ll stone tablet was discovered here
by Mr. A. R. Hay, of Lower Woodstock, in June, 1890. The tablet is of
black slate, similar to that found in the vicinity, and is in length
fourteen inches by seven in width and about an inch in thickness.

It was found quite near the surface, just as it might naturally have
fallen amid the ruins of an old building, covered merely by the fallen
leaves; the inscription is in an excellent state of preservation and,
without abbreviation, reads as follows:

[Illustration: SLATE-STONE TABLET.

A relic of the Indian Chapel of Saint Jean Baptiste. Found
at Medoctec, June, 1890.]

DEO
Optimo Maximo
In honorem Divi Ioannis Baptistae
Hoc Templum posuerunt Anno Domin
(MDCCXVII).
Malecitae

Missionis Procurator Ioanne Loyard Societatis Iesu
Sacerdote.

The translation reads:--"To God, most excellent, most high, in
honor of Saint John Baptist, the Maliseets erected this church A. D.
1717, while Jean Loyard, a priest of the Society of Jesus, was
superintendent of the mission."

The inscription is clearly cut, but not with sufficient skill to
suggest the hand of a practised stone engraver. It was in all
probability the hand of Loyard himself that executed it. The name of
Danielou, his successor, faintly scratched in the lower left-hand
corner, is evidently of later date; but its presence there is of
historic interest.

The Indian church of St. John Baptist at Medoctec, erected in 1717,
was the first on the River St. John--probably the first in New
Brunswick. It received among other royal gifts a small bell which now
hangs in the belfry of the Indian chapel at Central Kingsclear, a few
miles above Fredericton. The church seems to have been such as would
impress by its beauty and adornments the little flock over which
Loyard exercised his kindly ministry. It is mentioned by one of the
Jesuit fathers as a beautiful church (belle eglise), suitably adorned
and furnished abundantly with holy vessels and ornaments of sufficient
richness.

The chapel stood for fifty years and its clear toned bell rang out the
call to prayer in the depths of the forest; but by and by priest and
people passed away till, in 1767, the missionary Bailly records in his
register that the Indians having abandoned the Medoctec village he had
caused the ornaments and furnishings of the chapel, together with the
bell, to be transported to Au