DAVOST, AMBROISE, priest, Jesuit, missionary; b. 13 Nov. 1586 at Laval (Maine, France); d. 27 Sept. 1643 at sea.

Ambroise Davost became a Jesuit on 14 Oct. 1611 at Rouen, and studied principally at Bourges. In 1632 he went with Father Antoine Daniel to Cape Breton Island. He remained at the Sainte-Anne post, which was in charge of Father Daniel’s brother, Capt. Charles, until May 1663, when Champlain took him to Quebec. In 1634 he set out for the Huron country, on the same expedition as Fathers Brébeuf and Daniel; he returned from it two years later, with the young Hurons [see Teouatiron] who were to help found Father Daniel’s “seminary” near Quebec, where Davost stayed for two years as a tutor to the French children. During those years he was ill almost the whole time, particularly from scurvy; in 1643, stricken with a heavy fever, he left to seek treatment in France. He died before arriving and was buried at sea.

J. Monet

ACSM, Notes biographiques. JR (Thwaites), V, 290; XXXVI, 249. René Latourelle, “Saint Jean de Brébeuf, routier de la Huronie,” RHAF, IV (1950–51), 325–26. Fernand Potvin, “Saint Antoine Daniel, martyr canadien,” RHAF, VIII (1954–55), 558–63; IX (1955–56), 74–84, 92, 236.