White Tailed Deer Woman and the Mine
Nicholas Sheran at the entrance to his coal mine located on the west bank of the Oldman River just south of the current location of Whoop-Up Drive, 1881.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19891046021-003
Nicholas Sheran was an early settler in the Lethbridge area. He started a handful of business ventures including opening the first commercial coal mine in Alberta and operating a ferry to cross the Oldman River. On May 26, 1882, Sheran drowned in the Oldman River near Monarch, Alberta. His sister Marcella offered $100 for the recovery of his body and search parties began to go out. However, no one informed Sheran’s wife that he had died. She found out from a passing search party.
Nicholas Sheran met his wife when she was 20 years old and living at Fort Macleod. Her name was Awatoyakew, or White Tailed Deer Woman. Some called her Mary Brown and she was Amskapi Piikani. She lived with Sheran in a cabin by the river near the current location of Whoop-Up Drive. Sheran and Brown had two sons named Charles and William.
After Sheran’s death, Mary Brown was left penniless. Perhaps in the hopes of giving her sons a better education, Mary allowed Marcella to send her sons to an orphanage near Edmonton to learn a trade.
Sketched portrait of Marcella Sheran, circa 1875.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19851007000
Nicholas Sheran's ferry across the Belly (Oldman) River at the Coal Banks.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19891046021-002
Studio portrait of Nicholas Sheran, circa 1865.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19738633000
Sheran was not the only white man in the area to have a Niitsitapi wife; many did. Niitsitapi marriage ceremonies were not acknowledged by Canadian law. Some settlers took multiple Indigenous wives and partners but left them to marry white women when the population of white settlers began to increase with the arrival of the railway.
In 1896, Sheran’s estate was the subject of a court case between his sons and his sister Ellen Sheran, who was living in New York at the time. The case hinged on the “validity” of Mary and Nicholas’ relationship. Witnesses swore that Sheran had intended to marry her in a manner recognized by Canadian law. But the judge ruled that no legally recognized ceremony had taken place, and therefore the sons could not inherit Sheran’s estate. In the headline to an article describing the ruling, the Macleod Gazette called the ruling “An Important Decision On the Question of Indian Marriages.” (Macleod Gazette, November 3, 1899, Page 8)
Sheran’s mine was sold and his estate divided among other family members. Little else is known of William and Charles in the historical record. Mary Brown remained with her people on the reserve.
You can learn more about the early history of settler and Indigenous relations on traditional Niitsitapi, Blackfoot, lands in southern Alberta on Fort Whoop-Up’s website, fort.galtmuseum.com.
Past issues of the Lethbridge Herald have long served as an encyclopedia of community life, a Who’s Who of Southwest Alberta. However, not everyone was fairly represented. In the Galt Museum’s archives are images of Blackfoot people once featured in the newspaper without identification, leaving their stories untold. The 1,000 Faces Project was designed to bridge this gap by recovering and preserving their names in archival records.