Old Solitaire | My Sixty Years On The Plains

The Wild West Extravaganza

Wild West Josh

Education, History

4.8 • 667 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before he became known as Old Bill Williams, the gaunt and scarred Mountain Man was a Methodist preacher who attempted to bring the gospel to the Osage people. Bill lived among the Osage, married into the tribe, helped them negotiate a treaty, and even translated the Bible into their language. It’s said, however, that it was the Osage who ultimately ended up converting Williams. Sadly, Bill’s Osage wife passed away and he pressed further west to the Rockies, becoming a free trapper and trader (as well as a prolific horse thief). Often known as “Old Solitaire”, Williams rode with the likes of Jed Smith, Kit Carson, and Joseph R. Walker and scouted for both Bonneville and Fremont. And, according to rumors, Bill would do whatever it took to survive, including dining on human flesh during starving times. Luck would have it that Bill Williams was also the mentor of William T. Hamilton. In this installment, young Hamilton joins the Lakota in an attempt the retrieve horses stolen by the Pawnee and in doing so has his first taste of combat on the Great Plains. Also discussed are coup sticks, the act of counting coup, competing traders, and encounters with the Arapaho and the Crow. Part 1 of My Sixty Years On The Plains - https://www.wildwestextra.com/sixty-years-on-the-plains-wt-hamilton/ Check out the website for more true tales from the Old West https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Buy me a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.substack.com/ Join Patreon for ad-free and bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/wildwestextra Merchandise! https://www.teepublic.com/user/wild-west-extravaganza Book Recommendations! https://www.amazon.com/shop/wildwestextravaganza/list/YEHGNY7KFAU7?ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ofs_mixed_d My Sixty Years On The Plains by W. T. Hamilton - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695768930?linkCode=ssc&tag=onamzjoshta02-20&creativeASIN=1695768930&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.YEHGNY7KFAU7&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_d_asin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	William Shirley Williams was born in North Carolina way back in January of 1787. By the time he was a
0:06.7	teenager, the family had settled near St. Louis, and during the War of 1812, Williams served as a
0:12.2	scout for the all volunteer Rangers. And although he did learn to trap fur at a very early age,
0:17.7	it was not the pursuit of beaver that first enticed Williams West to the mountains.
0:22.6	Believe it or not, instead of collecting pelts, Bill was out there harvesting souls for the Lord.
0:27.5	Yep, old Bill Williams was a Methodist preacher long before he became a famous mountain man.
0:32.8	His missionary work soon led him to live with the Osage people, and while he did succeed in translating the
0:38.4	Bible into the Osage language, and helped them negotiate a treaty with the U.S. government,
0:43.1	it was they who ultimately converted him. Williams married into the tribe, but when his beloved
0:48.7	passed away, he headed deep into the Rockies, becoming perhaps the most independent creature to ever walk God's green
0:55.1	earth, the free trapper. Not that Bill stopped preaching, mind you. He still delivered many a sermon
1:01.0	to his fellow mountain men around the campfire of an evening. Only these lectures were peppered
1:05.5	with more of a colorful language than you might hear from a pulpit come Sunday morning.
1:09.9	Old Solitaire they called him,
1:11.5	on account of his preferring to ride the high lonesome all on his lonesome. Williams didn't necessarily
1:16.4	hate his fellow man, but you know how it goes. We all need a little alone time, right? And it does
1:21.8	seem that Bill needed more than the average man. Williams was a colorful character, to say the least.
1:28.1	He was a noted horse thief, for one, often ride into California and herding stolen steeds
1:32.7	all the way back to the Rockies and selling him to his native friends.
1:36.2	The man rode with Jed Smith, Kit Carson, and Joseph Walker, and scouted for the likes of Bonneville
1:41.1	and Vermont.
1:42.2	Zebulin Pike described Bill as about six foot one,
	...

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