Now through May 3, 2025

If you missed getting to see the exhibit about Frenchtown history and CTUIR métis family photos and art when it was at Whitman College in the fall, now’s your chance. The exhibit has moved to the gallery space at Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, where it will be on display through May 3, 2025. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. Admission is 12$.

Despite the differences between the two gallery spaces, the team at Tamástslikt was able to include almost everything from the original exhibit. The 252 images in the projection are also viewable online, and you can still listen to the oral histories that accompany the life-size portraits.

Stay tuned — we’ll be sure to let you know once the programming schedule has been finalized.

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I’ve been spending a lot of time with the photographs of Major Lee Moorhouse recently. There are over 7,000 Moorhouse images online at Oregon Digital, and another 250 or so at the Smithsonian.

Moorhouse is best known for his portraits of Plateau people, and unlike many of his contemporaries, often included the names of the individuals portrayed. He used his back yard as a photo studio and Tribal members would come sit for portraits. His photographs were respected as documentary truths and widely exhibited.

Browsing through them, however, I was once again struck by the absence of métis names. I can think of several possible explanations for this. Perhaps there are more métis people than is apparent from the names, because if a person had two names, Moorhouse preferred to record the native name, in keeping with his ethnographic approach. Or perhaps he didn’t seek out métis models, for the same reason. In any case, here is an example of a métis descendant who did pose for Moorhouse in about 1913.

Note how these three photos of Lou French hint at ways in which the constructed ethnographic portrait could also contain elements of collaboration.

Fig 1. Lou French. Moorhouse collected regalia from many different tribes and would combine elements in his portraits. Note the difference between Lou French’s dress in this image and in the one below.

Fig. 2 : Lou French postcard. This postcard image was taken as part of the same session. Lou French sent it to her cousin Martha with the inscription, “You know who I am.” Fortunately in this case, we do.

Fig. 3. Lou also had her portrait taken at the photography studio. In this portrait from approximately the same period, she chose to pose with the bouffant hair and pigeon-breasted bodice typical of the Gibson girl era.

Tune in next week for a picture puzzle — exactly who is Mrs. Wilson ?

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© Sarah Hurlburt for the Frenchtown Historical Foundation

Frenchtown Historical Album Annual report in pictures

We put together a photo album of some of the things we’ve been up to, and some of the times we’ve gotten together over the last few years for Rendezvous. Somebody forgot to add the names, however. Who needs names, when we all know who we are, right?

In any case, we hope you’ll enjoy this window into our activities, and perhaps join in with us in the coming year. And if you’re visiting this page before midnight on December 31, 2024, we hope you’ll pop over to the Valley Giving Guide and show us your support.

We’re going to do it! November 30, 2024, we’re going to have a Rendezvous!1

How many times have you been in a conversation with someone who said “Frenchtown ? What’s that ?” or “Métis ? Huh?” There’s a great segment of Walla Walla that STILL doesn’t know anything about this history, and if you know any of those people, you owe it to your valley and your family to spread the word, or better yet, bring them along.

We will have photos albums out on the tables for people to look at and discuss. Joey Lavadour and Sam Pambrun and Judy Fortney will be there at lunch to talk about the exhibit and their family history and photos. This Frenchtown Métis exhibit wouldn’t be possible without Joey and Sam and Judy — it’s a treat to hear it from them directly, and you don’t want to miss it.

So please join us at noon on November 30, 2024 at Assumption Parish Hall in Walla Walla, WA for the first real Rendezvous since COVID. Your ticket includes a baked potato and salad bar lunch from Mama Monacelli’s Kitchen with dessert and coffee.1

Doors will open at Assumption 11:30.

At 2 pm we will car caravan to the Sheehan Gallery on the Whitman College campus for a guided tour of the exhibit “Picturing Family : Métis Life in the Walla Walla Valley”.

• Where : Assumption Parish Hall, 2098 E Alder St, Walla Walla, WA
• When : November 30, 2024, 12pm-3:30 pm (doors open at 11:30)
• What : Rendezvous and fundraiser for the Frenchtown Historical Foundation
• Cost : $25. Yep. You read that right. $25.

