William Thomas Hamilton

William Thomas Hamilton (December 6, 1822 – May 24, 1908), also known as Wildcat Bill, was an American frontiersman and author of Scottish and English heritage.

Early life

His gravestone and obituaries indicated that William T. Hamilton was born on December 6, 1822, and the 1900 Census agrees he was born in December 1822. According to his autobiography, he was born on the River Till in the Cheviot Hills of Scotland. However, while the Cheviot Hills straddle northeastern England and the Scottish borderlands, the River Till is entirely in Northumberland, England, being the major tributary of the River Tweed which forms the eastern border of England and Scotland. The 1900 Census indicates he was born in England, while his father was born in Scotland and his mother in England, but possible census entries for William Hamilton in 1870 and 1880 indicate he was born in Scotland. Some undocumented family trees claim that William was the son of Alexander and Margaret Hamilton, but this is not clear.

In his autobiography, My Sixty Years on the Plains, published in 1905, William wrote that he was the youngest child with older brothers, but does not name his parents or siblings. His family was among a company of 25 Scottish partners who determined to leave Scotland for either India or America, with a vote determining which. His paternal uncle (described as the "captain" of the company, but also not identified by name) cast the tie-breaking vote to go to America. William wrote that he was two years and eleven months old (hence, about October 1825) when the ship arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana. After traveling around the United States, his family settled in St. Louis, Missouri where he was raised and attended school for five years. The son of financially comfortable parents, he grew up on a farm and learned to shoot a weapon and ride a horse.

Career In the death of "Uncle Billy" Hamilton the United States loses its greatest Indian fighter and most skillful Indian sign talker and sign reader that this country ever produced.

Few men had the adventurous career that was Hamilton's, although because of a modesty that rarely permitted him to talk of himself, comparatively few persons knew his record on the plains.|author=—"Hero of Many Battles Dead". The Butte Daily Post. May 26, 1908. living in the mountains for more than 50 years. He was given the name Wildcat Bill by Native Americans. He was considered a healer among Native Americans. Also called Sign Man, he excelled in Native American sign language according to Favour. with Old Bill Williams, whom he worked with and became a companion. He was a trapper and trader for six years. His father bought a third interest in the trapping enterprise led by Williams. He also served as the sheriff of Chouteau County, Montana, and then as a U.S. Marshal in 1869.

Death

He died of stomach cancer on May 24, 1908 in a hospital in Billings, Montana