The Rt. Rev. James M. Reardon, P.A.: “George Anthony Belcourt, Pioneer
Missionary of the Northwest,” pp. 75-89 (Access
article in HTML) (Access
article in PDF) CCHA, Report, 18 (1951), 75-89 George Anthony Belcourt by "He was always a man of the people, ready to support
them in every way, a splendid type of missionary priest, |
established the first mission In 1832 exclusively for the savages he “understood the language of the savage better than the savages understood it themselves.” he Baie St. Paul became his official residence during all his years in the Red River Valley, |
Father Belcourt started a school in 1834, despite the Bishop’s wishes, |
printing his catechism in Chippewa language; 1838 and his grammar was published with the aid of a subscription from the clergy |
founded mission Wabassimong (White Dog) 1840 on the Winnipeg river |
Father Belcourt "went to the prairies" autumn 1845 for six weeks as chaplain to the half-breeds on their semi-annual buffalo hunt: 1776 buffaloes killed by 55 hunters in 6 weeks; choice meat, valued at 1700 pounds sterling, dried, ground to powder and mixed with fat and berries, made into pemmican for winter use in the settlement. |
see James Reardon father's birthplace
lot 34 1845,(
mother 1847 and father Reardon
August 31, 1872) with
a brief history of Prince Edward Island HERE Prince Edward Island in the 20th Century. During the first half of the 19th century, many Islanders managed to acquire title to their lands. In the north shore region, many lots had a higher proportion of resident ownership than in other parts of the Island. Lot 18 was largely freehold by 1850, as were lots 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37. |
description letter to Bishop Loras (Dubuque) 1850 printed in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith for July, 1851 |
Fort Berthold
village of the Mandans and 1850
Gros Ventres on the Missouri |
The
Call is Answered
George Antoine Belcourt was born April
22, 1803, at La Baie du Febvre, Yamaska County, in the Province of Quebec,
Canada, of a family that came to that locality in March, 1738. He was the
eldest child of Antoine Belcourt and Josephte Lemire, married February 23,
1802. His parents
lived in moderate circumstances cultivating the farm bought by the paternal
grandfather in 1738. Little is known of his boyhood. His home training was
undoubtedly similar to that given in the ordinary family circle among the
French Canadians where love of God, loyalty to the Catholic Church and obedience
to lawful authority were inculcated as fundamental principles of everyday
life mind conduct. He received his first Communion in 1814 and was confirmed
by the Bishop of Quebec. From
the local school he passed to the Petit Séminaire at Nicolet, then
in the Diocese of Quebec, but an episcopal see since July 10, 1885. He entered
it at the age of thirteen and, at the end of his philosophical course in 1823,
was enrolled in the theological department where he completed his studies
for the priesthood and was ordained March
10, 1827, by Archbishop Panet of Quebec, in the seminary chapel. After
several assignments as assistant in different parishes he was appointed
pastor of Ste. Martine, Chateauguay County, in the baptismal register of
which he made his first entry on October 2, 1830, and his last on February
21 of the following year. His knowledge of English enabled him to be of
service to the Irish Catholics in the neighbourhood. While
he was pastor of this parish an event occurred which changed the whole current
of his life, and precipitated him from the comparative ease and security
of a pastoral charge in the Province of Quebec, into the hardship and hazard
of a missionary adventure which was to endure for almost three decades of
unremitting labor among the Indians of the western plains of Canada and
the United States. As a young levite he had dreamed of such a career, and,
shortly after ordination, offered himself for missionary work in the Red
River colony in what is now the Province of Manitoba, but for a long time
there seemed to be little prospect that his offer would be accepted. |
In the Red River Valley When Father Belcourt
arrived in St. Boniface he was the
third priest in the mission, the others being Fathers Harper and Boucher.
He was immediately assigned to the Cathedral to assist the Bishop, with the
understanding that he devote every spare moment of his time to the study of
the Chippewa language as a prerequisite to the work of christianizing them.
