Jean Baptiste (Richard) Richard dit LaFleur (1682 - abt. 1735)

Born 18 Mar 1682 in Pointe-aux-Trembles de Montréal, Canada, Nouvelle-France

Ancestors

Husband of Marie Anne You — married 15 Aug 1718 in Montréal, Canada, Nouvelle-France

Descendants

Died about 1735 at about age 52 in Kaskaskia, Pays-d'en-Haut, New France

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Biography

fils de Guillaume Richard et Agnès Tessier

Some of the details about Jean-Baptiste's life are sketchy, but it is known that he was born March 18, 1682 in Pointe-aux-Trembles of Montréal, New France to Guillaume Richard and Agnes Tessier, one of at least eight children. Guillaume was a fur trader and soldier, who was killed by Iroquois when Jean-Baptiste was a boy.

Jean-Baptiste grew up surrounded by those in the fur trade, and it was natural that he get involved in it. Fur trading meant dealing with natives of various tribes, and Jean-Baptiste picked up on the languages, becoming well-known as an interpreter. He also learned the skill of being a blacksmith. Both of these things would later make him valuable on the frontier, where he chose to live his life.

The earliest record of Jean-Baptiste living out west was when he was allotted land at Fort Detroit on March 10, 1707; he paid 40 sols in rent, plus "10 livres for other rights," likely the permission to trade with Indians. It was said that Jean-Baptiste was seriously injured the following year, and needed to leave the fort, presumably to go back to Montreal.

By 1710, Jean-Baptiste must have returned to Fort Detroit because he was mentioned in the baptism of a Native American slave that he owned. This is a curious record because there's suggestion that the slave, a 15-year-old girl, may have later become his wife. But the first name is different—Marie-Jeanne—so the evidence is not conclusive.

In 1716-1717 Jean Baptiste Richard was a member of the party under the command of Ensign François Picoté de Belestre (1677-1729), buried in Detroit, who arrived at the mouth of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers with four soldiers, three men, a blacksmith [aka Jean Richard] and supplies to trade with the nearby Wea people, an Algonquian-speaking nation closely related to the Miami people. They built a stockade on the Wabash, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe. Soon afterwards this evolved to become Poste Ouiatenon. Poste Ouiatenon, the first permanent post in Indiana, was originally constructed by the government of New France as a military outpost to protect against Great Britain’s western expansion. Its location among the unsettled woodlands of the Wabash River valley also soon made it a key center of trade for voyageurs. At its height, up to 3,000 residents, primarily voyageurs, trappers, and traders, reportedly lived in the immediate area alongside five large Indian villages.

Jean Baptiste Richard’s future father-in-law, Pierre You de La Découverte, was an associate of La Salle in his discoveries on the Mississippi River. During one of these trips Pierre met “Elisabeth,” a member of the Miami tribe. Elisabeth’s parents are unknown. Pierre and Elisabeth were reportedly married in/near Chicago in April 1693. Marie-Anne You (b. 1694) was their only recorded child, baptized in Montréal where Pierre You had an estate on the far western edge of Montréal Island that he used for fur trading, both legal and not-so-legal. Pierre You married a second wife, Madeleine Just, who immigrated from Brèves in the province of Burgundy and was the widow of Jérôme Leguay de Beaulieu, in Montréal on 15 April 1697.

This raises the issue of what happened to Elisabeth and who raised Marie-Anne. It appears Jean Baptiste Richard met (or perhaps re-met) Marie-Anne in present-day Indiana when they were building the forerunner stockade to Poste Ouiatenon in 1716. She became pregnant with his female child which was born on 12 January 1717 which they named Suzanne Richard. Marie-Anne and Suzanne returned with him to Montréal, but he did not legally marry her until the day of their first child’s baptism on 15 August 1718 in Montreal, the baptism following the marriage in the records and the child thus being legitimized. So one possible scenario is that Pierre You divorced Elizabeth, and she then returned with the child Marie-Anne to her people along the Wabash River at some point between 1694 and 1697. A second scenario is that the wedding in 1693 was unofficial and Elisabeth was thus a "Country Wife" whom Pierre left in Indiana with his child to return to Montreal.

Jean Baptiste Richard and Marie Anne You had three children by 1721 – Suzanne Marie (b 12 Jan 1717), Agnès (b 7 May 1719), and Jean (b 20 Nov 1721 bapt 22) – the last two baptized in Pointe-aux-Trembles on Montréal island. Marie Anne was named You on Suzanne's baptism, Youville on Agnès', and had her last name omitted on Jean's baptism, with the mention that she was of the Miamis.^[1]

One of the translated documents (#12) in the book "Ouiatanon Documents" is a request by Jean Baptiste Richard in 1722 to return to Ouiatenon as its blacksmith and interpreter with his family (wife and three children) as his wife was sickly after four years living with the Montréal weather and was homesick for “her family” at Ouiatenon. The travel request was approved and the entire family moved to Ouiatenon. [Note: I also found the French handwritten original of the approval to return; it is available online in the BAnQ Archives - see Sources ].

