DU PERON, FRANÇOIS, priest, Jesuit, missionary, called Anonchiara by the Indians; b. 26 Jan. 1610 at Lyon, France; d. 10 Nov. 1665 at Chambly.

Father Du Peron joined the Jesuits at Avignon on 23 Feb. 1627 and studied at Dôle, Vesoul, and Lyon. On 1 May 1638 he left for Canada. He was sent to minister to the Hurons; on the way he came across Father Simon Le Moyne and helped him. On 27 April 1639 he wrote to his brother, Joseph-Imbert, also a Jesuit, a letter that describes in detail his labours in the Huron country. Leaving this mission in 1649, he sailed back to France on 23 Aug. 1650 and remained there for five years. In 1657 he seems to have accompanied Father Ragueneau to the Onondaga country, to have returned to spend a period at Quebec, and to have left again for France. In 1664 he was at Carpentras, in France, requesting in a letter to the general of the Society that he be sent back to Canada. He reached Quebec on 30 June 1665. Appointed chaplain to Fort Saint-Louis, he died shortly afterwards in his new office and was buried at Quebec on 16 Nov. 1665. His remains and those of Jean de Quen and Jean Liégeois were discovered in 1878 and were transferred to the Ursuline chapel in 1891.

His brother, Joseph-Imbert Du Peron, carried on his ministry in Canada from 1640 to 1658, working principally in the regions of the Richelieu and Trois-Rivières and at Sillery.

J. Monet

ACSM, ff.237, 240. JR (Thwaites), XIV, 288. Rochemonteix, Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle-France au XVII^e siècle, I, 226. [C.-E. Rouleau, Découverte des restes ... (Québec, 1893).]