Nathaniel Pryor was born in Amherst County, Virginia and was a cousin of fellow expedition member Charles Floyd.
[2] It is interesting to note that Nathaniel, Robert, and their other Floyd cousins, were great-grandchildren (x3) of Nicketti, identified as a daughter of Powhatan and sister of Pocahontas.
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.
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.
[7] Pryor resigned from the army in 1810, secured an Indian trader's license and established a fur trading post and lead-smelting furnace along the Upper Mississippi at the mouth of the Galena River.
On January 1, 1812, a party of Winnebago Indians, that had been caught up in the battle at Tippecanoe, and intent on revenge, attacked Pryor's establishment and that of a fellow trader, George Hunt.
Nathaniel crossed the frozen Mississippi to Missouri, found refuge for the winter in a village of French farmers, and only returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1812.
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.
[10] Arriving at Santa Catarina Mission, Alta California, then Mexico, the traders were arrested on March 22, 1828, as Spanish spies by Mexican governor, Jose de Maria Echeandia, and brought to San Diego.
Released in February 1829, he could have easily returned to Pryor Creek, Oklahoma in time to assist Sam Houston in his Osage negotiations.