CHAUMONOT, PIERRE-MARIE-JOSEPH. - Jesuit, missionary among the Canadian Indians, b. near Châtillon-sur-Seine on 9 Aug. 1611, d. at Québec on 21 Feb. 1693. Having run away from home in search of adventure, after much wandering he was received into the Society of Jesus in Rome (1632), whence he departed in 1639 for Canada. There he devoted 54 years to the conversion of the Hurons, Algonquins, and Iroquois; he witnessed the marvelous flourishing and the downfall of the mission among the Huron people, later accompanying its survivors in their changing settlements. On the island of Orléans he founded with them a village, somewhat reminiscent of the reductions of Paraguay (1651); at Côte-St-Michel, near Québec, he erected the first masonry church, dedicating it to Our Lady of Foy (1668); moving deeper into the forest, he built the sanctuary of Our Lady of Loreto (1673), in every respect similar to the Holy House of Loreto, which soon became a celebrated destination for pilgrimages. He was venerated by his people and by his fellow missionaries as one of the noblest figures of the Canadian Church.
Besides several letters and reports on his activity, he left a kind of autobiography, published later: La vie du p. J.-M. C., écrite par lui-même sur l'ordre de son supérieur, l'an 1688 (ed. M. G. Shea, New York 1858); *Suite de la vie... par un p. de la C. de J., avec
la manière d'oraison du vœu. Père, écrite par lui-même (ibid., there 1858), reproduced more accurately in A. Carayon, Documents inédits concernant la C. d. J.*, XIII (Poitiers 1869, pp. 1-197).