MARIE

DORION

AND THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS

SECTION TWO

SEE

EARLY HISTORY of the MILTON-FREEWATER AREA 

Dedicated to . . .

For a lifetime of community service we sincerely dedicate this book to

W. S. CAVERHILL

Many young men work hard for their community.  Many continue into middle age to be quite active in civic affairs.  This zeal usually wears then with advancing age, often keeping pace with the thinning of their hair.

Not so in the case of W. S. Caverhill.

Even if his hair is thinned considerably past what it was 30 years ago, he has never slackened his steady pace of doing things to make the community and this part of the Northwest a better place in which to live or to get it a better share of limelight.  Long past the 80-year mark, W. S. Caverhill has continued to keep at least one project active all the time.

This book and the Marie Dorion Park on the Walla Walla River, is but the latest of many such projects “W.S.” has taken the lead in throughout a long lifetime as teacher, rancher, author and newspaper columnist.

And . . . as a big, big booster for his community.

Forward . . .

Many authors and historical books have recognized Marie Dorion and her part in the development of the Pacific Northwest, but only to the extent of a paragraph or two.  We have attempted to put in print, under one cover, the most complete story possible of this courageous and devoted Indian woman.

With this book and the Marie Dorion Historical Park it is our endeavor to place her name among the honored of the Northwest’s first explorers.

We are indeed grateful to the following for their contribution in compiling this book:

John Clark Hunt, Portland Historian, who was an immense help with pictures, writings and encouragement.

            W. S. Caverhill

            Russel Blackler

            Fred Etling

            Vance Orchard

            Terry Hager

            Mrs. Kenneth Dickerson for her art work of Marie Dorion.

            Emma K. Kessler, Secretary

            And many others.

A special thanks go to the many descendants of the first pioneers of the valley for their research and stories of those who “came and stayed to build it step by step”, without whose help this tribute would not be possible.

These are our thanks.

Marie Dorion and The Trail of the Pioneers

Compiled by Harry E. Ringhand

Published by the

VALLEY HERALD, INC.

Milton-Freewater, Oregon

1971

Table of Contents

City Participates . . .

From the beginning of the Marie Dorion Historical Park, the City of Milton-Freewater has taken an active part in the development of the project.  It is located on City property and in order to secure federal matching funds, the City has taken over as sponsor of the entire project.

Under a two-year program a recreational area will be developed to include all necessary facilities.  The décor will emphasize the early and continued city ownership of water, light and power facilities.

Without the generous assistance of the City Council there would be no Marie Dorion Historical Park.  The present members are:

            Mayor B. R. “Barney” Pilger

            City Manager, Henry Schneider

            Councilman Robert W. Harris

            Councilman Melvin M. Lyon

            Councilman Don M. Maughan

            Councilman Herbert W. Saager

            Councilman Robert D. Talbott

Many Contribute . . .

The Marie Dorion Historical Park Committee extends thanks to the following for their contributions to the building of the Spiral, the Wall and Bench and furnishing the plaques.

Mr. And Mrs. Al Beard

            Mr. And Mrs. Martin Buchanan

            Miss Mable Harris

            Bank of Commerce

            Howard Brothers

            Dick Yantis Memorial Fund

            Also thanks to the $20 Coffee Club Members.

Page 9 – HOW IT ALL STARTED

Three Prime Movers

Russel Blackler – Fred Etling – W. S. Caverhill

These three men of Milton-Freewater took the time to develop an idea that the community and the area could have a park, which would at the same time pay tribute to the pioneer settlers of the area.

Blackler, the businessman, Etling and Caverhill, each retired from the teaching profession . . . saw the possibilities for a park at a historical site which would pay tribute to the one most likely the first to trod this way as well as the forebears of many who today reside here.

Marie Dorion, for whom the park is named, showed exemplary courage that winter of 1812-13 as she fought the elements to save her children.

