William S. Williams
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William S. "Old Bill" Williams (1787-March 1849) was a mountain man.
He explored present day Arizona including the Bill Williams River, Bill Williams Mountain, and the site of Williams, Arizona.
Born in Rutherford County, North Carolina around 1787, his family later settled in southeastern Missouri where Williams lived until stealing a horse in 1806 and moved west to become a trapper. After living with the Osage Indians from 1813 to 1825, Williams became a scout for the US Army for several years.
During the 1830s Williams became a scalp hunter with James Hobbs and James Kirker. Supposedly Williams suggested to Hobbs and Kirker to raid Indian villages, while the braves were away, taking scalps from female squaws to sell the scalp buyers.
By 1840 Williams has joined Jim Beckwourth and Thomas "Pegleg" Smith in a horse thief operation raiding Spanish ranches in California and selling horses to settlers in Utah. However vigilante groups eventually forced Williams to flee from Utah where he began scouting again as a guide for Gen. John C. Fremont on a railroad surveying expedition in 1848.
However the expedition became stranded in Colorado's La Garita Mountains,
as 11 members died from the cold weather and snow drifts. Fremont fired Williams for incompetence.
Williams was killed several months later in March 1849 by Ute Indians
in retaliation for the deaths of several Ute by Williams the previous year.
