Introduction
Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor stands among the three non-commissioned officers chosen at the outset of the Corps of Discovery to lead a squad. Across the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Pryor appears repeatedly as a man entrusted with detached missions — diplomatic errands to the Sioux, hunting parties to recover meat, salvage trips for boards and canoes, and reconnaissance up unknown rivers. The record sketches a competent, durable soldier who suffered injury, illness, and frustration alongside his men, but to whom the captains turned again and again when something needed doing apart from the main party.
Squad Leader at the Outset
Pryor’s command was formalized in Lewis’s Detachment Orders of May 26, 1804, which organized the men into three messes under Sergeants Floyd, Ordway, and Pryor. Pryor’s squad included George Gibson, George Shannon, John Shields, John Collins, Joseph Whitehouse, Peter Wiser, Peter Cruzatte, and Francis Labiche — a notable concentration of the expedition’s most skilled hunters and watermen. On July 8, 1804, at Nadawa Island, Lewis appointed John Collins as cook to “Sergt. Pryor’s Mess,” formalizing the mess structure with provisions superintendents.
Diplomat to the Yankton Sioux
Pryor’s first significant detached duty came in late August 1804. On August 27, 1804, Clark recorded that the captains “Send Sjt. Pryor & a frenchman with the Interptr. Mr. Durion to the Camp to See & invite their Great Chiefs to Come and Counsel with us at the Callemet Bluffs.” Two days later, Clark wrote with evident interest of Pryor’s reception:
Sergt. Pryor informs that when he approached the Indian Camp they Came to meet them Supposeing Cap Lewis or my Self to be of the party intending to take us in a roabe to their Camp — he approached the Camp which was handsum made of Buffalow Skins Painted different Colour, their Camps formed of a Conic form Containing about 12 or 15 persons each and 40 in number, on the River Jacque…
Pryor arrived on August 29, 1804 with about seventy Sioux, having been outfitted with kettles, corn, and tobacco for the Indians to cook the elk and deer they had killed on the way. The mission was a successful piece of frontier protocol.
Mandan Winter
At Fort Mandan, Pryor continued in routine duties. On November 22, 1804, Clark “Dispatched a perogue and 5 Men under the Derection of Sergeant Pryor to the 2nd Village for 100 bushels of Corn in ears,” though they obtained only about eighty. On January 14, 1805, Clark “Sent Sergt Pryor and five men with those indians to hunt.”
Reconnaissance at the Marias
When the expedition reached the puzzling fork of the Missouri and Marias in June 1805, Pryor accompanied Lewis up the north fork. On June 4, 1805, Clark wrote: “those who accompanied Capt Lewis were G. Drewyer Serjt. Pryor, J Shields, P. Crusat J. B. de Page, R. Winser.” On June 6, 1805, Lewis recorded: “I had sent Sergt. Pryor and Windsor early this morning with orders to procede up the river to some commanding eminence and take it’s bearing as far as possible.” Pryor and Windsor returned at noon, having gone six miles southwest to the summit of an eminence — solid scouting work that helped Lewis read the country.
The Great Falls Portage and Canoe Camp
Through the labor of the portage around the Great Falls, Pryor was central. On June 26, 1805, Clark noted, “I gave Serjt. Pryor a dolt of Salts.” On July 2, 1805, Lewis recorded “Sergts. Pryor and Gass at work on the waystrips” of the iron-frame boat. At the upper canoe camp Pryor again led work parties: on July 10, 1805, Clark “Set out with Sergt. Pryor four Choppers two Involids & one man to hunt” to find canoe timber, and on July 11, 1805, “dispatched Serjt. Pryor with 3 men in the Canoe to get the meat.”
