The Tender Ties: the Nez Perce [Niimi'ipuutímt] Connection. [Nimipu, meaning "the people"]
By Ginny Mapes; Historian and Educator of Helvetia, Oregon
Joe Meek, Robert Newell, Caleb Wilkins, George Ebbert, William Craig,
William Doty [Doughty] and Joseph Gale were friends, having trapped together over the years.
All had taken indigenous women for their wives, some were young
girls at the time of the partnering. The men trapped and their wives tended
the camp, cooked, cared for the children and helped with the pelts. Now in
the summer of 1840, they hoped to settle in Oregon Country.
Mary Doty — Shoshone
Virginia Meek — Nez Perce
Kitty Newell — Nez Perce
Catherine Wilkins — Nez Perce
Fanny Ebbert — Nez Perce
Isabel Craig — Nez Perce
Eliza Gale — Nez Perce
Mary “Pigeon” Doty (Doughty) Shoshone, the wife of William Martin Doty had arrived in Oregon Country with their two children in September 1840.
Eliza, wife of famed Oregon pioneer Joseph Gale, was a Nez Perce woman also known as “Bear Claws” and crucial in Oregon’s earliest history.
Three Nez Perce sisters from the Rocky Mountains and their American Mountain Men husbands made it to the Tualatin Plains, and were joined by other trapper families on their way to the Columbia.
Virginia Meek, Nez Perce, wife of Joe Meek, and their baby boy, Courtney Walker Meek, was a year and a half old. Virginia was also caring for three-year-old Helen Mar Meek, the little girl from Joe’s former marriage. Once they reached the Whitman station, Helen Mar Meek was left in Narcissa’s (Whitman) care for the trip had been very rough.
Kitty Newell, Nez Perce, sister to Virginia Meek, wife of Robert “Doc” Newell had three children. Francis Ermatinger was five, William Moore two, and Marcus Whitman, two and half months old.
Catherine Wilkins, Nez Perce wife of Caleb Wilkins, was the third of the Nez Perce sisters. She had one child traveling with her, two-year-old George Wilkins.
Fanny Ebbert, Nez Perce wife of George Ebbert, was also with the group.
Isabel Craig, Nez Perce, was with her husband William Craig. She had given birth on September 10 to a baby boy, Joseph William, in Lapwai.
Isabel Craig; Wife of Wiliam Craig, was one of 6 Nez Perce women who came in 1840 to the Tualatin Plains in what is now Hillsboro and settled the land.
The journey was difficult extending over vast lava beds, round impassable canyons, and over rapid unbridged rivers. This was the most difficult part of the journey.
“In a few days we began to realize the difficult task before us, and found that the continual crashing of the sage under our wagons which in many places was higher the mules backs was no joke and seeing our animals began to fail we began to lighten up finally threw away our Wagon beds and were quite sorry we had undertaken the job. . .” Robert Newell [spelling corrected]
[The trappers were also guiding missionaries Harvey Clarke and his wife, Emeline and others going to the Whitman Mission.]
Another Nez Perce woman, Bear Claws, [later her name changed to Eliza] was the half sister of Young Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.
Bear Claws had married Joseph Gale in 1836 in a traditional Nez Perce ceremony.
[Her father was the venerated Nez Perce chief Old Joseph, known as Tuekakas and Wellamotkin, who died in 1871. Her half brother was young Chief Joseph, or Hinmatooyalatkekt, who would become world famous in 1877 after the tribe's Wallowa Band was ordered out of Wallowa County and faced forced resettlement on a reservation at Lapwai, Idaho.]
Joseph Gale and Eliza were some of the first settlers on the Tualatin Plains and were soon joined by other trapper friends, Meek, Newell, Ebbert, Wilkins, and Doty in December, 1840.
These American men: Meek, Newell, Wilkins, Ebbert, and Doty along with Joseph Gale and David Hill would go on to establish the provisional government.
Joseph Gale after his service in the provisional government, was a gold miner, U.S. Army scout, sawmill and ferryboat operator, U.S. postmaster, manager of a stagecoach station, farmer and rancher. He and Eliza raised at least five children and lived together until his death in 1881 near Richland, Washington at age 74. Bear Claws died in 1905, but her actual age is unknown.
The Nez Perce wives and children of these American men played a very important role in the settlement of the Pacific Northwest.
A quote from memoirs of the Meek family, given by Virginia, Joe's wife - "Oh, but it was cold and lonesome [Dec 18,1840]. Mr Meek hurried and built a bark house and had a nice fire and made it nice and warm, but I couldn't help it, I was lonesome and homesick for my people. There was plenty of game and fish in the creek [McKay] and they were never hungry.
Mr. Meek would say, 'Never mind, Virginia, never mind. In the spring you will see he nicest country you ever saw.' Sure enough, the next spring everything was nice and green, and she found the prettiest flowers she had ever seen and the largest strawberries, but she couldn't help being lonesome and homesick. They picked out the land for their farm, built a log house and planted a garden. She was influential in choosing their farm where the land was easily cleared.” [Thanks to Judy Goldmann for sharing Virginia Meek's Memoir.]
As these Nez Perce women struggled to built a new American way of life in a new land, there was also sadness. Many times the women were on their own as the men were away. Meek, Newell, Ebbert, Wilkins, and Craig, were hired as hunters and guides by the Wilkes Exploring Expedition in 1841 for the Emmons’ Overland Party.
Isabel Craig, later returned to Lapwai, where her husband working with missionary Henry Spalding created a Nez Perce dictionary and the Nez Perce were taught to read and write.
However, there was also sadness. Kitty Newell died at 23, leaving Robert with five little boys. Over those early years, five of Joe and Virginia Meek's children died and were buried near the Methodist Meeting House.
Please help us honor those early Nez perce women and the children who were buried on this land.
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Photos: Bear Claws, [Eliza] married to Joseph Gale; and her stone. Thanks to Judith Fortney for taking the photo of Eliza's stone.
