Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot (aka Joseph Marie Chaumonot) (March 9, 1611 – February 21, 1693) was a French priest and Jesuit missionary who learned and documented the language of the

Wyandot people The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario ...

, also known as the Huron. He studied at the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

’ noviciate in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and, after three more years of training, came to Canada in 1639.

Life

Chaumonot was born 9 March 1611 at

Châtillon-sur-Seine Châtillon-sur-Seine (, ) is a commune of the Côte-d'Or department, eastern France. The Musée du Pays Châtillonnais is housed in old abbey of Notre-Dame de Châtillon, within the town, known for its collection of pre-Roman and Roman relics ...

in (Côte d’Or,

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...

). He entered St. Andrew’s Jesuit

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

in Rome on 18 May 1632 at the age of twenty-one, and was ordained in late 1637 or early 1638. It was at this time that he added "Joseph-Marie" to his name. Surprenant,André. “Chaumonot, Pierre-Joseph-Marie”, ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'', vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003, accessed June 11, 2014
/ref> He left from the quays of

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newha ...

on 4 May 1639, and arrived in

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...

on 31 July. He was immediately involved in the

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...

mission being constructed at Sainte-Marie-des-Hurons near

Georgian Bay Georgian Bay (french: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To ...

under the leadership of Father

Jérôme Lalemant Jérôme Lalemant, S.J. (Paris, April 27, 1593 – Quebec City, January 26, 1673) was a French Jesuit priest who was a leader of the Jesuit mission in New France. Life Lalemant entered the Jesuit novitiate in Paris on 20 October 1610, after whi ...

. In the years that followed Chaumonot achieved mastery of the Huron language and recorded it for others to use in the study of the language. From then on, he experienced a long series of moves under difficult circumstances. We have good details on much of his life since in 1688 Father

Claude Dablon Claude Dablon (February 1618 – May 3, 1697) was a Jesuit missionary, born in Dieppe, France. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Society of Jesus, and after his course of studies and teaching in France, arrived in Canada in 1655. He was at ...

asked Chaumonot to write an autobiography. Father Chaumonot spent nearly ten years in the Huron missions and worked with many notable priests;

Jean de Brébeuf Jean de Brébeuf () (25 March 1593 16 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary who travelled to New France (Canada) in 1625. There he worked primarily with the Huron (Wyandot people) for the rest of his life, except for a few years in France ...

Simon Le Moyne Father Simon Le Moyne, S.J. (22 October 1604 – 24 November 1665) was a Jesuit priest who became involved with the mission to the Hurons in the New World. Le Moyne had 16 years of education and experience in the priesthood in France before his ar ...

Antoine Daniel Antoine Daniel (27 May, 1601 – 4 July, 1648) was a French Jesuit missionary in North America, at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, and one of the eight Canadian Martyrs. Life Daniel was born at Dieppe, in Normandy, on 27 May, 1601. After two y ...

and Leonard Garreau to name a few. He remained there until after the death of Brébeuf and his companions and the destruction of the missions. He was deputed to conduct 400 Hurons to Quebec, and he established them on a reservation on the Isle of Orléans opposite the city. After Le Moyne had arranged for a mission among the Onondagas of New York, Chaumonot and Dablon were sent to organize it. This mission lasted only two years; the priests and the fifty colonists who joined them subsequently being obliged to escape in the night to avoid a general massacre.Campbell, Thomas. "Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 14 January 2018 One of Father Chaumonot's lasting achievements was the founding of the Huron mission of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in 1674. Father Chaumonot retired in 1691 to the

Jesuit College The Jesuits (Society of Jesus) in the Catholic Church have founded and managed a number of educational institutions, including the notable secondary schools, colleges and universities listed here. Some of these universities are in the United Stat ...

in Quebec City, where he died at the age of 82. He had served 52 years in his ministries.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaumonot, Pierre-Joseph-Marie 1611 births 1693 deaths 17th-century French Jesuits French Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Canada Jesuit missionaries in New France