author
Elijah Nicholas Wilson
1842–1915
Best known as the real-life "White Indian Boy," this frontier memoirist turned an extraordinary youth among the Shoshones into a vivid personal story. His writing blends adventure, hardship, and a rare first-person view of life in the American West.
1 Audiobook
The white Indian boy : The story of Uncle Nick among the Shoshones
by Elijah Nicholas Wilson
About the author
Born in Illinois in 1842 and taken to Utah as a child, he later became known for living among the Shoshones, where he was called Yagaiki. Accounts of his life say he was closely associated with Chief Washakie, and that these experiences shaped the stories he would later tell and publish.
He is remembered chiefly for The White Indian Boy, a memoir based on his years on the western frontier. Beyond writing, he was also associated with the rough, fast-changing world of the nineteenth-century West, including work connected with overland travel and frontier settlement.
In later life he was widely known as "Uncle Nick," a nickname tied to his gift for retelling his adventures. He died in 1915, but his name remains linked to Wyoming history and to one of the best-known personal narratives of Shoshone-country frontier life.