1 Father Pierre Potier

Born in Blandain, Belgium, Pierre-Phillippe Potier (1708-81) led a Jesuit mission at La Pointe de Montreal (Windsor) in western New France (Ontario). Potier was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1743, and sent to New France as a missionary. Potier was sent to the Jesuit mission at Bois Blanc (Boblo) Island (Amherstburg, Ontario), established in 1728 to serve approximately 600 Christianized Huron settlers. In 1747, Potier led his followers to a mission site less vulnerable to attack at La Pointe de Montréal, across the river from Fort Pontchartrain (Detroit). In 1767, there were some 60 families living in the area, and the parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption was formally established. Today, Potier’s linguistic studies – Radices linguae huronicae (1751) and Façons de parler proverbiales, triviales, figurées, Ec des Canadiens au XVIIIe siécle (1758) – provide the best key to 18th-century Huron and French dialects spoken in New France.

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