Pauline Walla Walla (c.1815-c.1875)
Very little is known about Pauline Walla Walla before her marriage. We can approximate her birth year as between 1810 and 1820, based on her listed ages in the 1860 and 1870 Censuses, but her birthplace is unknown.[1] In May 1846 she married Narcisse Raymond (1816-1887), an HBC trader from La Prairie, Quebec. They wed in Willamette, Clackamas County, Oregon Territory,[2] and had three children, all daughters.
Both the 1870 US Census and the burial record for her daughter Cecile in October 1879 list Pauline as “Indian.”[3][4] In 1870, at least a quarter of the married women of the Frenchtown area were either Indian or métis, down from nearly forty percent in the 1860 census.
According to his record in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, Narcisse entered service with the HBC in 1833 and worked as an “interpreter/runner/guide” in the Columbia District from 1833-1847. The record also notes that, “he was appointed sheriff of Walla Walla County in 1854 by the first Washington Legislature […] Through his wife, Pauline Walla Walla, he was considered to be related to numerous natives in the region.”[5] This is an indicator of the political and economic alliances formed via intermarriage in fur-trade society.
Pauline and Narcisse donated land to be used for the Catholic mission cemetery St. Rose in 1863, which was in use until it flooded in 1875.[7]
No death record for Pauline Walla Walla has been found. She appears in the 1870 Census,[8] but in the 1880 Census, Narcisse is listed as a widower.[9] Pauline’s three daughters married into the Dobson, Allard, and St. Denis families.
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[1] The 1860 Census lists Pauline as 40, while the 1870 Census says she is 60. See: 1860 US Federal Census, Census Place: Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington; Roll: M653_1398; Page: 298; Image: 311; Family History Library Film: 805398; 1870 US Federal Census, Census Place: Frenchtown, Walla Walla, Washington Territory; Roll: M593_1683; Page: 255B; Image: 102793; Family History Library Film: 553182.
[2] Early Oregonians Indez, 1800-1860, entry for Narcisse Raymond, accessed May 31, 2017, https://secure.sos.state.or.us/prs/profile.do?ancRecordNumber=6763.
[3] “October 8, 1879, I the undersigned have inhumed in the cemetery of St. Rose the body of Cecile Raymond, wife of Jacques Dobson, daughter of Narcisse Raymond and of Pauline (an Indian)…”; Harriet Duncan Munnick, Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest: Missions of Frenchtown and St. Rose of Lima, 1876-1888, P.11, S-5, Cecile Raymond.
[4] 1870 US Federal Census.
[5] Narcisse Raymond’s HBC employee record, accessed May 31, 2017, https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical/r/raymond_narcisse.pdf.
[7] Sam Pambrun, “Saint Rose of Frenchtown,” in Oregon Catholic Historical Society, n.d., 10.
[8] 1870 US Federal Census.
[9] 1880 US Federal Census, Census Place: Walla Walla, Washington; Roll: 1398; Family History Film: 1255398; Page: 249D; Enumeration District: 050.