It was a difficult language to learn as there was neither text book nor dictionary.
He
was the first to dedicate himself to the laborious ministry of instructing
the savages of the Red River and in that capacity he rendered eminent service
to religion.
He possessed
unusual linguistic ability and made such rapid progress in his studies that
in a year he was prepared to instruct the Indians. As early as August 2,
1832, he wrote to a friend in
Quebec, ‘Already my tongue begins to bend like that of a Chippewa and to
gabble a little Cree,” and, less than two years later, he “would rather write
in Chippewa than in French.” One who knew him well declared that he “understood
the language of the savage better than the savages understood it themselves.” In
1832 he established the first mission
exclusively for the savages at Prairie Fournier
(Baker’s Prairie) sixty miles west of St. Boniface but, owing to the raids of
the ‘Gros Ventres’ had to abandon it the next year. He transferred the mission
to Baie St. Paul, thirty miles nearer St.
Boniface and twelve miles west of White Horse Prairie in 1834, where he began the arduous task of
teaching the Indians how to farm and cultivate the arts of civilized life
while instructing them in religion. On a tract of land given by Governor Simpson
of the Hudson’s Bay Company he erected a log chapel, twenty feet square,
with living quarters for himself, and several small cabins for the Indians
surrounded by diminutive farms to be cultivated by them. Baie St. Paul became
his official residence during all
his years in the Red River Valley, and for a long time it was the only parish
with a resident pastor. This
method of dealing with the savages was a radical departure from the one in
vogue prior to his time when the Indians were first christianized and then
domesticated, and ultimately it did not prove a success. Although the Bishop
did not approve the plan because the Indians were of a roving disposition,
he permitted Father Belcourt to have his own way for the sake of peace and
harmony, procured from the H.B.C. hoes and plows, and supplied a yoke of
oxen to aid the savages in cultivating the soil and planting potatoes and
maize. During
the first year Father Belcourt estimated that he had one hundred and fifty
Indians attending religious instruction, of whom he baptized seventy-five.
He had to be very prudent in admitting the neophytes to baptism. Their sincerity
had to he tested. Moreover, the women and children who would embrace the faith
had to defer to the decision of their elders, many of whom were polygamists.
Another obstacle to conversion was the scandalous lives of many Catholics
and the diversity of doctrine characteristic of Protestant denominations
working among the Indians. It was
not until 1836 that Father Belcourt had the consolation of admitting to First
Communion five neophytes who had been under instruction for three years
– the first fruits –of the Chippewa nation in the middle West. The social
degradation of the savages had an effect on his work. The tendency of the
converts was to revert to the level of the tribe. Many of the baptized returned
to their former modes of life and were christians only in name. This was
a source of great discouragement to him. In the
meantime he had acquired an ascendancy over the minds and hearts of the
half-breeds that increased with the years. They had fullest confidence in
him and were convinced that he had their welfare at heart. As early as 1834
he was called upon by Governor Simpson to use his influence to disperse
a mob bent on attacking Fort Garry to avenge an injury inflicted on one of
their number by a clerk in the Company’s employ. He
persuaded them to return peacefully to their homes and secured a monetary
indemnity for the injured man.
At the suggestion
of Bishop Provencher Father Belcourt went to Rainy Lake in 1838 to investigate the possibility of
opening a mission among the Indians of that locality, but he decided against
it because the H.B.C. persisted in supplying the Indians with rum of which
they were so inordinately fond that they were unwilling to exchange it for
the gospel. Later on, however, he was to sow the seed of faith in that stony
soil despite the competition of the Wesleyan ministers who were entrenched
there.
