The earliest recorded aurora in North America since European colonization

Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century, in what is now Quebec, Canada and New England, United States, periodically sent reports on their activities to their superiors in Canada and France. These were then edited and published in annual volumes. A translation of these reports, together with related documents, was published in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. Included in these volumes are three reports easily identified as auroras. The earliest of these, from 1611, predates the hitherto known first North American report, in 1719, by more than a century. The other reports are from Quebec in 1662 and mid-America in 1736. These reports are quoted in full and discussed in terms of the geophysical context of the times. Additional reports from New England for the aurora of 1719, not previously available in the auroral literature, are also presented and discussed.