They reportedly set out in a canoe with three voyageurs to help paddle it. The canoe was filled with supplies to set up Jean-Baptiste’s household, plus goods for trading with the natives: clothes, 100 lb. of flour, 300 lb. of biscuit, 2 pots of brandy, 15 pots of wine, 2 pots of strawberry brandy, 100 lb. of gunpowder, 100 lb. of lead, some woolen cloth, some knives, and 2 lb. of vermillion. Jean-Baptiste was forbidden to trade any of the liquor or ammunition with the natives at Fort Detroit, which they passed along the way to Fort Ouiatenon.

Aside from the documents below, there are no other known records of Jean-Baptiste or Marie-Anne after 1722. They likely stayed at Ouiatenon for a number of years. They had a 4th child, Marie-Josephe Richard, likely born at Ouiatenon in circa 1723. Marie-Josephe married Joseph Antara dit Pelletier, an interpreter.

In the BAnQ Archives is another approval of a request from Jean Baptiste Richard to return to Ouiatenon with a boat and four men dated 27 June 1731. So he at least likely returned to Montréal from time to time for supplies while the family still lived at Ouiatenon in 1731. Also a possibility is that this time Jean Baptiste returned to Montréal to visit or care for his elderly mother (Agnes Tessier) who died two years later.

Jean-Baptiste was a friend of the man in charge of Ouiatenon, François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes. In about 1732, François Bissot started another trading post further down the Wabash, which would become Fort Vincennes. It’s possible that our Jean-Baptiste Richard was also involved with setting up Fort Vincennes, because years later, his wife (shown in church records there as Marianne Le Decouverte) and all three of his daughters reportedly lived there. Unfortunately, François Bissot was killed during the Chickasaw Wars in 1736, being captured and burned to death with a group of French men in present-day Mississippi. Given Jean-Baptiste's friendship and association with Bissot, he may have been conscripted to fight in the Chickasaw Wars and also died there.

Sources

1. ↑ Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1997 - Drouin IGD

• Actes d'état civil et registres d'église du Québec (Collection Drouin), 1621 à 1997 - Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection: Institut Généalogique Drouin IGD (membership) https://www.genealogiequebec.com
• Marriage of Jean Baptiste Richard and Marie Anne You; Baptism of Suzanne Richard - "Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-27860-19838-6?cc=1321742 : 16 July 2014), Pointe-aux-Trembles > L'Enfant-Jésus-de-la-Pointe-aux-Trembles > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1674-1754 > image 56 of 867; nos paroisses de Église Catholique, Quebec (Catholic Church parishes, Quebec).
• Tanguay Collection Vol 6 Sec 2 pg 257
• http://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/GenealogieQuebec.aspx?genealogy=Richard_Jean-Baptiste&pid=184433&lng=en
• One of the First French in Indiana – Jean-Baptiste Richard By: Laura M. http://ancestorbios.blogspot.com/2017/11/one-of-first-french-settlers-in-indiana.html
• Harold Allison, The Tragic Saga of the Indiana Indians (Turner Publishing Company: Paducah, 1986), 26.
• Marriage of Jean Baptiste Richard and Marie Anne You at Notre Dame Church in Montreal on 15 August 1718: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1091/d13p_11011140?pid=104613436&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D1091%26h%3D104613436%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26_phsrc%3DKtt651%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Ktt651&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.243110789.605456977.1591065345-1053496765.1504815413
• Dictionary of Canadian Biography, biography of Pierre You de La Découverte: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/you_de_la_decouverte_pierre_2E.html
• Frances Krauskopf, editor and translator, Ouiatanon Documents (Indiana Historical Society, 1955) available from Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/ouiatanondocumen182krau
• "Enregistrement d'une permission accordée par Philippe Rigaud de Vaudreuil gouverneur de la Nouvelle-France, à Jean Richard, ci-devant interprète et forgeron, d'un canot et quatre hommes, pour ramener sa femme [Marie-Anne You], et leurs trois enfants au poste des Ouyatanons, dont elle est originaire – 3 septembre 1722, Montreal: http://pistard.banq.qc.ca/unite_chercheurs/description_fonds?p_anqsid=201901121829273271&p_centre=06M&p_classe=TL&p_fonds=4&p_numunide=901627
• Enregistrement d'une permission accordée par Charles de Beauharnois, gouverneur de la Nouvelle-France, le 15 juin, à Jean Baptiste Richard d'un canot et quatre hommes, pour se rendre au Poste des Ouyatanons . - 27 juin 1731, Montreal: http://pistard.banq.qc.ca/unite_chercheurs/description_fonds?p_anqsid=201901121829273271&p_centre=06M&p_classe=TL&p_fonds=4&p_numunide=921093
• Chickasaw Wars, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickasaw_Wars
• Death in 1735 at Kaskaskia: The Kaskaskia Manuscripts, 1708-1816, Lawrie Cena Dean and Margaret Kimball Brown, 2014, page Page 215, items 1735-38:113 (Jean Richard inventory) and 1735-38-114 (declaration of deceased Jean Richard ). This source also shows that his wife, Marie Delacouverte, marries Pierre Deshotel later this same year.