In August
of that year {1838 } he went to Quebec to arrange for the publication
of his grammar and dictionary of the Chippewa language and, on December 4,
Archbishop Signay confided to him the pastoral care of St. Joseph’s, Point Levis, which he administered
“with a zeal that produced the most happy results.” The Society for the Propagation of the
Faith agreed to underwrite the cost of printing his catechism in the Chippewa
language; and his grammar was published with the aid of a subscription from
the clergy. He also issued a pamphlet of one hundred and forty-six
pages in French on “The
Principles of the Sauteaux Idiom” for the convenience and instruction
of prospective students. In answer to the appeal of the savages to whom he
had ministered, and despite the opposition of his relatives and the plea of
his parishioners, he went back to Baie St. Paul the next spring {1839 } and was welcomed by the Bishop who desired him
to finish his dictionary as
soon as possible and prepare some one to succeed himself on the mission. In the autumn he visited Rainy Lake and Duck Bay
but it was too late in the season to start a mission and he retired to Bane
St. Paul for the winter months and employed his mechanical skill in carving
one hundred and thirty oak balusters for the sanctuary of the Cathedral and
one hundred and fifty candlesticks for the chapels and side altars. In the year 1840 he founded a mission at Wabassimong (White Dog) on the Winnipeg river, three hundred miles east of the colony, where he built a log chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy, and houses for the savages with the usual small fields around them, and supplied them with cattle from St. Boniface – a duplication of the plan followed at Baie St. Paul. The colony disappeared in less than ten years either for lack of a christian foundation or because of the apathy of the Oblates to whom he confided it in 1848 and who maintained that it furnished few christians and no farmers. In a letter to the secretary of the Archbishop of Quebec, Father Belcourt said that he had seventy-four catechumens at Wabassimong when he turned it over to the Oblates and an excellent farm well stocked with animals and farm implements of all kinds; that indifference and laziness had plunged that unhappy tribe into a worse state than the first and made the neighboring people more difficult to convert; that the chapel had been sold and nothing left but the ruins. He added that his mission at Baie St. Paul and that at White Horse had not seen a priest for a year. “It will suffer the fate of Wabassimong.” In the autumn of 1845 Father Belcourt "went to the prairies" for six weeks as chaplain to the half-breeds on their semi-annual buffalo hunt and, in a letter published two years later at Quebec in connection with the Northwest missions, gave a vivid pen-picture of the excitement and spirit of adventure connected with it. He amplified the description in a letter to Bishop Loras of Dubuque in 1850 which was printed in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith for July, 1851. During the hunt 1776 buffaloes were killed by 55 hunters in six weeks and the choice meat, valued at 1700 pounds sterling, dried, ground to powder and mixed with fat and berries, made into pemmican for winter use in the settlement. He was back at Baie St. Paul on October 24 {1851} and spent the winter teaching the Oblate Fathers who had recently arrived the Chippewa language.Among
his pupils was the youthful Father Taché
destined to succeed Bishop Provencher and to be the first Archbishop of
St. Boniface.
In the
spring there was an epidemic of dysentery and measles and he was kept so
busy ministering to the stricken that he had to forego the annual visitation
of his missions and stations. At the earnest solicitation of the half-breeds
he went with them on their summer hunt and his services as a physician were
in such constant demand that he exhausted his supply of medicine and had to
replenish his stock at the trading-post of the federal agent in the Fort Berthold
village of the Mandans and Gros Ventres on the Missouri, where he was given
an opportunity to preach to these tribes, through an interpreter, and had
the happiness of baptizing fourteen children and instructing two hundred
adults before returning to the hunters’ camp to evade the warlike Sioux.
