Louis-Maxime Petit

From THE FIRST WAVE OF FRENCH MARISTS by Michael O'Meeghan SM, 2008, 11.

Fr MAXIME PETIT, aged 41 (on arrival in New Zealand in Group II on 14 Jun 1839).

He stayed at Kororareka till mid l840 when he began a mission in the upper Kaipara near Mangakahia where he lived for about nine months. Then for two years more while living in the Hokianga, he visited the Kaipara circuit till Fr Antoine Garin had made a new Kaipara base at Tangiteroria in mid-1843. With his base at Purakau, Petit remained in the Hokianga, often on his own, setting up a permanent station that included the only tidal mill in New Zealand. In late 1851 a replacement arrived to free him to follow the Marist exodus to the south. He arrived in Wellington on 4 December 1851. Early the next year he expressed his wish to return to France and left Wellington on 6 April. He died in Toulon on 4 Apri1 1858, aged 60 and was buried there.

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