Mary Three-Dresses

From Oregon Pioneers Bios:

http://www.oregonpioneers.com/bios/FrancisErmatinger2.pdf

“Meanwhile, back with the Flatheads, the fur traders had taken time out for a little romance. From this summer’s profits, Robert Newell was investing in a Nez Perce wife whom he called Kittie. On July 27, 1834, according to the application he made later for a land claim in Oregon, he took to wife this daughter of Chief Kowsoter. Other daughters of this chief are reported to have married Joe Meek and Caleb Wilkins. Perhaps Ermatinger was a member of the wedding party.

It was about this period of his life that he met our ancestress, Cha-teel-she-nah, or Mary Three Dresses the Elder, the daughter of Che-les-qua (Three Hats) and Matilda (or Madeline), a Pend d’Oreille couple. “In April of 1836, Archie McDonald wrote to Edward Ermatinger about her, presuming that Francis’ brother knew about the young woman’s role in the trader’s life. The Flathead women were rather handsome, and had a reputation for chastity not found in the Indians along the coast. When he met and approved of Mary, Archie urged Francis to think of her as a permanent arrangement, rather than as an alliance formed to facilitate trade relations with the Indians. Francis was unable to give up his dream of winning Maria McLoughlin’s affections and the consent of her father for them to marry.”

McDonald, p179.

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Archibald McDonald also wrote to Edward Ermatinger from Fort Colville on April 1, 1836: "....His chere amie (a Flathead woman) is more desirable than the generality of her class in the country, and with proper attention to her further improvement would, I have no doubt, make a good wife, and is one that would make Frank perfectly happy."

Cole, page 111.

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John McLoughlin also mentions it to Edward in letter of February 1, 1835, “I have not heard news from your brother since the month of June, though I expect news of him every moment, you know he is in the Flat Head country, he may perhaps pay me a visit, I am told he has a Clooch-i-man.”

As Francis Ermatinger was assigned to Fort Hall in 1838, it would seem that Mary Three Dresses had contact with him either there, or while he was out trading. Did she move with him to Fort Hall? There is no mention of her being there, and presumably he never returned to the Flatheads after leaving them in 1838.

Did Mary Three Dresses' youngest brother really die, or was he hid from McDonald, and has been lost in time?

It is not known if Mary Three Dresses ever married again, or how long she lived. According to her granddaughter, Elizabeth Ashley, she died when Young Mary was just a child of six. This would put her death at about 1844. Young Mary was then raised by her grandmother Matilda.

Mary Three-Dresses, was the daughter of full-blood Pend d'Oreilles, Che-les-qua and Matilda. She is often referred to as: Cha-teel-she-nah, Mary the Elder besides Mary Three Dresses and various other versions of these in the church registers of St. Ignatius Mission, Montana. Little is known about her. There is a tintype that has survived through the years in the possession of Charlie Blood, who lives in St. Ignatius, Montana. This shows three Indian figures, one of which could be Mary Three Dresses' mother, Matilda.

Mary probably was born between 1811--1815, assuming she was in the range of 18 to 22 years of age when she married Francis Ermatinger. Of course she could have been much younger at that time of her marriage in the “custom of the country” with Ermatinger. Most likely place of her birth is western Montana, in a Pend d'Oreille camp, probably in the Mission Valley, or in one of the other haunts of that time. She could have also been born in the Clark's Fork-Thompson Falls area.

In the early part of her life she followed the ways of her people, the Pend d'Oreilles. These people lived off the land, practiced animism and other religious rites of the Indians.

When the Jesuit priests came in the 1840's, she was probably baptized by Father Jean Pierre DeSmet like most of her tribe was. It is not known who gave her the Christian name of Mary, the Catholic priests or her husband, Francis Ermatinger.

Like all Pend d'Oreilles women, she learned the things necessary to maintain her family: setting up a skin lodge (tepee), preparing cooked foods, and preserving foods, making medicinal concoctions, and clothing from hides and furs. Those things that needed to be learned by young Pend d’Oreille women. One of the main chores of the women was that of preparing beaver pelts and buffalo hides. The fur trade played a great economic and financial part of her tribe’s existence, and this made her a person of relative importance. She traveled in the nomadic trend of the tribe, usually spending springs and summers camped with the Pend d’Oreille, in their hunting and root digging and berry picking grounds.

Sometime around 1834-1835 she became Francis Ermatinger's wife. Their Indian custom marriage was mainly to cement relationships with her tribe for trade purposes. It was a convenience for him and a true marriage to her.

Their involvement ended in June of 1839, when he transferred out of that area to Idaho.

They had three children:

• a son (name unknown) who was born in 1837 and died in 1838;
• Mary (our grandmother) who married Pierre Ashley and had 12 children; and then
• another boy (name unknown) born in 1838-39 and died 1840-41.

It is known that Francis Ermatinger was greatly distressed when his little sons died. So we can imagine the distress and grief held by our Grandma Mary Three Dresses. Mary Ermatinger Ashley, who could not have been old enough to know her brothers--mentioned them in her allotment records sixty some years later. She had to have been told about them by her people.

Mary Three Dresses had at least two sisters and a brother:

• Che-la-sil-shin-nah (called Ann Quitoo, and also Two Leggins);
• Felicite; and
• Che-lele (or Che-heb).

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[A note on the Upper Pend d’Oreille, or QÍispé (Kalispel), those of the Mission Valley being the Slqtkwmscint, the people living along the shore of the Flathead Lake. The Pend d’Oreille were the closest Salish tribe to the Salish proper, or Flatheads, in language and customs. From a QÍispé term said to mean "Camas"; they were given the name Pend d'Oreilles, because when they were first met by Europeans nearly all of them wore large shell earrings. So called Earring People, or Hanging Ears. There lived on the Pend Oreille River and Pend Oreille Lake, Priest Lake, and the lower course of Clark's Fork. They were said to have extended east-ward to Thompson Falls and Horse Plains and to have hunted over some of the Salmon River country, Canada, and were formerly said to have extended to Flathead Lake and Missoula. The Upper Pend d’Oreille lived in Montana while two other subdivisions lived in Washington: the Lower Kalispel or Lower Pend d'Oreilles or Kalispel proper and the Chewelah, who spoke a slightly different dialect. They were considered Plateau Indians of the Interior Salish but lived in the customs of the Plains Indians. Winter and Fall were spent on the Plains near the upper tributaries of the Missouri River engaged in hunting buffalo.]

(http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/idaho/kalispel_indian_tribe_l...)