These excursions did not interfere with his spiritual work. He spent the
summer travelling throughout the West, founding missions, building chapels
and saying Mass in different localities from Rainy Lake to the Saskatchewan
river, returning each winter to Baie St. Paul. He came
into conflict with the H.B.C. on the question of its alleged monopoly of
the fur trade as it became increasingly arbitrary in its dealings with the
half-breeds especially. The upshot of it was that, on February 17, 1847,
he prepared, at their request, a petition to the Queen of England seeking
a redress of their grievances. It bore the signatures of nine hundred and
seventy-seven half-breeds and was taken to England by James Sinclair and
presented to Her Majesty’s Government through the Society of St. Thomas of
Canterbury whose zeal in defending the rights of Catholics merited the highest
praise. A similar petition was sent by the English. speaking members of the
colony. These petitions caused quite a stir in England. Earl Grey, the Colonial
Secretary, asked that the charges be made more specific, consulted officials
who were not in sympathy with the demands of the petitioners and finally decided
to drop the matter. The influence of the Company was a determining factor. In the
meantime the Archbishop of Quebec, at the request of Governor Simpson, recalled
him from the Red River. When he arrived in Montreal he immediately took
up the gauntlet, wrote the Governor who was in the East, demanding a full
retractation of the charges and notifying him that, if it were not made
in formal and acceptable terms, he would be summoned to justify his action
before the Society of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The Governor was alarmed
and tried to make out that it was a misunderstanding for which the Factors
were to blame. He expressed regret for the injustice done Father Belcourt
and asked the Archbishop to send him back to the Red River to resume his
missionary work. Father Belcourt declined to return except to Pembina, maintaining
that he had been forced to leave the Red River and the Indians to whom he
was so tenderly attached and who were in despair at his departure. He wrote
Bishop Loras of Dubuque and received a cordial invitation to take charge
of Pembina which he did in June, 1848. |
In
the Land of the Dakotas
On June
1, 1848, Father Belcourt arrived in Pembina, via Detroit, Galena and St.
Paul, to resume the work of evangelization relinquished by Father Dumoulin
in 1823, and was welcomed by pagans and christians. He was the second resident
pastor in what is now North Dakota, a position he occupied till 1859 when
his sojourn in the West came to an end. Before
the end of the year he erected on the west bank of the Red River a log chapel,
20 by 30 feet, the sacristy of a larger church to be built later on. It was
even then too small for the congregation, affording standing-room only, with
the consequent forfeiture of pew rent, an important item for an impoverished
pastor. The furnishings were most meager. There was no bell, no censer,
no ostensorium and only a very small ciborium borrowed from Bishop Provencher.
He had one first Communion class, and ninety-two catechumens – half-breeds
and savages – under instruction. They were diligent and docile. His first
baptism, that of Francis Cline, was on August 14. He bought grain for seeding
and had a few cows and oxen. His daily Mass was attended by one or more
members of each family even in the coldest weather. He also built a presbytery,
16 by 20, with two small rooms and a community room and bought lumber for
other buildings to be erected the next summer. Shortly
after his arrival Father Belcourt realized the poverty of the mission and
wrote the Secretary of the Archbishop of Quebec that he would starve were
he not able to sell his handiwork as a joiner and carpenter. The people were
too poor to offer anything for his support. For two years he was forced to
exist on two hundred dollars sent him by the Bishop of Montreal, and out of
that he had to pay for building materials brought from St. Paul, six hundred
miles away. He had fifty children in school and all the instruction was in
Chippewa. His greatest need was for a Canadian priest who could speak that
language to assist him. As if
in answer to his prayer Father Lacombe came from Montreal in the autumn of
1849, and soon was so proficient in the Chippewa language that he was able
to teach in the school. They lived in a log house built for their accommodation
while the original presbytery was occupied by Miss Lefebvre, the school
teacher, Isabelle Gladu, the housekeeper, a half-breed cook and other servants
– a rather costly household for a missionary who had to have recourse to
manual labor for his daily bread. In the
meantime he was not forgotten by his friends north of the line, who appealed
to him in their difficulties. When a half-breed named William Sayer, and
three others, were arrested in March, 1849, for the illicit purchase of
furs from the Indians, action was taken by their friends to prevent their
conviction. An appeal was made to Father Belcourt who counselled them to
fight, if necessary, for their rights. When the accused were brought to
trial three hundred armed half-breeds, under the leadership of Louis Riel,
surrounded the Court House and intimidated the Judge. The accused were acquitted
and the half-breeds jubilantly declared that thereafter trade was free.
