October is Oklahoma Pryor month
here on the TnPryor website!
I’m by no means an expert on the Pryor families in OK. Hopefullly the articles spur us to do more research into the Pryors in Oklahoma and answer some long-standing mysteries. Let’s get started… it’s going to be a fun month!
After “debunking” (Debunking a Daughter of Explorer Nathaniel Pryor) the daughter of Nathaniel Pryor sited in Chronicles of Oklahoma I looked at the rest of the article to see if there were more clues to the Osage Pryors. I was hoping that by looking at the Pryors in Oklahoma I could tease out those with Native American ancestry who were the likeliest descendants of Nathaniel Pryor.
Volume 48 of The Chronicles of Oklahoma was published in 1970. On page 295 begins the article titled Ancestry of Captain Nathaniel Pryor by Glenna Parker Middlebrooks and Elizabeth Pryor Harper. To be fair to the authors, in 1970 information was not only less accessible (no Internet), but neither a census of the Indian Territory nor of the State of Oklahoma was released. The last census available was the 1880 Census and it did not include either the state nor the territory.
Why look at the Pryors in Oklahoma? Like Ms. Middlebrooks and Ms. Harper researchers are still interested in Nathaniel Pryor of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Did he have children with his wife in the East? Did he marry a Native American bride and have children in the West? Which, if any, of the Pryors in Oklahoma are descended from Nathaniel Pryor?
Middlebrooks and Harper cite baptism records from a Kansas mission and the 1822 will of James Pryor in Jefferson Co., MO as the source of the names of Nathaniel children and heirs. They ID his Osage children as Marie and Mary Jane and James’ heirs as Robert L. Pryor, Nathaniel Pryor, Robert McClelland, Jane B. Gilly, and Eliza Oldham. And Angelique who was baptized in 1841 they identify as Osinga, Pryor’s wife. LewisandClark.org cites a 1831 will for Nathaniel Pryor that was probated in St. Louis, MO naming children: Jane B., James, Nancy, Robert L., Eliza, Nathaniel, and his children by his Osage wife named Mary Ann, Angelique, and Marie. Siblings or children, no one agrees.
We also need to look at the location: Kansas. The land which would become Kansas was part of the Lousiana Purchase in 1803. I remained wild land, inhabited by Native American tribes, trappers, and fur traders until it became the Kansas territory in 1854. The territory encompassed what is now parts of Colorado and all of Kansas. In 1861 Kansas because a state.
Then there’s a question of how surnames were used amongst the Osage. Oklahoma and Indian Territory records show that even in the 20th century many Osage used a Native American name and an anglicized name. Women at times were counted on census records under one surname while living with a spouse of a different surname. Did Osage women change their name after marriage? When they accepted a “European” name, did they adopt the tradition of taking the husband’s surname after marriage? I welcome comment from anyone who knows something about these traditions.
The tradition of surnames is important. Even in disagreement, the above sources agree that Nathaniel Pryor probably had at lease two Osage daughters, no Osage sons. Would the Pryor surname have been carried on by his daughters? Did Pryor have a son born of an Osage mother who carried on the Pryor surname?
Oklahoma history makes it difficult to pin down which of the Pryors may be related to Nathaniel. US Policy starting with the “Trail of Tears” in 1831 moved Native Americans from other tribes and regions to lands in the Oklahoma area already occupied by Osage and Quapaw tribes. Beginning in1866 white settlers, many from Texas, began to settle illegally. Nathaniel Pryor may have settled at a trading post near Pryor, OK…but it may be almost impossible to tell which Native American Pryors are descended from Nathaniel Pryor or who were Pryors of Native American ancestry who simply migrated from other states.
Since the publication of the article in 1970, four US Censuses were released, thus adding insight into another forty years. I have sifted through the Pryors on the Indian Territory Census of 1900 and the Indian Census Rolls from the mid 1890’s onward. Extractions are now updated on the Tennessee Pryor website (www.tnpryors.com).
We can see in the Oklahoma Census records how its history is played out. Within a 20 year period Oklahoma saw the greatest influx of white settlers due the “Land Runs” from 1889 to 1895, the discovery of oil in 1894 (the Osage allotments in 1906), and statehood in 1907.
End of Part I
Watch for …
Part II: OK Pryors: Osage Pryors