1843-1927

In the world of family stories, there are many that cannot be proven with documents or historical research. They are such good stories, however, that they have to be shared. And there's just enough ring of could-be-true to this one that I'm sending it along.

Hollister's maternal great-grandmother, Elizabeth Barker Pluerad, was born about June 17, 1843 in Randolph County, Illinois. At some point in the late 1850s or early 1860s, the Barker family set off for Oregon.

The family was crossing the plains when their wagons were attacked by Indians.* Only Elizabeth survived the attack and was taken captive. While with the Indians, she was taken as a wife by one of the men. (Much of this is from a narrative given by one of Elizabeth's grandsons in 1987.) "Elizabeth gave birth to two girls; Medora in February 1864 because a blue flower was blooming and Mary in August because an orange flower was in bloom."**

It's unclear how long Elizabeth was with the Indians, but at some point, she's rescued. "One day while getting water, she was approached by a man from the Hudson Bay Company. . . . He asked her why she was with the Indians. She replied that she had been captured and had no choice. He offered her to go to Oregon City, but she couldn't because she had two children in the Indian camp. He told her to bring them with her the next day and he would take them all. The next day, she and the girls met him at the pond. He had brought two extra barrels with him. He took the heads off the barrels and put the two girls in one and Elizabeth in the other, then replaced the heads and left the pond. When they were out of sight of the Indian camp, he stopped and let them all out. They rode bare-back horses into Oregon City."

What can be verified is that Elizabeth left Medora and Mary with a man named Antoine LeFleur. The 1880 census shows Medora, age 16, living in Abiqa, Oregon with Antoine LeFleur. (The same census shows Mary to be 19 years old, married Albert Pluard.)

While Elizabeth was in the Oregon City area, she met and married Bazile Pluerad.*** Elizabeth and Bazile moved to Cottage Grove in 1896 and Elizabeth had at least eight more children. When she died in 1927, Elizabeth had 62 grandchildren and 56 great-grandchildren. (If you type Pluerad into this search engine, you'll see some of the family buried in Cottage Grove.)

This photo, undated, but probably from about 1922, shows five generations of Pluard women. Elizabeth Barker Plueard is in the back, far left. Her daughter Mary is in the back on the right. Elizabeth Pluard Daniels is in front of her and Elizabeth's older daughter Bertha and Bertha's baby are in the front.

__________________

*There were relatively few Indian attacks on wagon trains on the Oregon Trail. Emigrants were more likely to die of cholera, childbirth, or accident than to be killed by Indians. That said, there were attacks. I just haven't been able to find a record for this one.

**The narrator is most likely mistaken on the birth order for the two girls, given the later census records. Their ages have to be understood to be approximate.

***What makes this story even more complex is that Elizabeth's daughter Mary (or Marie Louise) married Bazile's older brother Albert. So, mother and daughter were married to Pluard brothers.