How do I get tickets ?

Online with fees :

$26.68 each via Ticketstripe (Paypal)

If you prefer the convenience of an e-ticket using your credit card, we have set up a ticket sales site with Paypal. The additional $1.68 per ticket represents the fees charged by Ticketstrip for the service. Includes options for purchasing a table of 8 and for making a donation.

No fees :

Mail your check for $25 per ticket to Frenchtown Historic Foundation, PO Box 1224, Walla Walla WA 99362. Please include a note with your party details.

$25/ticket via Venmo. (scan code below) Please provide your party details in the comment field to help the person at the door.

Can’t attend but want to support Frenchtown anyway ?

Donate to Frenchtown Historical Foundation through the Valley Giving Guide 2024, which covers all fees. The guide will open officially on December 3, 2024.

1 There will be no alcohol served at lunch, but the dessert will be AMAZING. We will also plan for a no-host after party gathering at a local venue following the exhibit tour, for those who would like to attend, details TBA.

On George Simpson’s wheat.

What does it mean to cultivate the land ? The First Foods include roots and berries, perennial crops that were sustainably harvested by the tribes in order that they produce again each year. What is replanting small bulbs for next year’s harvest but a form of cultivation ?

So we should be cautious about announcing the birth of agriculture in the Pacific Northwest with the arrival of the fur trade. The relationship between food and land and people here goes back much further.

There are certain kinds of agricultural food production, however, that we can specifically date. There were no cereal grains, no garden crops in the Pacific Northwest before 1808, when David Thompson planted a small garden at Kootenae House at the headwaters of the Columbia. His garden did not thrive, but the seeds were there.1 By 1817, the North West Company was growing pigs, cattle, potatoes, and a few vegetables at Fort George (Astoria), at a site chosen for its strategic importance over its fertile soil.

Then along came Sir George Simpson.

1. Sir George Simpson on an inspection trip. Oregon Hist. Soc. Research Lib., Orhi 90421, OHQ 95.1

Simpson was the highest ranking officer in the Hudson’s Bay Company in North America. According to the Oregon Encyclopedia, Simpson was “a talented administrative martinet who … recognized the potential for the Columbia Department to turn a profit and spent the next two decades economizing and diversifying former North West Company holdings in the Oregon Country.”

The fur trade was in the business of resource extraction in the form of furs, not colonization through settlement. However, faced with the horrific expense of shipping (bad) food to the Columbia region from the east, Simpson tasked the posts with becoming self-sufficient. Grow your own, or do without.

He sent a bushel of wheat seed to Fort Vancouver in the fall of 1825, and McLoughlin distributed it to the Forts.

Every single version of Frenchtown I have ever read talks about “retired” traders. I prefer “former”. Simpson down-sized and out-sourced the staff of the forts. Instead of employing people to farm, he fired them and then sold them seed. Joe LaRocque was tending the Hudson’s Bay herds near Umapine in 1822. But he didn’t build a cabin at Frenchtown in 1824 so that he could have a little “pied-à-terre” in the country. He was setting up to farm, and sell the food back to the Fort.

Joe Laroque was still living at Frenchtown in 1858, when Theodore Kolecki drew maps of the Walla Walla valley for Col. George Wright’s expedition to punish the Coeur d’Alene. Those maps show the location of several of the Frenchtown farms, with little hash marks indicating cultivation. Zoom in and take a look.

Two hundred years of agricultural heritage. The wheat cultivation that carpets Eastern Washington started at two hundred years ago at Frenchtown.

This post was written for Frenchtown Historical Foundation by Sarah Hurlburt.

1. The only grains native to the Western Hemisphere are maize, wild rice, and quinoa. Much of the information about the history of cereal grains in the Pacific Northwest, and about George Simpson’s wheat in particular is drawn from Harvest Heritage : Agricultural Origins and Heirloom Crops of the Pacific Northwest by Richard D. Scheuerman and Alexander C. McGregor, Washington State University Press, 2013.