Public opinion forced an end to the monopoly of the H.B.C. Some
time in 1853 Father Belcourt took up his official residence in St. Joseph,
now Walhalla, built a church, school and presbytery and the first flour
mill in North Dakota, thus taking an active part in the industrial as well
as the religious development of the country. He visualized it as “the greatest
center of the West,” the metropolis of the future, the capital of the state
that was to be. It was laid out for a big city with large squares and wide
streets crossing each other at right angles, on a plateau two hundred feet
above the river which ran through it and provided water power adequate for
all purposes. The soil was fertile and there were indications of iron ore
and coal in the vicinity. All it needed to fulfil its destiny was a garrison
and a few public buildings to prove that the United States Government would
protect its citizenry; but these requisites of a modem city were slow in
coming, notwithstanding the efforts made by Father Belcourt to convince the
government of their necessity. From
St. Joseph he travelled in all directions over the state and evangelized
the whole of the Turtle Mountain region. To his teaching is mainly due the
present civilization of the Chippewa Indians in North Dakota and across
the border; and it was largely because of his influence that they did not
join the Sioux in the uprising of 1862. Bishop Shanley of Fargo declared
that “If any Catholic priest more than another had done meritorious and lasting
work for the benefit of the state, George Anthony Joseph Belcourt was the
man.” Of all the priests of pioneer days in North Dakota he was the most
worthy of honor. The winter excursions were hazardous in the extreme. That of 1850 almost ended disastrously for him, his guides and dog teams. They were caught in a blizzard, floundered through the drifting snow till they came to the ridge of the mountains which they followed to the shelter of the loftiest peak in the range which rose to a height of 580 feet above the plain. They burrowed into the snow and waited for the storm to abate. He offered a Mass of thanksgiving for their delivery on January 25, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, blessed a great wooden cross, planted it on the summit of the hill, which he named Butte St. Paul, and dedicated it to the conversion of the Indians of the vicinity. In the course of time the cross disappeared; but eighty years afterwards its well-preserved butt, eighteen inches long and as large as an average telephone pole, was discovered and a cairn twelve feet high erected to mark the spot, a commemorative bronze plaque set into it, and ten acres surrounding it designated a state park. A few years later the surviving relatives of Father Belcourt granted permission for the removal of his remains from Memramcook, New Brunswick, to the foot of Butte St. Paul for interment in the soil blessed by his apostolic labors. The second world war prevented the carrying out of the project which has been in abeyance ever since. Father
Lacombe withdrew from the mission in 1851, joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate,
and became the famous “Blackrobe” of western Canada. He was succeeded by
Father Fayolle for about a year and after an interval Father Goiffon was sent
from St. Paul to become the successor of Father Belcourt in the Pembina area.
