Claude-Goefroi Coquart

Claude-Godefroi Coquart

Missionary and army chaplain, b. in Pays de Caux, France, 20 February, 1706; d. at Chicoutini, Canada, 4 July, 1765. He began his novitiate in the Jesuit college at Paris, 20 May, 1726, studied at the College of Louis le Grand and at La Flèch, and was professor at Arras and Hesdin. In 1740 he set out for Canada, and in the following year, journeyed with Verendrye to Fort La Reine. He probably returned with Verendrye when that explorer was compelled to resign his position as commandant in the North-West. From 1746 to 1757 Father Coquart laboured on the Saguenay mission and later at Quebec. After the conquest of Canada, he attempted to settle a few Jesuits in Acadia, but the English authorities forced them to leave. He then resumed his labors in the Saguenay region, where he closed his missionary career. He has left an Abnaki grammar and dictionary. In the Jesuit Relations (Thwaites ed., LXIX) is a memoir written by him for the Intendant of Canada, in which he describes the so-called "King's Posts" of Eastern Canada with practical observations and suggestions that make it a valuable document for economic study.

Rochemonteix, Les Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1906), I, iii; Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901), LXIX, 289,290. Pilling, Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages (Washington, 1891), 94; Bois, Notice sur Rév. Claude Godfroid Coquart (copy in library of Wis. Hist. Society); Sadlier, An Historic Spot on the Catholic World (1893), LIX, 309, seq.; Prud'homme, Revue Canadienne (1897), 81-92; Brown, The Two Missionary Priests at Mackinac; Idem, St. Anne's Parish Register at Michillimackinac (Chicago, 1889).

EDWARD P. SPILLANE