Early pioneers who came a few years later saw this Walla Walla Valley as the place they wished to settle; they did and the concrete steps leading up a hill at the park testify as to whom and when.

Blackler, Etling and Caverhill, each in his own way, led the planning which has brought the first efforts for one of the finest tributes in the Northwest to people of the Northwest.

Thanks of the community should go to these three men.

Page 10 – THE REAL CONSERVATIONISTS

The land the Indians left to us willingly or otherwise, was unspoiled.  The streams were not obstructed and were full of fish.  The forests were prime and had no echo of a chain saw.  There were no pock- marks of prospectors searching for minerals.  The mother lodes lay untouched.  Pollution of air and streams was minimal.  Their trails didn’t gash the countryside.  Sod remained unturned.  There was no erosion.  The land they left us was in pristine condition.  They were real conservationists.  We owe them for that.

Page 11 – FIVE OUTSTANDING INDIAN WOMEN

IN NORTHWEST HISTORY

Sacajawea

Sacajawea, whose trip West with explorers Lewis and Clark set a pattern emulated by Marie Dorion a few years later, has a historical role shrouded with mystery.

It is a mystery which not only includes her beginning and ending to a degree but also her actual role in the Corps of Discovery which took her from the Mandan Indians’ village in the spring of 1805 as a guide to the West.

Mystery there might be in this slip of a Shoshone girl but there is no mystery to the fact that today she has more statues, monuments and plaques in her honor than possibly any other woman in the country, bar none!  They include two mountains (one above Wallowa Lake) one peak, one river, three parks (one at the mouth of Snake River), one museum and a lake created by Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River.

While the journals of the men who headed the 1805-06 trek West do not show any importance in the role of Sacajawea during the trip, they knew she was an asset aside from her work as an interpreter.  The very fact that she was a woman assured tribes along the route that the expedition came in peace.  War parties did not take women along.  Valuable records and other essential items were saved by the quick-acting Sacajawea, when a canoe upset.

Captured when about 14 years old in 1800 by a raiding Indian party, Sacajawea spent a few years as a slave girl, then was lost in gambling to a French-Canadian, Charboneau.  They were living in the Mandan village the winter Lewis and Clark came west.  In February 1805 Sacajawea gave birth to her first child, Jean Baptiste and when the explorers left in April, they took the family along for interpreters.

Sacajawea is said to have been about 100 years old when she died in her sleep in 1884, although she had been reported dead as early as 1811.  She is buried at the Shoshone Agency.

-          Vance Orchard –

Page 12 – JANE

Discovery of gold in Idaho in 1860 is said to have been the spark which ignited the Northwest.  Certainly this was a factor just as certainly the gold which thence came forth was also a factor in Federal Armies winning the Civil War.  When no man of her tribe dared lead white miners to an area felt to be rich in gold, it was Jane, daughter of Nez Perce Chief Timothy, who undertook the task.  Thus, nearly 60 years after Sacajawea and Marie Dorion passed this way,18 year old Jane led the miner party from her father’s home below Clarkston on the Snake River.  Her leadership led to the discovery of gold and thus was launched the Northwest boom to its present prosperity.  Jane married John Silcott, builder of the Lapwai Reservation buildings.  They are buried on a hillside at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers where they made their home.

- Vance Orchard -

Page 12 – WINEMA

Winema, heroine of the Modoc War, was a niece of Captain Jack, Modoc War Chief who led the uprising.  Married at an early age to a white man, Winema mastered the English language and became an interpreter and intermediary in negotiations between her people and the whites.  During the Modoc uprising, Winema saved the life of Peace Commission Chairman A. B. Meacham at the risk of her own.  For her dedication to peace, Congress later voted her a life pension bearing the inscription, “Winema – the Strong Heart”.  She is buried at Schonchin Cemetery near Beatty, Oregon.

