Description

Mrs. Marie L. McLaughlin, nee Buisson (1842-1933), was born in Wabasha, Minnesota, then Indian country, and resided thereat until fourteen years of age, when she was sent to school at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. She was married to Major James McLaughlin at Mendota, Minnesota, in 1864; she accompanied her husband to Devils Lake Agency, North Dakota, then Dakota Territory, where she remained ten years in most friendly relations with the Indians of that agency. Her husband was Indian agent at Devils Lake Agency, and in 1881 was transferred to Standing Rock, on the Missouri River, then a very important agency, to take charge of the Sioux. Having been born and reared in an Indian community, at an early age, she acquired a thorough knowledge of the Sioux language, and having lived on Indian reservations for the past forty years in a position which brought her very near to the Indians, whose confidence she possessed, she had exceptional opportunities of learning the legends and folk-lore of the Sioux.