Peter Jacobs | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Peter Jacobs

Peter Jacobs, or Pahtahsega, meaning "one who makes the world brighter," Methodist missionary (b near present-day Belleville, Ont c 1807; d at Rama Reserve, Lk Simcoe, Ont 4 Sept 1890).

Jacobs, Peter

Peter Jacobs, or Pahtahsega, meaning "one who makes the world brighter," Methodist missionary (b near present-day Belleville, Ont c 1807; d at Rama Reserve, Lk Simcoe, Ont 4 Sept 1890). An early Mississauga (Ojibwa) convert to Methodism, Jacobs served first as a prayer leader and interpreter, and later as an ordained minister in Rupert's Land at Lake of the Woods, and at Fort Alexander and Norway House. Twice he visited England on missionary tours (1842-43, 1850). His published journal of his return trip in 1852 from central Canada to York Factory on Hudson Bay provides a graphic account of the perils of such an overland journey. Expelled by the Methodists (1858) for soliciting funds in the US without the church's approval, he settled at Rama, where he worked as a schoolteacher, merchant and guide.