Gabriel Dreuillets
Gabriel Dreuillets
Jesuit missionary, born France , 1610 ; died Quebec, Canada , 1681 . Having been given a mission among the Abnaki, he traveled from Quebec to what is now Augusta, Maine, being the first white man to make that journey, and established a mission on the site of Norridgewock. It is thought that he said Mass privately in Boston, whither he went as governmental envoy, 1650, to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Puritans. He had a remarkable knowledge of Indian languages.