Joseph Gervais

Infobox Person
name= Joseph Gervais


caption=
birth_date= 1777
birth_place= Quebec
death_date= July 14 1861
death_place= Oregon
occupation= trapper, farmer
spouse=

Joseph Gervais (1777—July 14 1861) was a pioneer settler and trapper in the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company (claimed as the Oregon Country and now in the present-day United States). He is the namesake for the town of Gervais, Oregon.

Early life

Joseph Gervais was born in 1777 in Maskinonge, Quebec, Canada (British North America at the time) along the St. Lawrence River.Hafen, LeRoy R. "The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West". Glendale, Calif: A. H. Clark Co, 1965. Vol. VII, p. 131-145.] Chapman, J. S. (1993). "French Prairie Ceramics: The Harriet D. Munnick Archaeological Collection, Circa 1820-1860: A Catalog and Northwest Comparative Guide". Anthropology Northwest, no. 8. Corvallis, Or: Dept. of Anthropology, Oregon State University.] Jean Baptiste Gervais was likely his younger brother. At the age of 20 Joseph left home and spent time employed as a trapper and along the Arkansas River (in what was part of Louisiana) hunting buffalo to be sold in New Orleans. While engaged in this enterprise, Joseph Gervais joined the Hunt party that was part of John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. [ [http://www.gervaisoregon.org/ The City of Gervais, Oregon.] City of Gervais. Retrieved on April 23 2008.] By August 7 1810, he had joined the group at Michilimackinac.

Oregon

The Pacific Fur Company's overland Astor Expedition arrived at Fort Astoria on February 15 1812. Later that year Gervais went with a party to the Willamette Valley under the leadership of Donald McKenzie to scout the area and educate the native inhabitants on how to better preserve some fur pelts that the trappers were especially interested in acquiring. During this trip he was involved with a fight with one of the natives and on a second trip that fall he became familiar with Etienne Lucier, with both later settling in the area. By October 1813, Gervais had married a Native American woman.

During the fall of 1813 the British North West Company purchased Fort Astoria during the War of 1812 and re-named the post as Fort George. During the winter of 1813 to 1814 he stayed at the fort and worked for the North West Company. After trapping for both the North West Company and as an independent trapper, he joined the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1824 and was based out of Fort Vancouver. By 1828 he had made a land claim at Chemaway and lived there intermittently until 1831. In January of that year Alexander McKenzie was killed along with several other HBC employees on Hood Canal in modern Washington. Gervais and other HBC employees were sent to retaliate against the Clallum tribe responsible for the attack against McKenzie. That fall he also went to the Umpqua River Valley in Southern Oregon to retrieve the merchandise left when Jedediah Smith and his trapping party were killed by the local tribe.

In 1831, after working for the Hudson's Bay Company,cite book
last = Cogswell
first = Philip Jr.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Capitol Names: Individuals Woven Into Oregon's History
publisher = Oregon Historical Society
date = 1977
location = Portland, Oregon
pages = 55
url =
doi =
id = ] Gervais permanently settled on French Prairie at the site of what is now the town of Gervais.cite book
last = Lowe
first = Beverly Elizabeth
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = John Minto: Man of Courage
work =
publisher = Kingston Price and Company
year = 1980
doi =
id = ] There he built a square-hewed, two-story log cabin that measured 18 by 24 feet. He also constructed a post-in-sill style barn, grew an apple orchard, and grew wheat on the convert|125|acre|km2|sing=on parcel. On the property he had 65 acres under cultivation and several outbuildings including a grist mill. In 1834, Jason Lee arrived to build the Methodist Mission on the prairie, and for a time preached to the French-Canadian trappers at Gervais' home as Catholic priests had yet to arrive in Oregon Country. He did sign a petition along with most Catholics in the valley in 1836 requesting a priest from the Bishop of Juliopolis.

In 1841, Gervais was elected justice of the peace. In March 1843, Gervais' house was the site of the second "Wolf Meeting", which provided for a bounty on predators and other protections for the settlers. Gervais was also a member of the organizing committee of the Champoeg Meetings, where on May 2, 1843, a vote was taken to create a government in the area.cite book
last = Hussey
first = John A.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Champoeg: Place of Transition, A Disputed History
work =
publisher = Oregon Historical Society
year = 1967
doi =
id = ] Although Gervais voted against forming this government, the vote for creating a government passed and the Provisional Government of Oregon was formed. Gervais eventually became a U.S. citizen. During the Cayuse War of 1847 to 1848, two of his children, Isaac and Xavier, joined the settler's militia to fight the Native Americans responsible for the Whitman Massacre.

Later years

Once news of the gold rush in California reached the valley in 1848, Gervais went south to the gold fields, but returned within a few years. Joseph Gervais had a total of three wives and many children. His first wife was Chinook and they had a son named David and daughter named Julie. Upon her death he married Yi-a-must (later Marguerite), a Clatsop and they had four children. She died of diphtheria in 1840 and Joseph married a third time, to Marie Angelique. A Chinook, she bore one child, Rosalie. In 1850, he lost his farm by foreclosure and died July 14 1861, at the home of David Mongraine.

References