- Vance Orchard -

Page 13 – WINNEMUCCA

“No woman of her time, with the possible exception of Helen Hunt Jackson . . . did more to benefit the Indian and make his life a little easier that Sarah Winnemucca.” – Author John Clark Hunt

Born about 1844, the year of the explorations of Capt. John Fremont through the Oregon country and on south through the homelands of her people, she was born Thocmetony or “Shellflower”, a name later “fancied up” and changed to “Sarah”, the daughter of Chief Winnemucca of the Paiutes.

Sarah Winnemucca was also the granddaughter of Chief Truckee who had become fast friends of Capt. Fremont.  The decisions Truckee made were to have vast influence upon the life of Sarah and of the Indians for whom she dedicated much of her life.

Chief Truckee took several Paiutes, including Sarah as a child, to California where they lived, worked and learned the ways of the white man.  Here,Sarah learned Spanish and English, both to stand her in good stead later in life.

When trouble erupted with a “get tough” policy of the U.S. Government, Sarah was hired as an interpreter in the Bannock outbreak and was helpful in securing good conditions for her people.

Following a long letter written by Sarah to the Army, in which she deplored Reservation conditions while beseeching better conditions, a reservation with new concepts was established on the Malheur River.  Chief Winnemucca and his band went there with Sarah as interpreter to the Indian agent.

This failed to work and the Bannocks again led a fight against the white man’s failure to live up to their promises.  Sarah was ready to go to Washington, D.C., to plead the Paiutes’ cause but the Bannocks struck before she could leave.  She then became an interpreter with Gen. O. O. Howard who took to the field against the Indians.

When the Indians were rounded up and shipped to shabby quarters near Yakima that winter, Sarah was there too as interpreter and did all she could to alleviate suffering of her people.

When she did get to Washington the following spring she lectured on the plight of the Indian, despite warnings not to do so.  Sarah lectured in like manner across the nation later on.  She taught school and established a school near Lovelock, Nevada.  In the 1880’s she was lecturing in the eastern states.

Sarah died before she was 50, in 1891, at Monida, Montana.

-          - Vance Orchard –

Page 14 – THE IOWA INDIANS

Fragments of history available from various sources and writers indicate that the Iowa’s were an unusual tribe among the Plains Indians; not only were they noted for their physical strength, but for their relationship with the white men, the French trappers, voyagers and Jesuit Missionaries.  Many of the younger women became the wives of the white intruders and the men joined the explorers as guides and companions.  The Jesuit priests, sworn to celibacy, devoted their efforts to bringing Christianity (Catholicism) and an improved standard of living.  For those Indians who embraced the Catholic faith, the Fathers of the church validated many of the tribal marriages and recognized the legitimacy of the children.

Out of this atmosphere of conflict and cohesion between the cultures of the Indians and the European invaders came Marie Dorion to become one of the outstanding Indian women in Northwest history.  Her place is beside Jane, Winema, Sacajawea and Winnemucca.  Her history is especially important to the Northwest, because she came under the most adverse circumstances, and lived out here life here.

- W. S. Caverhill -

Page 15 – MARIE DORION HISTORICAL PARK

To Honor a Courageous Woman

She was the First of Many Who Came And Stayed!

“Her trail in the winter snows have melted out and her campsite is unknown, but her story lives on . .” or so goes the history of Marie Dorion.  Like the history of the courageous Indian woman, several Milton-Freewater persons are striving to preserve the history of the early settlers of the area.

To accomplish this, W. S. Caverhill, Russel Blackler and Fred Etling, have planned a “Trail of the Pioneers” in the Marie Dorion Historical Park, located near the old Milton Power plant.

A sign has been placed at the foot of the trail with the following inscription  “The Trail of the Pioneers – these are the families who came to this area early and stayed to build it step by step”.

The trail consists of 156 steps, each with the name of an old pioneer family and date sandblasted in concrete.  The steps were sold to defray the cost of construction, to the descendants of the pioneer families.  More information may be obtained from any of the three fore-mentioned men.

