Suzanne Cayouse Dauphin - American Indian Wife
Suzanne Cayouse Dauphin is portrayed by her great-great granddaughter, Judith Fortney. Suzanne was born in 1825 in the land of the Cayuse People, one of this region’s Homeland Tribes. In 1840 she married Mathieu Dauphin, a free trapper of St. Louis, Missouri. Mathieu and Suzanne traveled to Fort Hall in Utah Territory (near present day Pocatello, Idaho). The first two of their seven children were born there.
Subsequent travels took them to the California gold fields in the Yuba River area and French Prairie on Pudding River near Gervais, in Wasco County, Oregon, before finally homesteading near Frenchtown, a French Metís community located just west of Walla Walla. Their 160 acre donation claim encompassed the present town of Lowden.
Suzanne and Mathieu were in Oregon City, near Portland, when five Cayuse men were hanged for their participation in the tragedy at Whitman Mission. Mathieu served as godfather to all five when Archbishop Blanchet baptized them before the hanging.
Mathieu died in 1867 and was buried north of the family home on their land claim. Upon his death, Suzanne became one of the first Indian land title holders in the Northwest. Suzanne died in 1876 and was buried in St. Rose of Lima cemetery at Frenchtown.
The Museum is located in Fort Walla Walla Park along Myra Road in Walla Walla. Admission is $7/adults; $6/students and seniors (62+); $3/children 6-12; and free to members and children under 6. Through a reciprocal agreement, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute’s Inwai Circle cardholders and enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are also accorded free admission. For more information, contact Fort Walla Walla Museum at 509-525-7703, or email: info@fortwallawallamuseum.org.
|
