Her name is hardly known today, but just six years after Sacagawea made her trek, a 21-year-old Iowa Indian woman named Marie Dorion went with the expedition that made the second such crossing to the same destination--the mouth of the Columbia River. The stories of Sacagawea's trials, courage and endurance during her 1805-06 journey are well known. But Marie Dorion's nearly forgotten trials were even more difficult.

Marie Dorion was the only woman on the 1811-12 overland expedition financed by John Jacob Astor, to establish a fur trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. That second American crossing of the continent was the result of Astor's competition with the British Hudson's Bay Company. Astor, after having made a fortune on the fur resources about the Great Lakes, planned to establish a trading post on the coast of Oregon, to control the fur trade with the Orient.

It was Astor's plan to trade Western furs in the Orient, receiving cargoes to exchange in England for manufactured goods needed in America. The overland expedition was to identify locations where fur trading posts could be established that also would serve as way stations to expedite communications between Astor's Eastern headquarters and the Western trading posts, a forerunner of the pony express. ...

The site selected for the trading post, Astoria, was on Point George on the southern shore of the Columbia. It was not far from the location of Lewis and Clark's 1805-06 Fort Clatsop winter camp. ... The overland expedition was led by an inexperienced St. Louis merchant named Wilson Price Hunt. He was believed to be about 29 years old in 1811. Although he had become a successful merchant since coming to St. Louis in 1804, he had no experience that would qualify him for the task ahead. Hunt's party left St. Louis on October 21, 1810, six weeks after Tonquin sailed from New York. After traveling 450 miles up the Missouri River in three boats, they camped a month later 150 miles above Fort Osage, which had been established two years earlier at a site recommended by Lewis and Clark. They were to winter there at the mouth of the Nodaway River to avoid the expense of staying in St. Louis and to remove his crew from the temptations of that city.

After camp was established, Hunt went back to St. Louis, as he still needed to hire additional men, one being a Sioux interpreter. For that position he obtained the services of Pierre Dorion Junior. Dorion's mother was a Yankton Sioux and his father, Pierre Dorion Senior was an Indian trader from Quebec, whom Lewis and Clark had engaged as an interpreter to the Yankton Sioux. The elder Dorion remained with the Yanktons to promote Lewis and Clark's Indian policy, which was to end intertribal wars, encourage some chiefs to go as ambassadors to Washington, and for the tribes to accept trade with Americans, rather than with their usual partners, the Spanish and French. When Lewis and Clark continued up the Missouri River, Pierre Dorion Senior was to gather a delegation of Sioux chiefs and escort them to Washington. ...

Dorion's wife, Marie, and their two sons ages 2 and 4 were with him in St. Louis and all four left with Hunt in the spring. It is believed that Dorion had taken the young Iowa Indian woman for a wife about 1806, after abandoning a Yankton woman named Holy Rainbow. En route up the Missouri River Dorion learned that Lisa intended to have him arrested at the frontier town of St. Charles, in western Missouri. That news prompted Dorion and family to leave the boat.

After Hunt had departed from St. Charles, Dorion rejoined him, but without his family. All were not contented in the Dorion family. Pierre and Marie had quarreled; he had beat her, causing her to flee into the woods. Not wanting to delay, Hunt shoved off without her. The next morning, though, Marie and the children voluntarily rejoined them.

The party continued upriver to Fort Osage, where they stayed three days. Again the Dorions quarreled. Marie wanted to stay with new-found friends, so Pierre had to physically place her in one of the boats. Marie's desire to not undertake the journey may have been influenced by the fact that she was then about three months pregnant. There is no record that she ever again rebelled and the couple remained together until Pierre's violent death.

Nine days after the Tonquin party established Astoria, Hunt's party left their winter camp on April 21, 1811. At that time, the expedition was composed of 60 persons, five of whom were partners of Astor's Pacific Fur Company. ...

On May 26, 1811, Hunt met up with three veteran hunters, who were on the way to St. Louis--Edward Robinson, John Hoback and Jacob Reznor. They had been with Henry the previous year and had spent a few months at Fort Henry. Although they were headed back to Kentucky, Hunt persuaded them to join him and go all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They in turn persuaded Hunt to change his route. Instead of following Lewis and Clark's path to the Forks, through Lemhi Pass, and north to the Lolo Trail, they told him he should take a southern route to avoid the Blackfeet. Those three were about Hunt's only experienced mountain men, although one of the partners, Ramsey Crooks, had been trading up the Missouri. ... Hunt's new plan called for him to leave his boats there and go overland, but his departure was delayed until July 18, because of the difficulty of bargaining for horses. When at last his party left, he had only 82 horses, most of which were used as pack animals. The partners, plus Pierre Dorion and the two children, rode, but Marie walked until after additional horses were obtained from the Cheyenne and Crow Indians.

Lewis and Clark had wintered with the Mandans, just upriver from the Arikaras (in present-day central North Dakota). They started out early in the year, when the ice melted, reaching their goal in early November. Hunt wintered in Missouri, did not reach the Arikaras until June, 1811, and did not get underway overland until the middle of July. Thus he was forced to spend the following winter trying to get through the mountains, not reaching Astoria until February, 1812.  ...

