The Bay Quinté region may be regarded as the earliest mission field in America. Of the four Missionaries who came with Champlain from France, in 1615, one at least accompanied him in his journey up the Ottawa, across to Georgian Bay, and down the Trent to the Bay. This was in July, and Champlain was under the necessity of remaining in this region until the following spring, in the meantime visiting several of the tribes all along the north shore of Lake Ontario. During this period the zealous Recollet earnestly labored to lay the foundation of Christianity among the natives, and planted the “antient mission” spoken of by father Picquet, 1751. We have positive statements to this effect. Probably when Champlain returned to Montreal, in the spring of 1616, he was not accompanied by the missionary; who stayed to establish the work he had commenced. We find it stated that the earliest missionaries to this region were M. Dolliere de Kleus, and Abbé D’Urfé, priests of the Saint Sulpice Seminary. Picquet remarks that the ancient mission at the Bay Quinté was established by Kleus and D’Urfé.
In June, 1571, DeCourcelles, as we have seen, visited Lake Ontario, coming directly up the St. Lawrence. On this occasion, it is recorded, he sent messages from Cataraqui “to a few missionaries residing among the Indians.” Two years later, when Frontenac came, with a view of establishing a fort, we find it stated that as he approached Cataraqui, he was met by a canoe with the “Abbé D’Urfé, and the Captains of the Five Nations.” The following year, 1674, LaSalle, in his petition for the grant of Fort Frontenac, and adjacent lands, proposed “to build a church when there will be 100 persons, meanwhile to entertain one or two of the Recollet Friars to perform divine service, and administer the sacraments there.” In the reply to this petition by the King, it was stipulated that LaSalle should “cause a church to be erected within six years of his grant.”
When Bradstreet, nearly a hundred years later, in 1751, captured Fort Frontenac, the Commandant, M. de Moyan, obtained the promise from Bradstreet, to “permit the ornaments and sacred vessels of the chappel to be removed in the luggage of the Chaplain.”
By the foregoing, we learn the interesting fact, that for 150 years before the capture of Canada by the English, and nearly 170 before Upper Canada was first settled, there existed at the Bay Quinté an active mission of Roman Catholic Christianity. The exact location of the “chappel” cannot be fixed; but there is every reason to suppose that it was upon the shores of the Bay, at some distance westward from Cataraqui, inasmuch as reference is made to the chapel as quite apart from the Fort, at Cataraqui.
From the nature of the relics found in the Indian burying ground, near the Carrying Place, at Bald Bluff, by Weller’s Bay, it might even have been situated there. Silver crosses, and other evidences of Roman Catholic Christianity, have been found in this place. Father Picquet remarks that the land was not good, but the quarter is beautiful.
There seems every probability that not many years after the establishment of the mission by the Bay Quinté, another was established in the neighborhood of Lake Huron, or Georgian Bay. Upon the river Wye, some six miles north of Penetanguishene, Pe-na-tang-que shine, so called by the Indians upon first seeing the sand banks, meaning “see the sand is falling,” was established a French fort, at an early date, the foundation of which may yet be seen. It appears likely that at this point, at the Christian Islands, (a significant name,) situated between the Manitoulin Islands and the mainland; and also at Michilmicinac, were commenced missionary labors by the Recollets and others. We find it stated that in 1679 there was a chapel at Michilmicinac, which may refer to the Christian Islands. Here LaSalle, on his way westward, stopped and attended mass, with the celebrated Recollet, Pére Hennepin.
The natives were strongly attached to these French missionaries. Presents of porcelaine beads to make wampum, with a kind demeanor, soon won many of them to become Roman Catholics; and the cross was set up in their midst. And the time came when they were willing to acknowledge themselves under the protection of, and subject to the French King.
At the present site of Ogdensburgh, in the year 1748, “Francis Picquet, Doctor of the Sarbonne, King’s Missionary, and Prefect Apostolic to Canada,” began to found the mission of La Presentation. By the river Oswegotchie, then called by the Indians Soegasti, he succeeded in planting a mission, which became the most important in all Canada. The object was to convert the Six Nations to Roman Catholic Christianity, and thereby to win them from their connection with the English. M. Picquet was a devoted man. “He received at that time neither allowance nor presents. From the King he had but one half pound of pork a day, which made the savages say, when they brought him a buck and some partridges, “We doubt not, Father, but that there have been disagreeable expostulations in your stomach, because you had nothing but pork to eat. Here is something to put your affairs in order.” They sometimes brought him trout weighing eighty pounds.
In 1749, when French interests were declining in the new world, and when every effort to secure the alliance of the Iroquois was devised, Governor de Veudreuil sent the Rev. Abbe Picquet of the missionary house at La Presentation, he being well and favorably known among the Five Nations. The object was to draw within the bounds of La Presentation many of the families, where they should not only be taught the Catholic religion, but also the elements of husbandry. It was somewhat the same idea as that which led the Rev. William Case, in later days, to domesticate the Mississaugas on the Grape Island. L’Abbe Picquet was successful in his mission, and in 1751, he had 396 heads of families living at the place. Among these were the most distinguished and influential families of the Iroquois. The settlement was divided into three villages, and much taste and skill were displayed in the planning. Great attractiveness characterized the place up to the conquest of Canada.
In the month of June, 1751, Father Picquet set out upon a voyage up to Fort Frontenac, and thence up the Bay Quinté, and the River Trent to Fort Toronto, and so on around Lake Ontario. He embarked in a King’s canoe, accompanied by one bark, in which were five trusty savages. The memoir of this trip is curious and edifying.