The French Saloon Men are back, and it’s going to be even better than before. Join us for light appetizers and wine and some high-alcohol history at Three Rivers Winery on Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 6 pm to hear Sarah Hurlburt and Susan Monahan dish the dirt — er, dig up some history. Tickets are 65$ each and may be purchased online or (if you’d like to avoid the credit card fees) by mailing a check to Frenchtown Historical Foundation, PO Box 1224, Walla Walla WA 99362. Get your tickets now — it’s going to be a fun party.

In 1905 Walla Walla had 13,000 people and over thirty saloons. Saloons were regulated; no women allowed (except for prostitutes), no gambling (except for all the time) and no liquor sales on Sunday (except for… well, you get the idea.) More than half of these establishments were located on Main street between 3rd and 5th, and the biggest one of all was the Louvre Hotel, owned by a Frenchman named Seraphin “Frank” Davin and a Swiss named Xavier Michellod.  

Two doors down, the Eureka saloon was owned by Swiss Lucien Genevay and French Canadian Joe LaFortune. Around the corner, Joe Charrier’s Frog saloon kept the glasses full. The very shady Mottet brothers (yep, also French) had their fingers in the pie as well.

We’ll have some tantalizing documents floating around to browse, and a silent auction of historical memorabilia and local goodies to raise money for the Frenchtown Historical Foundation.

Are you interested in the history of food? Hudson’s Bay Company Governor Sir George Simpson introduced winter wheat to the Columbia District in the 1820s. He gave seed to the forts and told them to grow food or go hungry.  The seed was a soft white variety descended from an ancient Celtic landrace that was widely raised in the British Isles and northwestern Europe.  A single sample was found over a century ago in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, just thirty miles from the historic HBC’s frontier grain depot at Champoeg.  Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun grew this wheat on his farm a few miles east of Frenchtown. Richard and Lois Scheuerman of Palouse Heritage Grains over in Richland have been working to bring back this historic seed, and they’ve shared fifteen pounds with us.

We’re going to plant a patch of HBC wheat at Frenchtown, and with some luck and a lot of help, maybe harvest a few handfuls in 2024. If you’d like to get involved with this project, let us know at frenchtownhistoricfoundation@gmail.com.

TWO groups of volunteers have been out to the site this fall to help clean up. The goats did the heavy lifting on the weeds, but they aren’t so good at picking up trash or cleaning around the shelter. It turns out humans are much better at that sort of thing. So shout out to College Place High School and Walla Walla University student volunteers — you’re the best!

Thanks to our donors, the Adopt-a-Goat campaign raised over a thousand dollars for this project! That’s half the money needed to pay for this year’s caprine* buffet.  We see you, Lynn, Carolyn, Jack, Tamera, Debora, Matt, Debbie, Melissa, Martha, Susan, Lou, Helen, Jackie, Kathryn, and we are grateful.

If you want to be associated with these excellent humans, (or if you want to support environmentally friendly land management practices), you can make a donation here. And if you want to see a video of goats coming running when Duane brings over an extra load of Russian thistle, head on over to Facebook!

• bovine = cows, porcine = pigs, equine = horses… and caprine = goats!  Aren’t you glad you read all the way to the end? 🙂

There’s a treat happening right now at Tamástslikt Cultural Institute — an exhibit of Plateau beadwork from the Fred L. Mitchell Collection around the theme of horses. There are pieces on loan from Maryhill Museum as well, and additional pieces loaned by local Tribal members and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute permanent collections. Horse-themed basketry rounds out the exhibit.

So many beads. Vests, gauntlets, bags, horse collars, and more. Some people were marveling at the sheer number of beads, but I couldn’t help but think about the hours of skill and attention. Beading was historically women’s work in Plateau societies. That exhibit alone is the fruit of thousands of hours of attention and conversation.

Melton has taken a brilliantly minimalist approach to the display, mounting most of the pieces on the wall behind a floating piece of plexiglass, allowing the visitor to get extremely close to the object. Gauntlets and vests are more traditionally displayed, in freestanding cases. You don’t want to miss this one.