"No doubt a fortune awaits the descendants of my father if there is enough money or patience to track it down," Helen Toulou said to me not many years before she died. "Perhaps some of the younger ones will try. My white grandfather Perkins had a large New York wharfage and seven ships at sea. My Canadian Indian grandfather Swe-owt-kin (Shadow Top or Tall man), who trapped for Hudson's Bay, knew all the skills for survival in the wilderness. He could kill a deer with his bare hands. A continent divided by two men whose blood was to mingle."
Helen Toulou -- spokeswoman for the Colville Indians and others who needed her skills -- sat in an antique rocker as regal as a queen, her bad leg lifted on a stool, her stout cane lying bedside her. She spoke the best of English, displaying a keen mind and an incredible memory. Well into her eighties, she was a handsome woman, her high cheek bones the only physical indication of her Indian heritage. A few months earlier she had made one of her periodic trips to Washington, D.C. where she had attended many Indian conferences in the past and had met with Presidents of the United States, including Kennedy and Johnson.
"Yes," she told me, "I am related to Frances Perkins and the famous Doctor Perkins of London. My white grandmother was a Griswold and there was a family connection with the J.P. Morgans. But all that is not important. My father taught me that what you do with your own life is the important thing. He heard the famous general say: 'Kill all the Indians -- women and children. All. Nits make lice.' He determined to help the Indians, feeling that nothing they did was less civilized than their treatment by white men."
And Helen Toulou had followed in her father's footsteps, using her talents for the race she called "Her people."
"Father trained me for something," she said. "At the time I could not visualize his motive. He demanded that I speak and write correctly, and Webster's dictionary was always beside me. He instructed me in English, mathematics, history, music, medicine and law, with emphasis on law. I think he knew I had his ways and his mind; that someday I would want to help my mother's people even though I was not then aware of the value of learning. He kept me continually at my books.
"My sister, who was considerably older than I, was rather frail and she lived with our mother's people, learning the old ways of cooking and weaving. My maternal grandmother lived with our family before I was born, and they said she insisted on cooking in baskets with hot stones and sleeping in her teepee as soon as winter ended."
THE LIFE story of Frederick Perkins whose grave lies unmarked in the northeast corner of Washington State -- where Protestant missionaries Walker and Eels once attempted a church -- would read much "stranger than fiction." Born to wealth, educated in the best schools in the United States and Europe, trained in law, dentistry, medicine and music, young Frederick was nevertheless restless and adventurous. He sailed to the West Coat as a stowaway on one of the family ships, stopping in San Francisco during the turmoil of the gold boom. Later he worked his way north to the Hudson's Bay kingdom in Washington Territory.
For Colville, built by the British fur company the year Frederick was born, was headquarters for the company's business in the Inland Empire, including the Okanogan, Kootenai, and Flathead sections. It was a center for agricultural developing and milling, in connection with the immense fur trading business. The young Easterner's many skills were immediately in demand.
"It was at For Colville that my father first met my mother," Mrs. Toulou said. "Her parents had come down from Canada with their annual load of furs. Occasionally they took two years in making the trip to the headquarters of the Columbia and back. They stored their reed tents in trees along the way to make traveling easier and they liked to spend some time at the fort visiting.
"To this day my mother, who was but a small child, was playing with the half-Indian children, several of them belonging to the factor Angus MacDonald. They were paddling in the backwaters of Kettle Falls when my mother became tangled in debris and almost drowned. The others dragged her out for dead and went running for Dr. Perkins, who was also the schoolteacher. Father gave little Ellen artificial respiration, bringing her back to consciousness. This 'raising from the dead,' so to speak, inspired great respect and awe among the Indians. My mother was left deafened for life and the young man who saved her from drowning could not forget the little girl. Father told us the story in later years."
Frederick Perkins returned to the East, added to his education and sailed three times around the world, but he seemed to have left his heart at Fort Colville. The Civil War was imminent and his plantation and slave-owning brothers were on each side of the conflict.
Frederick made a contract with his sister, who had started homes for unfortunate girls both in the United States and Europe, on how to use the money left them at their father's death. The contract stipulated that whatever was left by the one who died first would go to the other. "Since my aunt used only the interest from the inheritance," Mrs. Toulou explained, "that is why there should be a fortune waiting somewhere."
An older, more dedicated Frederick Perkins returned to Fort Colville, traveling the northern route on horseback with six companions. Indians stole their horses along the Missouri and they had to proceed by foot and canoe until they could bargain for more mounts. Even then they could not get enough animals for all, so they took turns riding and walking until they reached Fort Colville.
Angus MacDonald welcomed Perkins with open arms. The Yakima Indian Wars had been fought and there were many changes in the land. The United States Army was busily building forts though the area had only scattered settlements.
"Father met mother again and they were married. She was fifteen years old, beautiful and skillful in spite of her deafness. Her father had not wanted her to go to the white man's school but MacDonald had prevailed upon him and she had taken a few classes. Mother was a Catholic and attended events at the nearby mission, speaking and understanding French. Father was Presbyterian but there never seemed to be any conflict between them.
"However, an uncle of my mother became so enraged over her marriage to a white man that he tricked her into his camp by feigning her mother's illness. Thereupon he seized her bodily and bound her with leather thongs. A young relative cut her loose and she escaped to a canoe, starting to row across the river. The irate uncle shot at the canoe, and my mother had to swim the rest of the way, but she got back safely to her husband."
FREDERICK PERKINS made one more trip to the East. His mother had completely disowned him upon learning of his marriage to an Indian girl but other members of the family, hoping to lure him back, sent the gift of a fully equipped seagoing vessel to Astoria for him to claim.
