CHAUMONOT, slYninW, PIERRE MARIE JOSEPH ( 1611-93). A French Jesuit missionary in North America. De was the son of a vine dresser, but was hrought up by his ,incle, a priest, who lived at ChAtillon. on the Seine. At the age of ten he ran off, with a companion, to study music at Beaune, Burgundy. under the Fathers of the Oratory: but. having stolen 100 els (about a dollar) from his uncle, and dread ing to be disgraced therefor at his he made a pilgrimage to Rome. whore he fell under the influence of the Jesuits, and in 1639 went to Canada as a missionary to the Indians. Soon after arriving at Quebec, he left fur work among the Hurons, and for a year was stationed at OS Ile. no- some time he busied himself gath ei lug information for a dictionary of the Huron language and dialects. and in 1540 accompanied Braeuf (q.v.) on a mission to the Neutral Na tion. a tribe which then lived west of the Iro quois. between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. This mission proving misu•cessful. he went to Saint :Michael, where he remained until 1648, when the Iroquois destroyed this settlement, to gether with nearly all the others in this vicinity, and almost exterminated the Hurons. Chau
fauna accompanied the survivors first to Saint .Joseph's island, in Lake Huron. and afterwards to the island of Orleans, where he was able to complete the work on his dictionary and prepare a grammar besides. From 1655 to 1658 he worked among the Iroquois at Onondaga, and then spent some t hoe in Montreal. where, in 1663. he founded the Society of the 1101y Family. He finally returned to the Hurons. among whom he remained until his death. llis life was full of hardship, persecution, and suffering. and. like that of the other Jesuit missionaries of the time. was remarkable for its self-abnegation and un obtrusive heroism. Chamnonot left a curious antobiograldiy• l'ir de P..11..1. rhaunionol. ecrile par Ini-nit'ine (16881. the original of which is in the HiStel-Dieu, Quebec. It was published by Shea, in New York, in lS5S. A continuation Ito 16931. Suite de la •ic de P. .1. Chau monot par no /Wry' de la campus/tile (probably Rale), was also published in New York in the same year.