2 NOVEMBER 15, 2004
Smoke Signals Special Edition
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Above : Edith Marian Fedder, Harriet Lindsay's daughter.
Left : Harriet Lindsay
The Mwsterw of Harriet Li
u u
Oregon Historical Society, as "one
of the prettiest Indian girls I ever
saw... She was graceful as a deer
and as slender as a fawn. She loved
Sheridan devotedly. Her brother
was a fine looking Indian, too. He
was named Harney, after an army
officer. He was a teamster for the
troops. When the Civil War broke
out and Sheridan was called east,
Frances was almost broken
hearted."
Collins was a farm
ing woman who was
daughter of a Civil War
general killed in the
Cayuse war and sister-in-law
of a pioneer-era
judge. She also de
scribed her brother
volunteering to fight
against Indians in the
Yakima sic Indian f
war, and also of her t .... ..
brother scalp'ing an
Indian.
A 1973 article in the McMinnville
News-Register, quoted Tribal Elder
Velma (Hudson) Mercier, great
niece to Harriet, relating this story:
"As a child, Harriet would climb a
tree and have a friend chop the tree
down. This provided Harriet with
a thrilling ride down, even if it was
dangerous."
The stories that have circulated
over the years indicate that Harriet
arrived in Grand Ronde when she
was in her early teens 14 accord
ing to one account but a timeline
of her life derived from some of the
significant dates that are known
indicate that she may have been
older, maybe 16 or 17 at the time
and at some point came under
the sway of the young second lieu
tenant at Fort Yamhill, Philip
Sheridan, a man who, despite fin
ishing nearly last in his class at
West Point, would be a formidable
U.S. General in the Civil War. And
one who also dedicated himself to
destroying Indian culture.
Stories circulate from that time,
remembered by Tribal Elder Hubert
also came at a time when girls mar
ried young without undue force.
"In those days," said Hubert
Mercier, "when the girls got to be
13, they married them off."
So, it is into this world that the
teenaged Harriet arrived with
Martha Jane Sands, her first cousin
and also a full-blooded Rogue River.
(At the entrance to the casino, the
statue of the little girl represents
Martha Jane Sands.) They had
mm, mmmm m
Mercier, now 93, about the power
wielded by U.S. military men on the
reservation. "What the soldiers did
to the women if they didn't do what
they wanted, they just shot them."
Dick Jordan, a Sheridan real es
tate agent who also is a Civil War
historian with a great affinity for
Philip Sheridan, said that he had
never heard that story.
"He could be very hardnosed,"
said Jordan, "but I've found in
stances where he could be compas
sionate." "From what I heard," said Darrell
Mercier, "he'd pick a woman and
she'd have to come with him or else."
The story of Harriet and Sheridan
been visiting with friends among
the Umpquas when the Rogue
River Wars broke out, according to
the National Archives materials,
and came north with the Umpquas
a few months ahead of their own
Tribe in the summer of 1856.
It was here that she found her
self under the sway of the army's
local and ambitious second lieuten
ant. It was also here, according to
some accounts from old pioneer so
ciety gatherings, that Harriet may
have spent time with the children
of pioneer families in Rickreall
while Sheridan was at work at Fort
Hoskins. He spent as much as a
year and a half of his time in this
area at Fort Hoskins, said Dennis
Werth, a local historian.
Werth called the information
"snippets." The name used for the
female character who might be
modeled after Harriet is Frances in
these accounts, some written down
fifty years after the fact. What little
there is that describes this 'Frances'
remains consistent with what we
know of Harriet's life.
"Whether this is one and the same
person, I don't know,"
said Werth.
Photographs of
Harriet at the time
show a beautiful
young girl, and the
three-line tattoo said
to be on her chin (it
does not appear in ex
isting photographs) is
believed to be a mark
ing from the time to
protect against her be
ing kidnapped and sold into sla
very. One account holds that the
prettiest girls were tattooed in
childhood.
Ethnographic reports say that
"tattoos were a sign of status in some
societies," said Werth.
Whatever the history for aborigi
nal peoples, Harriet found herself
in white society and often upper
class white society during her life
and is reported again and again to
have been ashamed of that tattoo.
"She would wear a wool scarf to
try to cover it," said Tribal Elder
Nadine Mercier McNutt, grand
daughter of Hattie Hudson, with
whom Harriet came to live in the
NOVEMBER 15, 2004
Smoke Signals Special Edition 3
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MM
Harriet's Daughter Marian Fedder, (right), was said to
have toured many places, including Europe, as an entertainer.
' ......
Si . ' - -
The story of a Civil War general, an Indian girl and the Reservation at Grand Ronde.
last years of her life.
"She always had that shawl over
her chin," said Tribal Elder Dean
Mercier, 74, who remembers visit
ing the house when he was very
young. .
National Archives source material
shows that Harriet lived with
Sheridan for about three years.
