Jacques Frémin

Jacques Frémin (12 March 1628, in Reims – 21 July 1691, in Quebec) was a French Jesuit missionary to New France (Canada).

Life Frémin entered the Society of Jesus in 1646, and taught for five years at Alençon. He was ordained in 1655 at Moulins. He studied languages and culture to prepare to serve as a missionary. In 1655 he sailed to Canada, where he was assigned to the Onondaga mission. The Onondaga were part of the Iroquois Confederacy and located south of Lake Ontario. He devoted the rest of his life to evangelization. He made a brief trip to France in 1659, and upon his returned served among the Montagnais near Trois-Rivières.

At the invitation of a Cayuga chief he set out, in 1666, for Lake Tiohero, near the present Cayuga. He stayed there a short time. The next year he was sent to revive the mission founded by Father Jogues among the Mohawk Nation. On his way, he founded the first Catholic settlement in Vermont, on Isle La Motte. After settling at Tinnontoguen, the Mohawk capital, he acquired the language and won respect. His chief work seems to have been to attend to the Huron captives who were already Christianized.

According to J. Monet, "Father Frémin’s intelligence was not great, and his manners lacked refinement, but his courage and good sense were particularly outstanding."