Marie Dorion was a wife of Pierre Dorion, the younger, interpreter of the Astoria land expedition (1811 - 12), was a member of the Iowa tribe. Her name appears in early Oregon and Washington records as Marie Aioe.
Background
Marie Dorion was born in 1791 in Iowa, United States. Her father- in-law, the elder Pierre Dorion, born of a prominent Quebec family before 1750, made his way to Cahokia, Illinois, as early as 1780, lived for a time in St. Louis, and within a year or two established his permanent home with the Yanktons and married a woman of the tribe.
Career
Dorion's father- in-law, the elder Pierre Dorion, born of a prominent Quebec family before 1750, made his way to Cahokia, 111. , as early as 1780, lived for a time in St. Louis, and within a year or two established his permanent home with the Yanktons and married a woman of the tribe.
In 1804, as an interpreter, he accompanied Lewis and Clark from the vicinity of the present Glasgow to the James, where he was authorized to gather a delegation of Sioux chiefs and take them on a visit to Washington.
The younger Pierre Dorion, a half-breed, for a time kept a trading-post for Pierre Chouteau among the Yanktons.
In March 18ir, he set out for St. Louis with Wilson Price Hunt’s Astorians, taking with him his Iowa wife and two infant sons.
On that long and terrible journey, much of the time afoot, Marie showed a patience and fortitude in enduring fatigue, hunger, and hardships unsurpassed by any of the men.
The child, however, lived but eight days.
In the second summer following the arrival at Astoria, she and the two surviving children accompanied her husband with the John Reed hunting party to the Boise River country.
About January 10, 1814, the two sections of this party, widely separated, were attacked by Indians, and all the men were killed.
Here she put up a rough hut of pine branches, killed her horse for food, and remained for fifty-seven days.
Later in the spring, on the Columbia, she met the last party of the returning Astorians and told them the tragic fate of her comrades.
She lived for a time at Fort Okanagon.
In 1823 she formed a union with Jean Baptiste Toupin, interpreter for many years at Fort Walla Walla, who in 1841 took up land in the Willamette Valley, near the present Salem, and settled there.
Dr. Elijah White, who visited her in the winter of 1842-43, found her living in comfort and was “much impressed with her noble, commanding bearing. ”
Achievements
Connections
About 1819 Dorion married a trapper named Venier, of whom nothing seems to be known. In 1823 she formed a union with Jean Baptiste Toupin, interpreter for many years at Fort Walla Walla, who in 1841 took up land in the Willamette Valley, near the present Salem, and settled there. On July 19 of that year her union with Toupin was legalized by a Roman Catholic church ceremony; her two children by Toupin were legitimized, and her son Baptiste Dorion and daughter Marguerite Venier were “acknowledged” by Toupin.