Nathaniel Hale Pryor
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Nathaniel Hale Pryor (1772–1831) served as Sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was born in Virginia and was a cousin of fellow expedition member Charles Floyd. His family moved to Kentucky when he was eleven. He was married in 1798, though the marriage may have ended before he joined the expedition on October 20, 1803, in Clarksville, Indiana; he was one of the "nine young men from Kentucky". Pryor was made sergeant in 1804, and led the First Squad of six privates. Lewis and Clark considered Pryor "a man of character and ability." In June, 1804 he presided over a court martial of privates John Collins and Hugh Hall, accused of theft of whiskey and drinking on duty; the men were found guilty and sentenced to a flogging.
After the expedition returned, in 1807 he was put in charge of an expedition to return Mandan chief Sheheke to his tribe, but he was forced to turn back when attacked by Arikaras. He resigned from the army in 1810 and was involved in the fur trade on the Mississippi for a time. He rejoined the army during the War of 1812 and, with help from Clark and Lewis, was commissioned a Captain, serving in the Battle of New Orleans.
He returned to the fur trade after the war, and in 1820 established a trading post on present-day Grand River near Pryor Creek, Oklahoma, where he married an Osage woman and had several children. He served briefly as government agent for the Osages, and represented the tribe in negotiations with the military at nearby Forts Smith and Gibson, from 1830 to his death in 1831. Pryor Creek, Oklahoma and Pryor, Montana are named for him.
