As French missionaries worked in present-day Quebec and central-western New York with native peoples in the late 17th and early 18th century, they established mission villages for converted natives near the colonial towns of Quebec City and Montreal. The Abenaki who converted to Catholicism were allied with the French. Evidence supports the tradition that St. Francis was first occupied by the Sokoki ("Ozogwakiakas" in Abenaki) as early as 1660, with as many as twenty families; the earliest Sokoki baptism recorded in the area was nearby in Trois-Rivières in 1658. The Sokoki were a band or tribe within the larger Abenaki group. Central Maine was formerly inhabited by people of the Androscoggin tribe, also known as Arosaguntacook. The Androscoggin were a tribe in the Abenaki nation.