(Webmaster:  These gentlemen are all deceased at this date February 2003.)

W. S. Caverhill, member of the Marie Dorion Historical Committee, composed the following history of Marie Dorion from information compiled by historians throughout the Northwest.

This history will appear at Marie Dorion Historical Park located on the Walla Walla River near the old Milton power plant.

Marie Dorion

One hundred sixty year ago an Indian girl from an Iowa tribe took part in the overland trip of the John Jacob Astor party that left the Missouri country, bound for the mouth of the Columbia River.

A man by the name of Hunt was in charge and he employed as a guide and interpreter, a French voyager, Pierre Dorion.  When Pierre reported for work, he had his “woman”, Marie, and their two children with him.  Hunt objected vigorously to their  joining the party, but Dorion insisted.  Marie had already overcome Pierre’s opposition.  The will of the woman in Pierre’s wigwam prevailed and Marie became a member of the party.  The cavalcade contained some 85 horses in the charge of scouts, trappers and adventurers, crossing the Great Plains without unusual incident.

Near the beginning of their trip the party met Daniel Boone, who history records, left Kentucky for “elbowroom”.  At 76 years of age, he was  hunting and trapping in the Missouri basin.

The fall of 1811 found the party in the Snake River country, short of food and among unfriendly Indians.  They attempted to go down the Snake River, half the party on each side, but were turned back by the narrow canyon.  They began killing the horses for food and, by the time they reached the mouth of Burnt River, the only horse left was Marie’s.  Dorion stubbornly refused to have it slaughtered.

Somewhere near the present town of Haines, Dorion and his “wife by Indian custom” dropped behind the party while Marie gave birth to a child that lived two weeks.  After joining the rest of the party in the Grande Ronde Valley, where they were in rendezvous with friendly Indians, horses were secured and the party crossed the Blue Mountains in the winter of 1811-12.  They found welcome from the Umatilla Indians and grass for their horses on the Umatilla River.

In the spring of 1812 the party divided, some turning back to the Snake River country, others, including Dorion and his family pushed on towards Astoria.  His horse was stolen near The Dalles by Indians while he was enroute from the Umatilla Camp to Astoria with the Wilson Price Hunt party.

Dorion and his family returned to the Snake River months later with John Reed and a party of trappers.  Dorion was a hunter for the party and Marie was cook and dresser of the pelts.

It was there that tragedy struck Marie, a tragedy that was to test the unusual courage of the woman.  Snake River Indians attacked the party in the night, killing all except Marie and her two children.  They escaped by hiding in the brush.  Marie tried to save a badly wounded Frenchman by putting him on a horse and moving him away from the scene, but he died the next day.

Winter was coming and Marie and her two children faced it without companions or friends, and one horse for transportation.  Some historians have her turning west, following the timberline south of the Grande Ronde Valley.  It is likely that she was trying to return to the friendly Umatilla’s, but snow had fallen deep in the Blues, and she was compelled to camp somewhere.  She killed the horse and dried the meat.  When that was gone, she left the children wrapped in blankets, and walked through the trackless snow until she found a camp of friendly Walla Walla Indians.

From there she led a party to the rescue of her sons, the date being April 3, 1813.  Where she came out of the mountains to contact the Walla Walla’s may well be the spot now designated as the Marie Dorion Historical Park.

What prompted the woman to undertake such a venture?  Was it devotion to her man?  Maternal instinct to protect her children?  Or, was it a feminine jealousy of the work of Sacajawea, who came west with the white men five years earlier.

Whatever motive or combination of them, was the reason, the experience forced upon her called for the greatest degree of courage and determination that a human being can be called upon in a desperate fight for survival.

Her trail in the winter snows have melted out and her campsite is unknown, but her story lives on one hundred sixty years later.

Page 17 – “A JOURNEY HOME”

Freelance writer, Terr Hager wrote this version of Marie Dorion from the following references:

A TRIBUTE TO MME. DORION, an article in the Portland Oregonian, May 28, 1950, by Vera Joyce Nelson, Portland freelance writer.