According to the 1973 News-Register
story, Harriet's great nieces,
Velma (Hudson) Mercier and Eula
(Hudson) Petite "believe that
Sheridan must have spent consid
erable time teaching Harriet such
things as reading, speech, gram
mar, social graces and an apprecia
tion of fine things. According to
some sources, Harriet developed a
reputation for being a gracious
hostess."
"Phil Sheridan taught her all she
knew," said McNutt.
Dean Mercier remembered from
Harriet's final years in Grand
Ronde, "the velvet drapes, the plush
drapes." He recalled that his aunt
Velma (Mercier) said that Harriet
"was always dressed up
aristocratically."
Tribal member Joyce Ham, whose
mother was a Hudson, (and the
Hudsons were the closest relatives
that Harriet had in the Tribe), re
called from these last years her
"beautiful engraved dishes. I can
remember the cranberry glass.
There's one little picture I had for
years that had the date engraved
in it. There was a picture of her
with curved glass, beautiful frames
for wall hanging pictures. Nice
things. There used to be a trunk.
And plumes on the hat. Even rings
and things. Lockets, cameo things."
In later years, many had a sense
that, as McNutt said, "She mingled
with high society" and "probably,
she didn't want to associate with us."
The early years passed, and when
Sheridan was called East to fight
the Civil War, some have said that
he created a blacksmith business
for David Leno, an Indian aide and
now one of the patriarchs of the
Grand Ronde Leno families. Hav
ing provided the blacksmith busi
ness for Leno, Sheridan is said to
have arranged for Harriet to marry
Leno.
"He made a deal with David Leno
to marry her," said McNutt.
According to a 1957 News-Register
story, Sheridan gave the couple
a wedding gift of "his household
furnishings" that the pair divided
when the marriage broke up four
or five years later.
While the stark facts of the story
speak of a man with power taking
advantage of a young, and cer
tainly impressionable Indian girl,
"this was not a unique experience,"
according to historian Dennis
Werth. "Did they see it as abuse of
power? I don't know," he said.
There is evidence, according to
Werth, that Sheridan intended to
come back. "He bought land at
Gold Creek (between Valley Junc
tion and Willamina), and kept it.
When he left, he may have had fan
tasies of coming back here. He
didn't get a wife until quite a bit
later."
Sheridan married in 1875, and it
was not until the 1870s, according
to Werth, that he came back here
and sold the land.
Sometime after the war, Sheridan
may have invited Harriet, her
brother, Harney, and two other In
dians back to Washington, D.C.,
according to the "Reminiscences of
Mrs. Frank Collins, nee Martha
Elizabeth Gilliam," as reproduced in
Oregon Historical Quarterly:
"After the war General Sheridan
fixed it up for four of the Indians to
come back at government expense
and visit the 'Great White Father,'
as they call the president. Frances,
her brother Harney, and two other
Indians went. Frances came and
showed me all her clothes. She had
a fine outfit for the trip," said the
report. Again, as in other pioneer
documents cited for this story, the
person believed to be Harriet is re
ferred to as 'Frances'.
In the community, Harriet has
been tied to two other men, one of
ten referred to as "a Spaniard," and
the second, the man who gave her
the Lindsey surname. Harriet's
daughter, Marian, was known to
play an important part in Harriet's
life.
Source material from the National
Archives confirm that Harriet in
fact traveled to the The Dalles af
ter leaving David Leno and about
a year later married the Spaniard,
Ben Corton. The couple had three
children, but only Marian survived.
Corton died when Marian was
about six, about 1883, and two
years later, Harriet married Casper
Lindsey, specifically cited in the ar
chives as a "white man of good fam
ily." She separated from him about
1898.
Following the end of her marriage
to Lindsey, Harriet took a job as an
Assistant Cook for the Siletz, ac
cording to archives material.
For Tribal members, the years
that stretched from the mid-1860s
when she and Leno parted ways to
her return to Grand Ronde nearly
70 years later in the early 1930s
represent an era of mystery and ro
mance in which Harriet is thought
to have traveled across Europe with
her daughter, who was said by vari
ous sources to have been an enter
tainer. Velma Petite, in the later News
Register story, showed a photo
graph of Marian in what was de
scribed as "an elaborate costume,
apparently either a singer or a
dancer."
The report said that "Marian be
came part of a troupe of entertain
ers and for years the troupe toured
many places, including Europe,
where they gave concerts and per
formances." Darrell Mercier remembers
Nadine Mercier McNutt, his cousin,
saying that "Harriet traveled all
over Europe with Marian. Mother
(Martha Hudson Mercier) used to
talk about her to all the relations."
The concrete memories remain
ing, however, are of the family's
trunks, and the fancy stuff held
inside, which Harriet still had when
she came to live in Grand Ronde for
the last years of her life.
Much of the detail may have been