Pierre Dorion

Pierre Dorion, " Considered “a shrewd, hard-twisted, semiliterate half-breed,” was the progenitor of the Dorion line in America.

• from Pierre Dorion, Sr. Marker, Yanton, South Dakota

While delivering a boatload of hides and tallow to St. Louis, Pierre met the Corps of Discovery on June 12th, 1804 on their trek upriver and was hired as their interpreter. On August 29th & 30th, Pierre translated the Sioux language for Captains Lewis and Clark while in grand council below Calumet Bluff near Gavins Point Dam. Pierre was then hired by Lewis and Clark to take a delegation of Yankton Sioux to Washington D.C. to meet President Thomas Jefferson in 1805.

• from http://users.usinternet.com/dfnels/dorion.htm

He was probably the same Pierre born the Jean-Marie Dorion & Marie-Therese LeNormand, born in Quebec City.  He was married to a woman of the Yankton tribe (a Pierre Dorion married "Holy Rainbow" on the Lower Illinois River in 1780).

He was apparently living among his wife's tribe from 1785 to 1805 according to one reference and 1773 to 1807 from another source (another source has him settling along the James River in South Dakota in 1775).  In 1780 he had corresponded with George Roger Clark, who had organized and led the American military take-over of wilderness communities east of the Mississippi River the year before.  In 1781 he was trading along the Mississippi & Des Moines Rivers.  In July of 1804, Pierre joined the Lewis and Clark expedition, hired as an interpreter, but before the expedition left their wintering site in the spring of 1805  Pierre was sent back to St. Louis with chiefs of the Yankton, Omaha, Oto & Missouri tribes.  In 1806, Pierre was commissioned by the U.S. War Department, as sub-agent on the Missouri and western tributaries of the Upper Mississippi River.  He apparently died on 23 July 1810 at Petite Rocher, below St. Louis.

Married

1. around 1780 on the Lower Illinois River to Wihmuake Wakan (Holy Rainbow) of the Yankton tribe.

Children of Pierre Dorion and Holy Rainbow:

1. Pierre Dorion II, born 1780 in Yankton, Dakotas; died 10 Jan 1814 in Bank of Boise River, nr Caldwell, ID.
2. Paul Dorion, born 1781 in IL.  He married Zeah White Cloud
3.  Louis Dorion, born 1782 in IL; died 24 Apr 1890.
4. Charles Martin Dorion, born 1783.
5. Antoine Dorion, born 1785 in IL
6. Thomas Dorion, born 1787 in IL
7. Perche 'Perechie' Dorion4, born 1789 in IL
8. Mary Marie Dorion, born 1791 in Nemaha Terr, MO
9. Jean Baptiste Dorion, born 1795
10. Ellen Dorion born 1796.  She married Charles Tackett.
11. Margret Dorion, born 1800 in Nemaha Terr, MO  She married Louis Desnoyers Abt. 1829 in St Charles, , MO
12. Co-Man-Na Dorion, born 1807 in Nemaha Terr, MO

Sources

• baptism of Pierre Dorion, 17 January 1740 in Notre-Dame de Quebec, Canada
• Leonard Dorion
• 1870 census W.T. Wahkiakum Cathlamet Pg 1 Sarah Olsen.

Links

•  http://www.museum.bmi.net/MARIE%20DORION%20PEOPLE/pierre__dorion_ii...
• Four Arrows Draft Historical-Genealogical Report on Pierre Dorion, 10 October 2002