MADAME DORION OF THE ASTORIANS, an article in The Oregon Historical Quarterly, September 1929, by J. Neilson Barry.

The journey home for Marie Dorion was a 3,500 mile, 13 month trek complete with courage, uncompromising physical strength, mental anguish, and true love and devotion to her husband and family.

In the spring of 1811 Marie and her small sons, two and four, joined their husband and father, Pierre Dorion, Jr., on the Wilson Price Hunt overland expedition to Astoria.  And thus began – a journey home – for Marie Dorion.

Caring for two children and bearing a third, Marie, for the most part walked, enduring the hardships of such a journey without a murmur and keeping pace with the rest of the expedition.  This endurance and force of character is recorded in history as having “won the respect and applause of the white men”. 

Among the first recorded hardships she experienced happened shortly after crossing into Oregon.  Following a twenty-seven mile horseback ride the previous day, Marie gave birth to a child.  The child’s birth occurred late in December, 1811, in ankle deep snow at the present site of North Powder in the Baker Valley.. Marie stayed behind that day, but rode twenty miles on horseback with her newborn the next, crossing the Telocaset Divide into the Grande Rhonde Valley, to overtake the rest of the party.  It was nine days later, when the party was near Duncan or Meacham Creek, that the heroic mother’s baby died.

From the first experience in her new home – the Northwest – Marie Dorion became a legend and a lesson, pioneering the West, raising three families, and living to an age of 64.

The baby’s death did not interrupt the continuity of the expedition as Marie continued courageously and uncomplaining to Fort Astor.  During the course of the War of 1812 Fort Astor was sold to the British and the Dorion family joined the John Reed expedition, trapping, hunting and horse-trading along the Snake River.

Nearly two years later the Reed party crossed the mountains between Umatilla and the present site of Vale, Oregon, where Reed built his first post.  Later the post was moved to the opposite side of the Snake River because of unfriendly Indians; the Bannocks.

It was at this time in her life that Marie once again expressed her true devotion and affection for her husband.  A friendly Indian warned Marie of a Bannock raid on the abandoned post across the river.  She started out in the night to warn her husband, taking with her the two children.  Marie apparently became lost in the woods and reached her husband’s camp three days later - too late – as the Indian massacre had already taken place.  Her husband had been murdered.

Marie discovered a lone survivor, a man named LeClerc, who had been scalped and seriously wounded in the raid.  She lifted the wounded man to her horse and started back to the main cabin.  LeClerc died enroute and Marie buried him in the snow, continuing to the post with her children.  Little did Marie know then, that she and the children were alone in the wilderness; the Indians having murdered Reed and his companions.

Marie waited out the daylight hours upon returning to the cabin, so as not to be discovered by the hostile Indians, stealing into the cabin at night where she obtained a meager food supply of dried salmon.

Mental and physical exhaustion caught up with Marie and she was forced to kie idle for several days.  Finally regaining strength, Marie and the children began to wander aimlessly throughout the Blue Mountains.  The deep snow of January and a vanishing food supply halted the journey after nine days.  Using brush, boughs and snow, Marie made a shelter, killed her horse and managed to keep her family alive on its meat until some time in March.  When that source of nourishment was gone Marie realized she would have to go in search of friendly Indians.  Time was of the essence to Marie and her family, but her troubles were not over.  Marie became the victim of snow-blindness and had to wait several days before she could travel.  Overcoming the difficulty Marie began the final leg of her journey to safety.

It was several days later when Marie was forced to abandon her children, afraid and hungry, on Meacham Creek.  She began crawling on hands and knees towards the camp of the Walla Walla’s, having to stop sporadically for sleep.  Arriving at the camp, Marie was befriended and the Indians brought her children to her in the night.

Her heroic fortitude having kept her family alive, it was two weeks later when Marie hailed another party of the Hunt expedition and related the nightmarish year to them.

