Étienne (Br Élie-Régis) Marin

From THE FIRST WAVE OF FRENCH MARISTS by Michael O'Meeghan SM, 2008, 12.

Br ELIE-REGIS (Étienne) MARIN, aged 29 (on arrival in New Zealand in Group II on 14 Jun 1839).

A carpenter by trade, he worked initially in the Hokianga, and helped transfer the mission from its temporary site at Papakawau to Purakau. In 1840, with Frs Epalle and Petit-Jean he established the mission at Whangaroa, remaining there four years, for at least two of which he was mostly alone. Then he was sent to Whakatane with Fr Lampila to plant a mission there. He moved to the new Wellington diocese with the main Marist transfer in 1850, and was soon building a flour mill to augment Fr Comte's farm at Otaki. He then spent at least 15 years on the Whanganui River mission, first at Kaiwhaiki and later at Kauaeroa till the latter station was destroyed in the Pai Marire thrust towards Wanganui. When peace retumed to Taranaki in 1869 he supervised the building of a monastery-school at Korn which Fr Rolland hoped would attract young Catholic men discharged from the army. He died there on 24 April 1872, aged 62. The planned town of Koru never developed. The approximate site of its small cemetery is known but absorbed in farmland, and Elie-Regis's grave has never been identified.

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