Madame Marie L'Aguivoise Dorion

Madame Marie L'Aguivoise Dorion. , Madame Dorion of the Iowa tribe was the second woman to come west on an overland route. She made the journey with her husband, Pierre and two young sons. They were part of American John Jacob Astor's attempt to establish a fur trading empire in the Pacific Northwest. Her husband was an experienced guide that had earlier traveled west with the Lewis and Clark expedition. The trip was especially arduous for Marie. She was at that time expecting her third child and caring for her sons, Baptise, age 5 and Paul, age 3., The party left the Missouri territory in 1811 to establish trading posts along the Columbia River. After enduring cold, starvation and perilous whitewater river crossings the party arrived near this location on January 21, 1812. The Pacific Fur Company later established Fort Nez Perces along the Walla Walla and Columbia Rivers just west of this location. They eventually reached Fort Astoria for a long deserved rest., The Dorion family and a party of trappers later set out for the Snake River country in the winter of 1813 on a fur trapping expedition. Here Snake warriors attacked the party. All the men were killed, leaving Marie Dorion and her two young children to live out the winter hiding in the Blue Mountains near present day Hilgard, Oregon. Marie managed to keep her family alive and they endured the cruel hardships of cold and starvation. Marie then led her family to safety in the spring., Marie Dorion later remarried and lived in Walla Walla, Washington and later in the Williamette Valley of Oregon. She died on September 5, 1850 at the age of 64. Even in death she was revered by those who knew her. She was buried in a place of honor at the parish of St. Louis Catholic Church in the Williamette Valley. She had died as she had lived, a brave and noble pioneer esteemed by all who knew her.