It was here that Pryor suffered a notable injury. On July 12, 1805, Clark wrote: “Serjt. Pryors Sholder was put out of place yesterday Carrying Meat and is painfull to day.” Lewis added that “it was replaced immediately and is likely to do him but little injury.” The dislocation would recur. Just upstream, on July 19, 1805, Clark named a stream for him: “passed a butifull Creek on the Std. Side this eveng which meanders thro a butifull Vallie of great extent, I call after Sgt Pryor.”
Across the Mountains and to the Sea
Pryor was among the four men repairing canoes on October 9, 1805: “Set 4 men to work at her, Serjt. Pryor & Gass, Jo Fields & Gibson.” When Clark traveled to view the Pacific on November 17, 1805, Pryor was the first to volunteer: among those who “expressed a wish to accompany me” Clark lists “Serj. Nat Pryor.”
Fort Clatsop: Hunter, Builder, Salvage Officer
The wet winter at Fort Clatsop produced more entries about Pryor than any other phase of the journey. He was assigned the hard, cold work of recovering elk meat. On December 3, 1805, Clark wrote: “Serjt. Pryor & Gibson returned after night and informed me they had been lost the greater part of the time they were out, and had killed 6 Elk.” The next day Clark “despatched Serjt. Pryer & 6 men to the Elk.” His old shoulder injury bothered him during fort construction; on December 11, 1805, Clark noted, “Serjt. Pryor unwell from haveing his Sholder out of place.”
On December 19, 1805, the captains “despatched Sjt. Pryer with 8 men in 2 Canoes across the bay for the boads of an Indian house which is abandoned” — a salvage mission for building lumber. In February 1806 Pryor led repeated expeditions to recover Drouillard’s elk kills despite high winds and Clatsop pilfering. On February 6, 1806, “Serjt. Pryor returned with the fish of about 2 Elk and four skins the Indians haveing taken the ballance of Seven Elk.” Lewis added bluntly, “I find that there are” thieves among them.
Pryor’s most difficult Clatsop assignment was rescuing the sick George Gibson from the salt works. On February 11, 1806, Lewis “sent Sergt Pryor with a party of four men to bring Gibson to the fort.” By February 14, 1806, Lewis wrote: “We are very uneasy with rispect to our sick men at the salt works. Sergt. Pryor and party have not yet returned nor can we conceive what causes their delay.” The next day brought relief:
After Dark Sergt. Pryor arrived with Gibson. we are much pleased in findeing him by no means as ill as we had expected… Bratton informed that the cause of Sergt. Pryor’s delay was attributeable to the winds which had been so violent for several days as to render it impossible to get a canoe up the creek to the point where it was necessary to pass with Gibson.
As provisions ran low in March 1806, the captains “directed Sergt. Pryor to set out early in the morning in a canoe with 2 men, to ascend the Columbia to the resort of the Indian fishermen and purchase some fish” (March 5, 1806). Despite contrary winds that prevented him from reaching the fishery, on March 11, 1806 Pryor returned with “a Small Canoe loaded with fish which he had obtained from the Cath-lah-mah’s for a very Small part of the articles he had taken with him.” Lewis remarked: “we once more live in Clover.” When a canoe drifted off, Pryor was sent to recover it (March 13, 1806) — “Sergt. Pryor and a party made another Serch for the lost Canoe but was unsucksessfull” — yet his hunting party still brought in two elk near the Netul.
Character in the Record
The journal entries do not give us Pryor’s voice, only his actions. He carries meat, mends canoes, hunts in the rain, parlays with Sioux, and recovers sick men through bad weather. Twice his shoulder is dislocated — once carrying meat in July 1805, again referred to in December 1805 — and he keeps working. The captains never record disciplining him; they record assigning him things. When Clark named a creek for him in July 1805, it was an unusual honor, suggesting genuine respect.
Limits of the Record
The journal entries reviewed here document Pryor’s expedition service but say almost nothing about his life before or after. The captains rarely describe his appearance, speech, or temperament directly. What we have is a record of duties faithfully performed — and that, in the economy of the journals, is itself a kind of biography.
