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François Picquet (4 December 1708 – 15 July
1781) was a Sulpician priest who came to Montreal from France in 1734.
He spent the next few years studying Indian languages and customs
and serving the local parish.
From 1739 to 1749 he served at Lac des Deux
Montagnes, where there was a Sulpician mission. It was during
that period that Picquet made the decision to work with the Indians
south of the Great Lakes for conversion and to ensure their loyalty
to France. In 1748 a commitment was made by Roland-Michel
Barrin de La Galissonière, the Governor General of New
France, to send Abbé Picquet to the Thousand Islands area for
the above purpose.
In 1749, Abbé Picquet built a mission fort named Fort de La Présentation near
the junction of the Oswegatchie River and the St Lawrence River. By 1755 it had a large
population of Iroqois loyal to France. In 1758, with the Seven Years'
War intensifying, a military commander was put in charge of
that new aspect of the fort. The Abbé was displeased with this
dilution of his authority and left the fort for a period. He was
back in July, 1758, to lead his Indian troops in the battle of
Carillon. He also was part of Louis de la
Corne's excursion to the Oswego area the following year.
In 1759, the mission fort was abandoned in favour of Fort Lévis and
Picquet fled to Montreal
with his Indian troops. He left there for New Orleans where he
stayed for a time, returning to France in 1772. He took up a
ministry at Verjon and then as
a chaplain to the nuns of the Visitation. A
private audience with Pope Pius VI occurred in 1777 and he retired in
1779.
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