Constantin De L’halle

Background

He is said to have been of distinguished family, but nothing is known of his life before his arrival, June 1, 1696, in Canada.

Career

For the next five years De L’halle served as parish priest in several localities. He was for a time at Longueuil and in November 1701 signed the register at Batiscan. Meanwhile Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur Cadillac, had founded under a grant from the King a new colony on the strait that lies between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair. Cadillac, who had served some time previously as commandant at Mackinac, had a strong dislike for the Jesuit missionaries and chose that his new colony of Detroit should be served only by Recollects.

At just what time Father Constantin became chaplain for the garrison is not definitely established, because the earliest records of the parish church of Ste. Anne, Detroit, were destroyed by fire; he is said to have accompanied Cadillac to Detroit in June 1701, but his signature on the register at Batiscan shows that he was in Canada in November of that year.

The first entry on the Ste. Anne parish record is by Father Constantin, the baptism in 1703 of Cadillac's daughter. From then on the records of this mother church of the Northwest are extant. Cadillac wrote that he was well satisfied with him (Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, vol. XXXIII, 1904, p. 150). Although his mission was for Europeans, he often ministered to the neighboring Indians, many of whom had been baptized by the Jesuits at Mackinac.

In 1706, however, a revolt broke out among the Ottawa, led by the renegade known as Le Pesant. The Indians rushed through the town, found the missionary in his garden, seized and bound him. He was loosed by a friendly Indian, and sent towards the fort, but the rebels, seeing him escaping, shot and killed him. He was found to have received several knife and gunshot wounds. His body was buried beneath the church of Ste. Anne; it has been several times removed; the first time, in 1723, it was identified by the vestments. Although he was not a martyr in the strict sense of the word, Father Constantin's sad fate and untimely death have kept his memory alive.

Achievements

• Father Constantin was known for his pastoral work and for promoting the interests of religion in the infant colony.

Personality

His handwriting in the earliest records of the parish shows him to have been a man of refinement and culture.