October is Oklahoma Pryor month
here on the TnPryor website!
I’ve been Googling again.
I found a William J. Pryor who was an Osage Tribe councilman for the 11th and 12th Osage Tribal Council in 1926-1930.
When I started looking for him I found William Julius Pryor in Ancestry Family Trees and on the 1930 Census living in Seminole County, OK. He’s recorded as an “Indian” born about 1870 in Missouri to a “mixed blood” father and Cherokee mother. In 1910 William J. was in North Fork, Beckham Co., OK. In 1900 he and his wife were living on the Osage Indian Reservation in Indian Territory.
In 1910 Philip J. Pryor was counted on the same census page, just a few houses from William J. and family in Beckham County. Philip was on the 1880 census record in Smith County, Texas. He is a son of Lemuel Pryor and Elizabeth C. Hardigree. Lemuel is believed to be from the line the Marion County Pryors.
William J. Pryor also lived in Texas– census entry reflects he had 3 children between 1894 and 1897 in Texas. Researchers’ online family trees indicate William J. Pryor is the same William J. Pryor who was on the 1880 census in Cooke Co., TX… the son of Gilbert Carter Pryor and wife Sarah Roberts. Gilbert was a son of Neely Pryor in Texas County, MO. There’s a William J. Pryor in Gilbert Pryor’s household in both Cooke Co., TX and in 1870 in Texas Co., MO. Neely Pryor’s line goes back to the Marion County, TN Pryors.
William J. Pryor not only served on the tribal council, but was also versed enough in the Osage language– enough to be an interpreter: Leases for Oil and Gas Purposes, Osage National Council, By United States. Congress. House. Committee on Indian Affairs, published 1919.
“I, William Pryor, do hereby certify that I am the official interpreter of the Osage Indian Agency, and at the time the Osage Tribal Council had the contract under consideration I acted as the official interpreter of the said Osage Tribal Council; that I fully and truthfully interpreted and explained the foregoing contract to the Osage Tribal Council…”
It appears that William J. Pryor was an Osage allotee: Indians of the United States: Investigation of the Field Service By United States Congress. House. Committee on Indian Affairs. Except of letter from the Liberty Bank of Pawhuska, May 7, 1920 refers to “William J. Pryor, Osage allotee.”