... [A]long the headwaters of the Snake River, Hunt made a nearly fatal error of judgment. He abandoned his horses and constructed 15 dugout canoes. Since the Snake was a contributory of the Columbia River, Hunt assumed that the remaining 1,000 miles could be made by water. They soon found out differently. At Fort Henry, the party divided. Some men, including the three new hunters, were dispatched on trapping expeditions, to make their separate way to Oregon.

After leaving Fort Henry on October 18, 1811, the rest of the Hunt party soon encountered a series of rapids, where portages had to be made along high bluffs. While attempting to run one set of rapids on October 28, about 340 miles below Henry's Fort, a canoe wrecked and one man drowned. After some of the men scouted the river ahead, they were forced to recognize the futility of trying to travel by water. The river was declared unnavigable.

Now without horses, it became necessary to cache a large part of their supplies and continue on foot. To increase the chance of obtaining game to supplement their meager supply of food, the party again split, with half traveling on each side of the river. One party of 18 men, under Ramsey Crooks, walked along the south bank of the barren, rocky Snake River. Another 18 led by Hunt, including the Dorion family, stayed on the north side. A third small group, giving up, left to retrace their steps.

Upon encountering a small Indian band on November 17, Hunt succeeded in buying a horse to use as a pack horse. Two days later, he obtained a second horse for his personal use. At the next Indian camp that they stumbled on, an Indian claimed that Hunt's second horse had been stolen from him. Hunt was forced to give it up, but he was able to buy two others.

Pierre Dorion was also able to buy a horse for his family, so that Marie and the two children were again able to ride. They had been walking since leaving the canoes. Since the children were presumably ages 2 and 4, Marie must have carried the younger one on her back most of the time, even though she was by then eight months pregnant.

Near the end of November, Hunt's party was forced to start killing their few horses for food. Dorion resisted all efforts to kill his horse, even though it was almost starved. ... Twice in November and December they had to stay in Shoshone Indian camps for a short time because of the heavy snow and their lack of food. One time, they came upon a Shoshone camp that had a small herd of horses. The temptation was too great. They scared the Indians away and seized five mounts.

Marie Dorion's third child was born on December 30, 1811, but the baby died about eight days later. Apparently, Hunt's concern for Marie's welfare was not comparable to the concern Sacagawea had received from Lewis and Clark, for Marie gave birth to the child alone and caught up with the party the next day. It was another five weeks before Hunt's party struggled into Astoria on February 15, 1812. ... Altogether, only 45 of the original 60 men reached Astoria, compared to Lewis and Clark, who had only one death (it was due to appendicitis) on their entire expedition.

[When Britain and America went to war again in 1812, Americans at Astor's fort in Astoria] made plans to return to the East overland, carrying dispatches. ...  Their route took them much farther south than Hunt's westward expedition and was extremely difficult, causing them to go many miles out of the way. In the process they discovered a pass through the Rockies in what would become Wyoming. At an elevation of only 7,550 feet, South Pass was later to become the preferred route for the Oregon Trail. The Bonneville Expedition took the first wagon through South Pass on 24 July 1832. A large portion of Hunt's route along the Snake River became part of the Oregon Trail.

In July 1813 the Dorion family left Astoria on a beaver trapping trip. The party, led by John Reed, established their base of operations for the winter up the Snake River, at the mouth of the Boise River in present-day southwest Idaho, beyond the area now called Hell's Canyon. There, the party was divided into smaller units with Pierre Dorion, Giles Le Clerc, and the Kentucky hunter Jacob Reznor assigned to trap along the Boise River.

Marie and the children remained at the base camp. In January 1814 she learned from friendly Indians that a band of Bannocks were burning other camps, so she set out on a horse with her two children to warn her husband. Three days later she discovered their hut and found Le Clerc wounded. They had been ambushed that morning, while on their trapping line, and Pierre and Reznor were killed.

Marie got Le Clerc on the horse with her children and set out for the base camp, but he died two days later. At the base camp she found Reed and all the men in camp killed and mutilated. Leaving immediately, Marie headed back, seeking refuge with friendlier Indians along the Columbia River.

After nine days of struggling through snow, Marie was forced to halt and build a crude hut. Living on horse meat and melted snow, the three of them stayed there for 53 days. In mid-March, Marie and the children set out on foot. She was wandering partially snow blind, when rescued by Walla Walla Indians and taken to their village. There she was found in April by members of the Astoria group who were on their way back to St. Louis. They took her to Fort Okanogan, a Canadian fur station owned by the North West Company, located in the northeastern part of present-day Washington.

Marie lived at Fort Okanogan for several years, with a French-Canadian trapper named Venier. Their daughter, Marguerite, was born about 1819. Marie later lived with Jean Baptiste Toupin, who was a French-Canadian interpreter at Fort Nez Perce (later called Fort Walla Walla), another North West Company trading post, at the juncture of the Columbia and the Walla Walla rivers. It had been constructed in 1820 and lasted until it was burned by Indians in 1855. By Toupin, Marie Dorion had two more children: Francois (born about 1825) and Marianne (born about 1827).

In 1841 the Toupins settled on a farm in the Willamette Valley near Salem, Oregon and on July 19 of that year, they were formally married in a Roman Catholic ceremony. Marie died in 1850 and was buried at the parish church of St. Louis, 12 miles northeast of Salem. The officiating priest recorded her age as about 100, which was in error by about 40 years.

Marie Dorion's story became well known in her lifetime through the published recollections of Astoria pioneers and through Washington Irving's book Astoria. Since then, her name has been largely forgotten. ...