He was on a fur trapping expedition with several other Americans when captured by the Spanish and taken to the prison at San Diego.
James O. Pattie wrote to John Coffin Jones, the American consul to the Sandwich Islands to ask assistance for their release.
It's unlikely that Pryor was married to the boy's mother Juana Montalvo, as the baptism indicates the child was a "es" or a born out of marriage.
National newspapers recounted that the citizens of Los Angeles had met in September 1846 to expel the American military who had positioned themselves in California during the war.
[4] Pryor married again in 1848 to Maria Felipe Paula Romero at the Plaza Church in Los Angeles.