Joseph Gervais (October 21, 1777 – July 14, 1861) was a French-Canadian, later American, pioneer settler and trapper in the Pacific Northwest.
[1] Joseph Gervais was born in Maskinongé, Quebec, Canada (British North America at the time) along the St. Lawrence River.
[2] 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.
[2][4] Joseph Gervais joined the Pacific Fur Company, a venture owned by John Jacob Astor.
They were sent to scout the area and educate the native Kalapuya inhabitants on how to better preserve fur pelts that the trappers were especially interested in acquiring.
[3] Chief Factor John McLoughlin gave financial support to Gervais and other French-Canadian retired employees, giving them farming implements on credit.
[2] A guest to his house that year described a meal consisting of "Canadian soup, excellent pork, and beaver, and bread made without bolting, and as fine muskmelons as I ever had.
[7] In the aftermath of the Whitman Massacre, two of his children, Isaac and Xavier, joined the settler's militia in a conflict known as the Cayuse War.
[2] In 1850, he lost his farm by foreclosure and died July 14, 1861, at the home of David Mongraine and Catherine Lafantasie in French Prairie.