We Who Survived -9 Lorinda Bewley

September 28

Mrs. Pringle provided me with an address for Lorinda Bewley Chapman, (pictured above)  and I wrote to her. She has now replied and sent a letter from her brother as well. We travelled out to Oregon on the same wagon train as the Bewleys and her father was the captain. My brother drove their commissary wagon. I knew who she was but she had no interest in me, a young boy – with all the older
boys paying court to her, as well as the Indian Chief.

When Lorinda and Crocket stayed behind at the Whitmans, John Bewley had an obligation to finish off what he had been asked to do, and deliver the rest of the group to their intended destination. But in the meantime, before they moved on, Dr. Whitman had convinced my father that it would do us good to have a break over the winter, and he hired us to work the saw mill for him.

September 20, 1880

Sheridan, Yamhill County

Dear Mr. Young,

I was pleased to hear from you, and certainly I do remember you a bit from those far off days. I will tell you what I can remember and hope it will help you with your book. It would be interesting to meet up with you again. You are very welcome to come here to visit. I would enjoy hearing what you learned from the Kimball family when you went to see them.

You asked about how I felt about the Indians. I'm sure you can imagine that I am not going to sing their praises. But anyway, here is my story. There is no point in telling you about our crossing the plains, as you were there. I'm sure you will remember that in our company there were alot of us young folks and the first part of the road we had nice horses to ride and plenty to eat, and we
thought going to Oregon was nothing but fun but when we got in the Indians' country, they began to run off the stock, and would come and demand us to give them provisions and clothes. They would come riding around our wagons all painted with those bows and arrows and tomahawks, looking as tho they would just as leave kill us as not.

The men had to stand and guard every night and then sometimes the Indians would get a horse or team. My father started with five nice horses. There were six girls in our camp that use to ride horseback and one day there was a company that came up behind us and there were several young men that seen us and one of them (Five Crows) said that he would pick out his girl, tho he had never seen her face, and that was the daughter of the one that rode the big gray horse meaning my dad, but before we got to Dr. Whitman's our horses were all gone and we tried to go on foot a good deal of the time and that was hard work.

We had many trials and privations on the trail but landed at Dr. Whitman's Mission October 10th, 1847, without the loss of any of the family. We stopped there two weeks to rest and recover
our teams. In this time Mrs. Whitman prevailed on me to stay with her until the next spring. She said it was late in the season and my health was not good so I consented to stay. My mother thought it would be for the best. My parents and the others continued to Willamette Falls.

My oldest brother Crockett decided to stay as well as neither of us was very well, and he didn't want to leave me on my own. We were getting along fine until the 27th of November when the Indians came in and killed the Doctor and his wife and twelve others and took the rest of us prisoners. My brother Crockett was later murdered and I was taken to Umatilla to be an Indian chief's wife.

Tamsucky, who was one of the worst of the Indians, came to the mansion house and cornered me and said he wanted me for a wife. I reminded him that he had a wife but that had no effect. He pursued me behind the stove. I defended myself and managed to slip by him and ran into the mission yard screaming for the help of Chief Tiloukaikt. When he didn't appear, I said I would tell the chief of his conduct the next day. He said he would not let me do so. I replied that I would call loud
enough for him to hear and come to see what was the matter. He tried to stop my screams by placing his hand over my mouth. He caught me and tried to put me on his horse. I succeeded in staying off the horse but that only enraged him further. He threw me  to the ground and raped me in from of the onlookers. While the brute was maltreating me, my brother Bewley tried to go to my aid but being still weak, was unable to help me. Then, with me weeping, Tamsucky ordered me to go to the house.

On Thursday following the massacre, Indian riders came and made it clear they wanted to take me back to the Umatilla to be the wife of Chief Five Crows. I pleaded with Tiloukaikt, the chief of
our tribe at Waiilatpu to allow me to stay with the other women but he would not listen. “You will be safer at the camp of the chief," he assured me."All the Indians will be glad to protect the squaw
of Five Crows but here you will become the common property of all and I cannot help you. You will do well to marry with the great chief who wants a yellow haired wife."

I was bound to the back of a pony and taken to Umatilla to be the wife of an Indian chief. Before starting on the journey I was allowed a few minutes in which to collect some articles of clothing. Passing through the house I saw the little Bible which had belonged to Mrs. Whitman lying on a small stand and tucked it into my bundle.

I rode from the yard, turning as the road went around the hill for a last look at the desolate scene that had been the busy mission farm. It was quite a distance so we had to spend the first night out in the open. On the way to Umatilla the horse on which I was riding stumbled and I fell, breaking one of my wrists.

When we finally arrived, Five Crows stood at my horse's head when the youngest priest helped me to dismount. I walked up the path of light from the open doorway where two other priests stood. One said that he was Bishop Blanchet, the bishop of Walla Walla, and he led me to the open fire.  

He told me that when he heard about the massacre, he called Young Chief and Five Crows and recommended into their care the welfare of the widows and children who had survived the massacre.
They promised to do all in their power for the survivors.

Father Rousseau hurried in with the simple meal of bread and cold meat, adding a pot of precious tea. I recognized the other priest, Father Brouillet, as he had helped with the burial of the dead at Waiilatpu two days earlier.

