au texas

Julian Reverchon

Occupation
botanist
Origin
Diemoz, France
Sources
Santerre, Foster, DMN 1906, Boyer, Sandell, DMN 1903

Positions

From the register of positions.

Land

Family tree

Surname appears in the Reverchon family tree.

Biography

Julian Reverchon


Name
  Canonical: Julian Reverchon
  French: Julien Reverchon
  Also: Mr. Reverchon (DMN 1906)

Birth: August 3, 1837, Diemoz (Isere), near Lyon (Cordillot). The Fish
  Trap cemetery marker reads 1836-1905 -- conflict on the year.
Death: December 30, 1905, Dallas
Burial: the colony cemetery (Fish Trap), with his wife

Origin: Diemoz; studied at Lyon, botany and natural sciences above all

Family
  Father: Jacques Maximilien Reverchon
  Wife: Marie Reverchon nee Henri (1842-1901), daughter of the colonist
    Paul Henri; died 1901
  Son: Michel J. Reverchon, 1865-1888 (cemetery)

Occupation at colony: none recorded; a student of 18
Occupation in Dallas: farmer and botanist; taught at the Baylor school of
  pharmacy (Sandell)

Ship / arrival: at 18 with his father; reached Reunion in spring 1856
  (Cordillot -- the father's notice says December 1856).

Colony role
  - Stayed almost to the dissolution
  - 1861: at the creation of the new society, named delegate of the
    supervisory board to Bessard, the receiver (Cordillot -- the
    receivership's sell-off phase, TIMELINE 1858.??)

Post-colony
  - As a herbalist discovered and catalogued many local plants unknown in
    France; became an eminent botanist; popularized grafting in the Dallas
    region -- Sandell: "internationally known for budding/grafting fruit
    trees"
  - The Girards -- Joseph, Frank and Pierre -- quarried the rock and built
    his herbarium (Sandell)
  - "This austere and cultivated citizen" is honoured by a Dallas public
    park bearing his name (Reverchon Park)

Land
  1859 tax roll: "Julian & M. Reverchon," 50 acres
  March 17, 1880: as executor of his father, to Louisa Girard, McCracken
    survey (Vol. 48, p. 471)
  Undated: Julian Reverchon to Robert M. Freeman, John Grigsby League
    (Vol. 101, p. 185), for $1
  Murphy & Bolanz block book 1, p. 322: Julien Reverchon's lot on Block
    322, between Ross Avenue, Flora, Peak and Leonard streets, East Dallas
    (doc/maps/murphy_bolanz/322_reverchon.pdf)

Sources
  Cordillot, "Reverchon Julien," Au Texas (2003)
  Sandell, colonist directory
  Santerre, White Cliffs of Dallas (1955), colonist list; ch. XIII
    (cemetery)
  deeds.py: 1859 tax roll; 1880-03-17; Grigsby League conveyance
  src/ged/reverchon.ged

Notes
  The colony's one scientist of lasting reputation arrived as a teenager
  and made his name on the plants of the ground the colony failed to farm.
  He is also the only colonist with a city block in the block books and a
  farm in the addition books -- both sheets now in the map room.

Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County (1892), pp. 614-615
  Born Diemoz August 3, 1837; could name every wild plant of his
  neighbourhood at fourteen; eighteen when he came with his father, whose
  farm "is to-day a suburb of West Dallas." Married July 24, 1864 Marie
  Henry, daughter of Paul Henry and granddaughter of Captain Deshogues
  [Dehouge], a Napoleonic officer of the Legion of Honour wounded at
  Waterloo. Two sons, Michel and Maximilien, both died of typhoid in 1884
  "just as they were merging into manhood" -- the cemetery marker reads
  Michel J. Reverchon 1865-1888: conflict on the year. Robert Freeman,
  the boys' friend, came to live with the parents -- the grantee of the
  $1 Grigsby League deed. Correspondent of Asa Gray, contributor to the
  Flora of North America; a new genus from the Panhandle, 1879, bears his
  name (Reverchonia). Signed the June 1868 memorial ("Julien Roverchon").
  doc/text/books/1800/lewis_memorial_dallas_county_1892/excerpts.md

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