Rev. Benjamin Marie Petit, a Catholic missionary from Rennes, France, arrived in northern Indiana in November 1837 to serve the Potawatomi and by June 1838 had learned much of their language and culture and had instructed and baptized many. When the Potawatomi were forcibly removed from Indiana in September 1838, they asked Father Petit to accompany them, and after Bishop Simon Bruté consented, he joined them at Danville, Illinois, ministering to their spiritual and material needs as they traveled from Menominee's village south of Plymouth along the Michigan Road, through Rochester and Logansport, along the north side of the Wabash River, across Illinois, over the Mississippi River at Quincy, through Missouri, and into Kansas territory south of Independence, Missouri. During the march, later known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death, he baptized dying children, blessed each grave, and wrote of the suffering of the Potawatomi as they marched in dust and heat under military guard and buried their dead; about 40 died on the journey, mostly children. After entrusting them to Jesuit Father Christian Hoecken at Sugar Creek Mission on November 4, 1838, Father Petit, already weakened by fever and open sores, began returning to Indiana on January 2 with his Potawatomi friend Abram Burnett, but his condition worsened. He reached the Jesuit seminary at St. Louis University on January 15, 1839, received care there, and died 20 minutes before midnight on February 10, 1839, at age 27 years and 10 months. Buried first in St. Louis, his remains were taken to Indiana in 1856 by Father Edward Sorin and now rest under the Log Chapel at the University of Notre Dame.