I pleaded for asylum in the Bishop's house. "We are but a handful of white men among a nation of savages on the warpath," said the bishop. "Five Crows is a much finer character than most. I will do what I can to reason with him and delay as long as possible. We are all caught in this trap and are helpless. But do not weep, daughter. This great trouble is not your fault."

Some of the time I was permitted to stay at the Catholic priest's house. He managed to keep me away from Five Crows for four nights. He kept trying to make me understand that by being the bride
of Five Crows, I would have things better than if I refused him, and would then be passed around from one Indian to the next. After that I had to be at Five Crow's lodge each night. For three long weeks I had to stay there. Every day seemed to me a week.

It was during this time that my brother was killed, and I was not there to help him.

At the end of three weeks, on December 19, Mr. Peter Ogden arrived at Fort Walla Walla from Vancouver with two boats loaded with trading goods.

Runners were sent in all directions to the chief men of the tribes to be with him at the fort. With high hopes in my heart I watched Five Crows and his brother, Young Chief, ride by on their way to the great meeting. Mr. Ogden was known and trusted the length of the land as the representative of the great Hudson's Bay company that had brought the Indians wealth and security for so long. This is what I later heard about that meeting.

With the care of long practice Mr. Ogden stood before them in all the splendor and gold braid he could assemble. He spoke with sharp authority and the leaders sitting in a half circle before
him felt the justice of his rebukes. Tacitly recognizing the Provisional government as the law of the land he gave no promises of what action the Americans would take. His greatest anxiety was to get
the women and children away before some overt act on the part of the settlers could set off another holocaust.

He stated his desires simply. He wanted the survivors and was prepared to pay a suitable ransom. Each of the chieftains talked, and Mr. Ogden watched the sullen face of Five Crows closely. At last the meeting was dismissed and the Indians rode homeward in dejected silence. Their wrath had been allowed to flare in one act of vicious hatred but they knew well that it was futile to attempt to
stem the tide. The shadow of that one base act would lie across their paths forever.  

Back at the mission Five Crows renewed his pleas to me to consider staying with him. He pointed out the advantages of position and prestige that would be mine as his wife. He would build a house for me finer than any other white woman Oregon country could boast. I would have horses to ride and Indian servants to do my bidding. I shook my head. He then said, if I would marry him he would
gladly go to the Willamette Valley to labor and live as a white man. He stood humbly at my stirrup to make his final plea and as my horse moved out to join the cavalcade going to the fort, his fingers
clutched the dirt-crusted hem of my skirt. Another important Indian had been sent with two horses to escort me back to Waiilatpu. I must say that Five Crows was considerate to me when we parted, and made sure I had a warm blanket for the trip back.

My brother James, who is two years younger than me, has suggested that I send a letter with his memories to you as well. He wasn't at the Mission at the time of the massacre, so he can't
comment on that, but he remembers the trip that we all made together quite well.

Yours sincerely,

Lorissa Bewley Chapman

September 20, 1880

Sheridan, Yamhill County

Dear Mr. Young,

It is nice to hear from you, and I hope we will hear more about how you have progressed in these last 32 years. I must admit I don't really remember you from the trip, but I was a lot younger. I thought my memories of the Indians might be of interest to you, so I am hoping Lorinda will send this page along with her letter to you.

The Indians had always considered the wagon trains a good market for the articles they could make and for the produce of their little gardens. The Indians hung about our wagon. One in particular, Chief Five Crows, of the Cayuse tribe, had learned the methods of farming from the missions at Waiilatpu and Lapwai and his trading caravans always met the trains. It was in the Blue Mountains that he first saw Lorinda  and fell in love with her fragile loveliness. We had heard that this young chief of the Cayuses was something of a problem to his old men and counselors. In vain had they urged marriage with the daughters of leading families of their own and neighboring tribes, but Five Crows was non-commital and uncooperative. Now, in the prime of his manhood he was still single.

Chief Five Crows had heard the stories of the eastern tribes (as he called the white people) and his
keen mind realized fully that the only hope of survival for the Indians was to learn the ways of civilization. This he urged upon his people. He and his brother, Young Chief, had become Christians. Five Crows a Protestant and Young Chief a Catholic. Both wore the clothes of white men, but Five Crows still clung to his long hair which fell in two black ropes across his shoulders. To Five Crows there was no inconsistency in his desire for a white wife. All his life he had seen the comely young Indian women taken as wives by the trappers and even by the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. Without false pride he considered himself a highly eligible bachelor. He sought our
family at once, offering many head of horses if they would look with favor upon his suit. His pride was doubtlessly stung by their curt response that white men did not sell their women.

I won't repeat things about the massacre, but only to say that our Father was indirectly killed by it too. A neighbour's boat drew near our shelter and called to him that Dr. Whitman's mission had been pillaged by the Indians. Horror-stricken and broken, our patient father entered his tent, lay down and died.

After she had recovered from her ordeal, Lorinda secured a position as teacher in the little town and she saw and later married William Chapman.  He was one of the Oregon Rifles who prepared to go in pursuit of the Cayuses.

I hope this information will help you with your book. We look forward to reading it when it is finished.

Yours sincerely,

James Bewley