In November, 1860, this good priest was caught in a blizzard for five days
and had to have his right limb amputated at the knee and his left at the
ankle. Despite this handicap he was a pastor in the Diocese of St. Paul for
over forty years. The Catholic
Almanacs from 1854 to 1859 enable us to visualize some of the more important
undertakings of Father Belcourt. St. Joseph was a prosperous mission of 1500
half-breeds with a school directed by the Sisters of the Propagation of the
Faith, a religious community of half-breeds founded by him to teach the children
in English, French and Chippewa. They had one hundred pupils under their care
in the academy presided over by Mother Francis Xavier, the Superior, and
two of them were in charge of a school in Pembina. The community did not
number more than seven and went out of existence shortly after Father Belcourt
left for the East in March, 1859. In November, 1854, he made a trip to Washington and was asked to submit in writing the grievances and demands of the people of Pembina. He asked that the Government make a treaty with the Indians for the purchase of their lands and give the half-breeds a feudal right to their holdings; prohibit the hunting of the buffalo on the western plains by half-breeds from Canada; put a stop to the traffic in intoxicants fostered by the H.B.C. among the Indians south of the line; station in Pembina a permanent garrison to protect the citizens in their constitutional rights and defend them against the incursions of the Sioux who terrify them, steal their horses, prevent the cultivation of the fields and even murder them with impunity. To do that effectively the officer in charge of the troops should be authorized to arm the half-breeds, if necessary, to aid in putting an end to these depredations. With the guarantee of such protection thousands of half-breeds would migrate from the Selkirk Settlement to the Pembina area because they dislike the H.B.C. and its dealings. He also
asked for assistance in maintaining the school established six years previously
for the teaching of English, French and Indian in which nearly one hundred
children follow courses in reading, writing, arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy,
domestic science and music. In addition to that he had nearly as many studying
christian doctrine two hours every day. After
the recall of Father Fayolle in 1855 Father Belcourt was without an assistant
in St. Joseph and Pembina. In 1857 he was anxious to visit Quebec but could
not leave the mission unattended. His only companion was Brother Timothy of
the Brothers of the Holy Family from St. Paul, a young man of zeal and energy,
who wore the soutane and made himself useful about the place. Father Belcourt
also attended Pembina and in November of that year was host to Bishop Taché
and two priests in the little presbytery of the Assumption. The Bishop had
a narrow escape from drowning while crossing the Red River. The ferry boat,
overloaded with horses and carriages, began to ship water as soon as it left
the wharf and the Bishop had to jump into the river up to his waist in cold
water to escape being drawn into the channel, and to remain an hour in it
before reaching the bank. After the publication of his grammar in Quebec in 1839 he made several efforts to find a publisher for his dictionary of the Chippewa language. Finally the Smithsonian Institution in Washington agreed to do so provided he would supervise the work and correct the proofs. He was unable to accept the offer because he could not afford to live in Washington while the book was coming from the press. For years the manuscript was preserved in the episcopal residence at St. Boniface. It was ultimately published under the direction of Father Lacombe and was invaluable to all who wished to learn the language. It is in French and Chippewa and ‘gives the etymology of each word, and the complete particles which throw much light upon the knowledge of this language and enables one to seize the genius of it.” The author tells us that the language is richer than it is commonly thought to be and bears a great resemblance to the ancient languages, especially the Greek, with which it has much in common in the manner of forming words by the use of radicals. This makes the learning of it difficult at first, nearly equal to the learning of two languages, but it gives great facility in expressing one’s thoughts accurately and forcefully. |
A
Decade on “The Island”
When
Father Belcourt left Dakota in March, 1859, he, undoubtedly had the intention
of re-entering the ministry in his native province and spending the remainder
of his days in the peace and quiet of a pastoral life far removed from the
stirring scenes and strenuous activity of the western plains where he had
passed nearly thirty years as a missionary among the Indians and half-breeds.
But it was not to be. His active career was not to end until death summoned
him to lay aside the burden of parochial administration and seek the reward
exceeding great. Shortly
after his return from the West, the Right Reverend Bernard D. McDonald,
Bishop of Charlottetown, P.E.I. wrote Archbishop Turgeon of Quebec requesting
the services of a French-speaking priest to take charge of the parish of
Rustico with the mission of Hope River, and Father Belcourt was selected
for that purpose. He arrived
in Rustico November 1, 1859, a few weeks before Bishop McDonald, who had
resided in that parish since his consecration in 1837, transferred his residence
