William Craig (1807,

Greenbrier County Greenbrier County () is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 32,977. Its county seat is Lewisburg. The county was formed in 1778 from Botetourt and Montgomery counties in Virginia. History P ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

– 1869,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

) was an American frontiersman and trapper. He left his Virginia home as a young man and headed west, after allegedly killing a man in self-defense. He trapped with the Sublettes (

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Milton Milton may refer to: Names * Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname) ** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet * Milton (given name) ** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...

) and

Jedediah Smith Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, and ...

in the

Blackfoot The Blackfoot Confederacy, ''Niitsitapi'' or ''Siksikaitsitapi'' (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or " Blackfoot-speaking real people"), is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Bla ...

country until he joined Joseph R. Walker's California Expedition of 1833–34. In 1836, William Craig, Pruett Sinclair and Philip Thompson established a trading post known as Fort Davy Crockett in Brown's Hole, now in the state of

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. Leaving the declining fur trade, in 1840 Craig and former trapper friends

Joseph Meek Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (February 9, 1810 – June 20, 1875) was a pioneer, mountain man, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A trapper involved in the fur trad ...

and Robert Newell acted as guides to a missionary party to

Fort Hall Fort Hall was a fort in the western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Ida ...

, Idaho and on to the

Whitman Mission Whitman Mission National Historic Site is a United States National Historic Site located just west of Walla Walla, Washington, at the site of the former Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu. On November 29, 1847, Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa ...

near

Walla Walla, Washington Walla Walla is a city in Walla Walla County, Washington, where it is the largest city and county seat. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,927 as of 2021. The population of the city and its two su ...

. While Newell and Meek and their native wives and children sought a new life in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...

of what is now

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, Craig joined his Nimiipuu family along the Clearwater River and Lapwai Creek of what is now Idaho. According to a later affidavit, Craig had, in 1838, married Pahtissah (he renamed her Isabel), a

Nez Perce The Nez Percé (; autonym in Nez Perce language: , meaning "we, the people") are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who are presumed to have lived on the Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest region for at least 11,500 years.Ames, K ...

woman who was the daughter of Hin-mah-tute-ke-kaikt also known as Thunder Eyes. Craig was friendly with the Nez Perce tribe: in 1848—in the aftermath of the killings at the Whitman Mission—Oregon Country's provisional government Superintendent of Indian Affairs,

Joel Palmer General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving ...

, appointed William Craig his agent to the Nez Perces. Craig served as interpreter between the Nez Perce leaders and

Isaac Stevens Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represen ...

at the Treaty of 1855 held in the

Walla Walla Valley The Walla Walla River is a tributary of the Columbia River, joining the Columbia just above Wallula Gap in southeastern Washington (state), Washington in the United States. The river flows through Umatilla County, Oregon, and Walla Walla County, ...

, and again at the Treaty of 1856. The Treaty of 1855 granted to William Craig and his wife, Isabel, 640 acres of land in the Lapwai Valley, then part of the newly formed Nez Perce reservation. In 1855 Governor Isaac Stevens appointed William Craig Agent to the Nez Perce people, a position held by Craig until political machinations cost him the job in 1859. William Craig was the first postmaster of "Wailepta" (Walla Walla). He died of a stroke in 1869. William Craig, his wife Isabel, and others of his family are buried in the cemetery at Jaques' Spur in the Lapwai Valley, Idaho, just north of Craig Mountain, at the place he had selected on his land.Cannell, ''The Intermediary'', p. 189

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Craig, William Mountain men American explorers of North America United States Indian agents 1807 births 1869 deaths