"Father sailed the ship back to New York, sold it and returned by wagontrain, using the money for various supplies for my mother's people. He never went East again."
Changes came fast to the upper country as Hudson's Bay released its hold and the Indians were forced upon reservations. The white people -- miners and settlers -- moved in, usurping land ruthlessly. The Chinese washing the Columbia sands for gold were murdered and mistreated by both whites and Indians. Harney's Depot filled with soldiers and later took the name of Fort Colville from the Hudson's Bay stronghold.
Hiram Smith, a New York newspaperman, was said to have had the first private trading post in the Northwest. He married an Indian girl and claimed extensive holdings along the Canadian border. Chief Moses and his people were given a reservation below Smith's domain but were soon pushed out of it by miners and cattlemen and put on the Colville Reservation.
With Chief Joseph losing his homeland in Wallowa and leading the army on an almost successful flight to Canada, fighting as he fled with this band, General William T. Sherman marched in to order the building of two more forts. One was at the confluence of the Spokane and the Columbia to be known as Fort Spokane, the other on Lake Coeur d'Alene; it later became Fort Sherman.
When Joseph was returned to the Colville Reservation, a prisoner of war, and with less than half of his original number, the San Poils resented their coming and a strong armed force was deemed necessary to keep peace.
"Soon after I was born General Sherman made a colorful return trip to our area," Helen Toulou said. "I remember being told about it. He came to inspect the forts he had ordered built. This time he reached Idaho by train from Coeur d'Alene to Fort Spokane he rode in an ambulance converted for the occasion, with soldiers marching ahead and the band playing as they traveled. Fort Spokane had quite a force of soldiers, up until they marched away from the Spanish-American War and it was turned into an Agency. The soldiers spent a lot of time in the new city of Spokane Falls. There were many soldiers' graves at the fort.
"I never saw General Sherman to remember him but his son Tom, the deranged priest at Loomis, was around in my time. They sent him as far from civilization as they could -- that was in 1915. He had a famous Arabian stallion, Astralid, that left many descendants. Father Tom was 59 when he came to the North country. He was peaceful, but the aging priest at Republic not far away -- once a booming mining town -- sometimes threatened people with a gun. It is interesting to note," Helen Toulou added, "That Tom Sherman died in California where a broken-hearted seniorita waited until her death for his father's promised return."
Helen Toulou remembered both Chiefs Moses and Joseph. "Moses was better liked and jovial. He received gifts from the government and seemed to wander about where he pleased. Joseph was somber and embittered and treated as a prisoner. He did go back to Washington though he was hosted by his enemies, former President Grant and General Miles. Historian Meany came from the University of Washington in later years to live with him while writing Joseph's life story. I don't think Chief Joseph ever touched whiskey but Moses drank himself to death. In 1879 he had gone to Washington D.C. to plead for a reservation in the Coulee country -- his homeland -- to no avail."
FREDERICK PERKINS stayed on after his Hudson's Bay friend were gone, to work with the Indians. Their tents were strung about his home as they came for help in many -- dentistry, other medical care, legal advice, even for food.
"It was a wild country I grew up in, with all the makings for a Western movie," Mrs. Toulou said ruefully. "There were claim jumpings and killings, rustling and gambling, booming mines and stage robberies -- all the elements of the ruthlessness involved in pioneer settlement where there is a mixture of people. There were miners, railroad builders, cattlemen, raiders, soldiers, Indians and Chinese.
"Father knew hard times but he was always cheerful. He served wherever he was needed. In fact, his death came about from an act of charity. He went out in a blizzard to save the life of a sick Indian twenty-five miles away. Coming home in the raging storm he lost his way and suffered snow blindness from which he never recovered. Later while chopping wood and not being able to see well, he injured his arm; blood poison followed and amputation. Mother died with pneumonia and he followed her a year later, leaving little worldly good.
"I didn't mind working hard when my parents were alive but when they were gone and my brother insisted I stay and work on the farm like a man in the field and in the house like a servant, I rebelled. I had no money; I was virtually a prisoner."
That was when Helen decided to run away. Often she had thought longingly of the school at Fort Spokane after it had been turned into an Indian Agency. All the lovely white buildings -- what a beautiful place to live.
"My cousin wanted to go to school, too, so he hid a horse for me in the trees near our place and I stole out at night and ran off with him. I had only the clothes I wore and a coat and a big leghorn hat some relatives had given me. That is the way I started school at Fort Spokane. Do you know there is scarcely an original building left now? The settlers hauled them away after the school was closed."
Helen recalled that she was furnished black coarse dresses for work, blue and grey with white stripes for school, and navy blue piped in red for Sundays. There were coarse work aprons, and for lighter occasions ruffled aprons.
"There wasn't much to learn that my father had not already taught me other than Home Economics, but there was a lot of social life and there were ball games, military drills, good food, choirs and church. Even the girls had a baseball team. I loved school.
"Do you know that Lake Roosevelt took 100,000 acres of land, 500 buildings and several small towns as it backed up behind Coulee Dam? It destroyed a lot of landmarks but it also created a lot of interest, including restoration of the old fort."
Helen Toulou married after she left school, raised a family, and once ran a large dairy. But as she grew older she found herself drawn more and more into Indian affairs. Her knowledge and wisdom were in demand throughout the Northwest and eventually led her to Washington, D.C.
"What good would my father's inheritance do me now?" she asked. "Before he died he showed us the contract. It is still in the family, I think, but he chose not to collect, why should we? After all I've tried to carry out his true legacy."
The Indians are still fighting for their treaty rights but the grand old lady, descendant of shipping tycoons and chieftains, is no longer participating in the battle. She died January 1972 at age 91.
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