FERLAND, John Antony Baptist, clergyman, born in Montreal, Canada, 25 December 1805; died in Quebec in 1865. In 1813 his family left Montreal and settled in Kingston. Here he resided three years, and learned to speak English. In 1816 he entered the seminary of Nicolet, where he remained fourteen years, He was ordained priest, 14 September 1828, and named vicar of Quebec the same day. After holding various pastorates, he was appointed professor in the seminary of Nicolet in 1841, and in 1848 was elected superior. In the preceding year he displayed great courage during the typhus epidemic that had broken out among the Irish emigrants at Grosselle.

In 1850 he was transferred from the seminary to the archiepiscopal residence, and was named a member of the archbishop's privy council. He became chaplain of the military hospitals of Quebec in 1855, and was appointed professor in the faculty of arts in the Loyal University the same year. He was elected dean of the faculty of arts, 18 March 1864. Between the years 1858 and 1862 he gave a course of successful public lectures on the period that began with the expulsion of the Acadians and ended with the death of Montcalm. In the midst of his labors he found time to write several books, all relating to Canada, his object being, as he says himself, to make Canada known and loved by his fellow countrymen. It is on his "Coats d'histoire du Canada" (vol. i., Quebec, 1861; vol. ii., by M. Laverdiere, 1865) that his reputation as an historian chiefly rests. He brought to light a multitude of facts that were previously unknown or misrepresented, rectified a large number of dates, and harmonized and explained the confused accounts of the early settlemerits. He was the author of "Observations sur une histoire du Canada par l'Abb6 Brasseur"; "Voyage au Labrador"; "Journal d'un voyage la cote de Gasp6"; and "La vie de Mgr. Plessis," all of which were published in Quebec.