NOVEMBER 15, 2004
Special Edition
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Beauty And Intrigue Harriet Lindsay, a Rogue River Indian and the recognized wife of General Phil Sheridan, was a member of high society in Grand Ronde in
the late 1 9th century.
The Mystery of Harriet Liitrtsay
The story of a Civil War general, an Indian girl and the Reservation at Grand Ronde.
By Ron Karten
At the Riverview Cemetery in
Portland Section 14, Lot
324, in spaces four and
three lie Harriet Lindsey and
Edith Marian Fedder, Harriet's
daughter. Records indicate that
Fedder died at the age of 52 in 1929
in Portland; and that Harriet died
at the age of 94 in 1933 in Grand
Ronde. Stones mark the graves
purchased by Edward M. Fedder,
husband of Marian, in 1929.
Today, Harriet remains a footnote
to 19th Century America, the stuff
of fading memories, but the story
of this Indian girl's relationship
with the man who would become
one of the most successful generals
in U.S. history still stirs the local
imagination here in Grand Ronde.
Maybe the remark of Grand
Ronde Tribal Elder Darrell Mercier,
74, who was three-to-five years old
when Harriet passed her last years
in Grand Ronde, spoke for the com-
munity when he
said, "It was just
a dream to me."
The story of
this woman, In
dian by birth,
white by the so
ciety she lived
in, also shows
one product of a
vanquishing
army attempt
ing on some lev
els to be civilized
in the Grand
Ronde of the
troubled 19th
Century.
Harriet's story
sparked interest
years later
across social and political lines.
Pioneer women recalled a young
girl very much like Harriet when
they gathered to socialize half a cen
tury later. Historical fiction writ
ers of the time included a portrait
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Our Wisdom Comes From Our Elders
In the oral tradition of our ancestors, Grand Ronde Tribal
Elder Hubert Mercier, 94, is old enough to remember the
legends of Harriet Lindsay and contributed his memo
ries of her to this story.
of a character that seems to be
Harriet. Even Oregon Governor
Oswald West, who used to camp at
David Leno's place in the 1890s,
was taken with the story. In corre
spondence supplied by Sheridan
historian Dick Jordan, the former
governor said that "Sheridan did not
marry the gal just had her for a
reservation mate."
Harriet, a Rogue River Indian of
Chief George's Band, according to
source material from the National
Archives, has been variously de
scribed as the common law wife or
Indian wife of Civil War General
Philip Sheridan. He kept her dur
ing his years as a lieutenant in the
U.S. Army stationed at Fort Yamhill
in Grand Ronde and Fort Hoskins
in rural Benton County. He left her
in 1861 when he was called east to
help fight the Civil War.
In Grand Ronde, Lindsay is both
a fading memory, and yet very
much alive in bits and pieces of the
historical records and in the memo
ries of Tribal Elders here, very
much a celebrity who returned to
the community to die.
She was described by Martha E.
Gilliam Collins in Oregon Histori
cal Quarterly, the magazine of the