Captain Duncan Graham, a Scotchman by birth, who had seen service
in the British Army, was one of a party of Scotch Highlanders who
in 1811 arrived in the British Northwest by way of York Factory,
Hudson Bay, to found what was known as the Selkirk Colony, near
Lake Winnipeg, now within the province of Manitoba, Canada. Soon
after his arrival at Lake Winnipeg he proceeded up the Red River of
the North and the western fork thereof to its source, and thence
down the Minnesota River to Mendota, the confluence of the
Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, where he located. My
grandmother, Ha-za-ho-ta-win, was a full-blood of the Medawakanton
Band of the Sioux Tribe of Indians. My father, Joseph Buisson,
born near Montreal, Canada, was connected with the American Fur
Company, with headquarters at Mendota, Minnesota, which point was
for many years the chief distributing depot of the American Fur
Company, from which the Indian trade conducted by that company on
the upper Mississippi was directed.

I was born December 8, 1842, at Wabasha, Minnesota, then Indian
country, and resided thereat until fourteen years of age, when I
was sent to school at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

I was married to Major James McLaughlin at Mendota, Minnesota,
January 28, 1864, and resided in Minnesota until July 1, 1871, when
I accompanied my husband to Devils Lake Agency, North Dakota, then
Dakota Territory, where I remained ten years in most friendly
relations with the Indians of that agency. My 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 who had then but recently surrendered
to the military authorities, and been brought by steamboat from