Pain Court, Ontario

Pain Court, often incorrectly spelled Paincourt, is an agricultural village in southwestern Ontario, Canada, in the municipality of Chatham-Kent.

Settlement of this region began in the 1780s when English and French-speaking squatters from the Detroit area moved on to the Indian lands along the lower Thames River. By the 1820s in the nearby "Pain Court Block", one of the earliest French-speaking communities in southern Ontario had developed. Named "Pain Court" by Catholic missionaries in reference to the small loaves of bread which was all the impoverished parishioners could offer, the settlement was surveyed in 1829. In 1852 a chapel was built and two years later construction of a church commenced. It quickly became the cultural and educational centre of French-speaking Catholics in the area. By 1866 when a post office was established, a small village had developed.

Education

Pain Court contains a french speaking elementary school as well as a french speaking high school. École Ste. Catherine is a very small elementary school located directly across the street from its sister school, École secondaire de Pain Court, home of Les Patriotes, a small high school with fewer than 400 students.