History breaks contact with Marie Dorion at this point, leaving the years of her life between 1814 and 1840 somewhat of a blank.  It is known, however, that Marie stayed in the Walla Walla Valley, marrying first a man named Venier, of the North West Company.  A daughter was born to them around 1819.

Several years later Marie married an interpreter at Fort Walla Walla, John Toupin, by whom she had two children.  In 1841 Marie moved to the Willamette Valley with her third husband and three families of children.  Here Marie lived out her life.

Her years of living in the Willamette Valley gained the respect of her neighbors who referred to her as “Madame Dorion”.

The burial record of St. Louis Church near Gervais, Oregon, assumes her age to be about 64 years at the time of her death which is considered entirely plausible considering she bore three families after 1807.

In Marie Dorion’s life great personal hopes were surely held.  Perseverance, magnitude of scope and an astonishing force of character took Marie Dorion and her family on a journey home – and, so, should she be honored.

Page 19 – WHO WAS MARIE DORION?

Marie Dorion was a member of the Iowa tribe.  They were of the Sioux people and came originally from Winnebago stock.  At the time Dorion (a half-breed) took Marie as his woman the Iowa (or Ioway) tribe was living in Missouri.  They were later moved to Oklahoma.

-          John Clark Hunt –

Washington Irving Had Words of Praise For The Dorion Woman

“And here we cannot but notice the wonderful patience, perseverance and hardihood of the Indian women, as exemplified in the conduct of the poor woman of the Interpreter Dorion.  She was now far advanced in her pregnancy, and had two children to take care of; one four, and the other two years of age.  The latter of course she had frequently to carry on her back, in addition to the burden usually imposed upon Indian women yet she had borne all her hardships without a murmur, and throughout this weary and painful journey had kept pace with the best of the pedestrians.  Indeed on various occasions, in the course of this enterprise, she displayed a force of character that won the respect and applause of the white men”.

THE TRAIL OF THE PIONEERS

These are the families who came to this area early and stayed to build it step by step.

MARIE DORION

1813

Page 21 – PIERRE C., CATHERINE H. PAMBRUN

1832

The first individual listed on the Trail of the Pioneers stairway in the Marie Dorion Historical Park is Pierre C. Pambrun, who came to the Milton-Freewater area and was said to be the first settler to arrive in this area and stay.

Pambrun was born in L’islet near Quebec, Canada on December 17, 1793.  After service with the British Army during the War of 1812, he was employed by the Hudson Bay Company, coming to Walla Walla as a Factor in 1832.

While here, he spent his time at Fort Walla Walla, trading with the Indians for furs and keeping the daily records of the Fort.  He also oversaw the Company’s farming operations.  His daily records of business transactions may still be seen today in the Hudson Bay Co. archives in London.  While in Walla Walla he befriended the Marcus Whitman’s when they arrived to establish their now historic mission.

While riding to inspect one of the Company’s gardens up the Walla Walla River one day, his horse bolted and he was injured internally impaled on the saddle horn.  After his death, he was taken by boat to Fort Vancouver, Washington for burial.

He and his wife Catherine had several children.

Information supplied by CECIL A. PAMBRUN

Page 21 – TELLIER – BEAUCHAMP

1834 families 1854

The Tellier family was among the earliest settlers of the Walla Walla Valley, arriving in 1834 from Canada via Montana with the Hudson Bay Fur Company.  Mary Tellier married Isidore Beauchamp, another prominent settler.

Tellier left the fur company after the Whitman Mission was started, working as a millwright for Dr. Marcus Whitman.

When an Indian unrest began, Tellier left the valley with his family and neighbors of Frenchtown for The Dalles.  The family traveled to the city by canoe down the Columbia River.

The Tellier’s returned to the valley after the rebellion ceased.  Their cabin, located a mile below the Whitman Mission, had been used as a command post by the volunteer forces, leaving little for the returning family