Joseph REVARD & Francoise ROY

     Joseph Revard (1777-1821) is the French-Osage ancestor of most of Osage County’s Revards, making his story part of the county’s history.  The life story of the French-Osage trader, who married a white French woman, is carried forward by his progeny, which is part of the early history of Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas; California, Oregon and Oklahoma.
     The baptism of Joseph Revard, Indian, was recorded in 1777 in St. Louis.  He was the son of French trader Joseph Revard and an Indian woman named Catherine.  St. Charles Boromeo Church in St, Charles records Joseph’s marriage in 1795 to Frances Roy, daughter of Andre’ Roy and Frances Chaphart of Canada, early settlers at Vincennes and St. Charles.  The baptisms of sons, Louis (1797) and Joseph (1799) are recorded at St. Charles.  They had another son and probably other children.
     The young half-breed Joseph grew up with the Osages, and was established as an Indian trader and hunter, and listed as a settler in St. Charles, in 1796.  He was taxed $.50 for one horse in 1805, Joseph Revard was licensed to trade with the Indians and to hunt on the Missouri River.
     In 1807, Joseph purchased forty arpens of land near St. Charles but sold it to Pierre Chouteau the next year when the Revards joined the Roy brothers in opening up a new settlement at Cote Sans Dessein, north of the Missouri River near the outlet of the Osage River.  For a time, Cote Sans Dessein was the westernmost United States settlement.
     In Cote Sans Dessein, Joseph continued as a trader and landowner and his house was the polling place for the township.  In 1813 and 1814, Joseph served in the militia of the Missouri Territory (War of 1812).  Pay must have been slow because in 1817 Joseph gave Pierre Martin power of attorney to collect his service pay.
     In 1814, son Louis married Lenore Chalifoux, daughter of one of  the Cote San Dessein.  The 1817 census of Cote Sans Dessein township shows a large household of Joseph Revard, Sr.  A separate household was listed fro Joseph Revard, Jr. (1799-1846).
     As a trader, Joseph was associated with and probably financed by the Chouteau family of St. Louis, as were most traders on the Missouri River system.  In 1817, Secretary Bates of Missouri issued a license to trade with the Great and Little Osages to “Chouteau and Rivar”.  Receipt to “P.L. Chouteau and Co.” indicates that the license was to Paul Ligueste Chouteau and Joseph Revard.  Joseph, as a member of the tribe, had valuable connections in the trade.  Joseph had mortgaged land and his house in Cote Sans Dessein in 1816, possibly financing a larger venture indicated by the license.  Some time later, about 1819, Joseph and Frances, and the younger children, moved westward again and opened up a trading and farming settlement near the Grand (Neosha) River on the side of present Salina, Okla.  Louis and Joseph apparently remained in Cote Sans Dessein.
     Joseph was prospering, the family had an adequate cabin, a good crop, horses, livestock and poultry by 1821.  They had become acquainted with their neighbors at the Union Mission, when Joseph was murdered and scalped by the Cherokees.  (The government’s policy of displacing and moving Indian tribes had thrown the Cherokees and the Osages into bitter conflict.)  Frances and the children took refuge at the Mission and after Joseph’s body was found, they returned to Cote Sans Dessein.  The missionaries harvested Joseph’s crops and stored them in his uninhabited cabin.  When Joseph’s estate was settled in Cote Sans Dessein in 1825, his house and lot there were sold to satisfy the 1816 mortgage.
     In the 1830s, Frances and her family settled with other Creole and Indian families at the confluence of the Kaw and Missouri Rivers at Chouteau’s trading post, which evolved into Kansas City,  Frances, did not remarry.  Her home and that of son Joseph are on the first map of Kansas City.  Son Louis had died before this move.  Some of the family migrated to Calif. in the early days and then back to Oklahoma in the 1870s.  Son Joseph died in Kansas City around 1846.  Both widows remarried.  Many of the Kansas City Revards migrated with the Osages to Kansas around 1850 and settled near Osage Mission (St. Paul) the moved with the Osages to present Osage County, Okla. in the 1870s.  Other Revards returned from Oregon, California and Missouri to settle with the Osages also.  When Osage lands were allotted, in 1906, there were 59 Osages on the final roll by the Revard name, and countless other descendants by other names.  Joseph’s descendants include professors, army officers, attorneys, political leaders and the present Principal Chief of the Osage Tribe.