to Charlottetown where he died on December 30. Father Belcourt was deacon
at the Bishop’s funeral on January 4, 1860. The Church
of St. Augustine, built under the direction of the Bishop, served as the
Cathedral of the diocese for more than twenty years. It was a frame structure
of generous proportions, with a three-storey square campanile, surmounted
by a cross, with side doors opening into the vestibule. The interior was
unfinished until 1845. It was the largest and most beautiful church in the
diocese. In it Father Belcourt performed his first official act –the baptism
of Modeste Doucet on December 11, 1859 – the beginning of a pastorate extending
over a decade of years, during which he built the stone structure which still
serves as the parish hall, and established the Farmers’ Bank which was in
active operation from 1864 to 1892. To complement
and enhance its work the pastor organized a study club, known as the Institute,
whose members met twice a month to receive instructions from him. All had
to be total abstainers from intoxicants. Furthermore, to encourage the reading
of good books he established a parish library and for several years received
from Emperor Napoleon III a gift of one thousand francs through the good offices
of his friend, the historian, Rameau de Saint-Père, who kept up a
friendly correspondence with him for fourteen years and aided him in his
colonization projects on the mainland. At each meeting one of the members
had to give a summary of the book he had read since the previous meeting. He installed
a carillon of three bells in the church tower and, with the aid of Professor
Landry, organized a band which was for many years the pride and glory of the
parish. To meet
the difficulty resulting from an inadequate supply of land, he encouraged
the younger members of the parish to migrate to neighboring regions where
good land was available. In May,
1860, the first group of five families left Rustico by schooner for Matapedia,
and a few months later thirteen others joined them. The next year twenty-two
additional families followed and within a few years several others went
to the colony. They had to endure many hardships in the beginning but the
descendants of these early settlers now constitute the populous parishes
of St. Alexis and St. François and are happy and prosperous. Later
on a number of families left Rustico to form a new parish at Bloomfield
on the Island. Not long
after he came to the parish he cruised a tract of land in Kent County, New
Brunswick, which Bishop Sweeney of St. John had secured from the government
for colonization purposes. He was accompanied by Joseph Arsenault and Felix
Poirier of Egmont Bay, P.E.I., and guided by Jean Louis Girouard of St.
Mary’s in Kent County. The survey was made in 1860 and, four years later,
the first settlers – from Egmont Bay and Rustico – took possession of their
holdings on what was known as “the Bishop’s land” now part of the parish
of St. Paul in Kent County, New Brunswick. In October,
1865, Father Belcourt resigned the parish of St. Augustine and, on return
to Quebec, was appointed pastor of St. Claire in Dorchester County, where
he remained only a few weeks before asking to be allowed to resume charge
of his Acadian flock at Rustico. He was back on the Island before the end
of November. Father Beleourt’s claim to remembrance lies not only in what he accomplished in establishing parishes and laying the foundations of the Church, but even more perhaps in his training of other missionaries in the Chippewa language. His dictionary and grammar of this language have been indispensable aids to others who have followed him in this field. He was a linguist of more than. ordinary ability, who spoke and wrote English, French and Chippewa with ease and fluency. He grasped the genius of the Chippewa language with rare perspicacity, and he was an authority without peer on the history, traditions, customs and character of the Indians and half-breeds of the West. He wrote text-books, catechism and prayerbooks, as well as his grammar and dictionary, and throughout his missionary career he kept up a voluminous correspondence, much of which is preserved in the diocesan archives of Quebec and Montreal. One article on the Hudson Bay Company fills thirty pages in the first volume of the Minnesota Historical Collections, 1850 to 1856. His letters reveal the character of the man. He possessed a forceful personality, a high degree of intelligence, a keen mind and indomitable courage. He was a man of action and vision, somewhat fickle and self-willed, not to say obstinate, easily discouraged and extremely sensitive, but withal, devoted and generous in the service -of God and his fellowmen. He possessed mechanical ability of a high order, was a skilled carpenter, an expert joiner and blacksmith, a designer and builder of houses, schools, boats, carts, farm implements and a grist-mill. He was a willing and tireless worker, but a poor team-mate, because he wanted his own way, regardless even of the wishes of his superiors. He was always a man of the people, ready to support them in every way, a splendid type of missionary priest, who gave himself unreservedly to the service of those among whom he labored. His life story should be of interest to all who appreciate heroic endeavour, to all who would recall the labour and the suffering that were endured to bring the faith to the aborigines and to minister to the spiritual needs of the early colonists on the western plains and on the sea-girt islands of the Atlantic. |