_start == 1:
                 return True
         else:
@@ -569,6 +574,9 @@ cdef class Doc:
             raise ValueError(Errors.E031.format(i=self.length))
         t.spacy = has_space
         self.length += 1
+        if self.length == 1:
+            # Set token.sent_start to 1 for first token. See issue #2869
+            self.c[0].sent_start = 1
         return t.idx + t.lex.length + t.spacy
 
     @cython.boundscheck(False)
diff --git a/website/docs/api/token.md b/website/docs/api/token.md
index 5c22eaae3..1089d2329 100644
--- a/website/docs/api/token.md
+++ b/website/docs/api/token.md
@@ -324,7 +324,7 @@ A sequence containing the token and all the token's syntactic descendants.
 ## Token.is_sent_start {#is_sent_start tag="property" new="2"}
 
 A boolean value indicating whether the token starts a sentence. `None` if
-unknown.
+unknown. Defaults to `True` for the first token in the `doc`.
 
 > #### Example
 >