Father Pierre du Jaunay: a Jesuit missionary in North America 2

The focus of Father Pierre du Jaunay's ministry was the log church of Saint Anne, situated within the palisaded town. Behind the church a door in the palisade opened into a court enclosing a bake oven and an ice house. Close by the rectory was a blacksmith shop where Pascal Soulard and Jean Baptiste Amiot worked under contract to the priest.

When the Ottawa Indians who lived close to the Michilimackinac people decided to relocate their village in 1741, Father Pierre du Jaunay helped persuade them to move only as far as L'Arbre Croche, now called Cross Village in Michigan so that he could maintain contact with them. He then had two foci for his work - the parish ministry at Saint Anne and the mission of Saint Ignace at L'Arbre Croche. In the new location Fr Pierre established a farm. In the 1740s Fr Pierre complied a 396 page manuscript dictionary of the Ottawa language.

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