On this date in 1874, Brave Bear and three companions arrived in Jamestown and caroused with Henry Belland, an interpreter and guide assigned to Fort Totten. Belland later informed authorities that the men had boasted of killing some Chippewas up north and even showed him a fresh scalp.
Two days earlier, on July 3rd, an Indian at the Devils Lake reservation had reported that strangers from Standing Rock had stopped at his place. He didn’t like their appearance and suspected they were on a horse-stealing expedition.
On July 5th, the Brave Bear party came to the Joseph Delorme home near Walhalla. Two young sons were walking home from church when they heard gunfire. They found their father and uncle shot dead. Their mother, Isabel Gourneau Delorme, had been clubbed and left for dead. The last bullet fired at her had been deflected by a large silver crucifix she always wore. Their aunt, Mrs. Moran, was found hiding in a hollow tree. The killers stole six horses.
Brave Bear was later captured and taken to Fort Abraham Lincoln in Bismarck but escaped. Years later, he was arrested for killing Joseph Johnson, a white man and military veteran. Brave Bear was hanged in Yankton, Dakota Territory, in 1882.
That silver pendant worn by Isabel Delorme was regarded as a miracle object. It was handed down to Elizabeth "Betsy" Delorme, also known as La Mitasse Rouge, or Red Stocking. She became a well-known healer on the Turtle Mountain Reservation and beyond. Her house stood at the foot of the hill where St. Ann’s Church is today. At one point, she even ran a cancer clinic in Winnipeg. Betsy died in 1957, leaving the silver cross to her nephew, Pete Delorme. She had once hoped young Pete would become her apprentice.
St. Ann’s Day and novena week have been celebrated for over 150 years at Turtle Mountain. For more than seven decades, Pete and Ida Delorme rode in the annual St. Ann’s parade as the longest-married couple. Pete hoped the holy cross would one day be preserved at the old State Museum in Bismarck. He entrusted an Indian Affairs official to deliver it there. But when the elderly Delorme later visited the museum to see it again, he found no sign of the healing cross and no clue as to what had become of it.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- Pete Delorme conversations, 1985-1988.
- Elma Wilkie Interviews, 1985-1988.
- The Bismarck Tribune, March 26, 1878. INDIAN MURDERERS. The arrest of Two of the Standing Rock Indians who Killed the Delorme Family in 1874 -- The Guard Kills One of Them. U.S. commissioner received information that two Indian murderers were at Devils Lake agency. U.S. Deputy Marchall arrested them. Shot one.
- James McLaughlin papers. Story of the Delorme Massacre with photo of Brave Bear (Gathered from Section Eight of Devils Lake Copybook)
- https://www.welchdakotapapers.com/2011/08/letter-no-459-story-of-delorme-massacre/
