Cherokee Bill

From the Flint Daily Journal, Friday, June 25, 1920, on Page 32:

CHEROKEE BILL BORN JUNE, 1797 OLDEST NATIVE

Grand Junction, Colo. - June 25 - Cherokee Bill, veteran of the plains and soldier in the war of 1812, has just celebrated his 123rd birthday at the county home here.  Cherokee Bill is the only name he knows.  In the early days of the country he fought with bow and arrow with the aborigines and even used that primitive weapon, he says, when he fought the British in 1812, enlisting in the Army when he was 15 years old.  He was born June 6, 1797, and was twice listed in the United States census as the oldest native in America.  The aged Indian recently made a cap for himself out of the down of cat-tails and wears this proudly when he hobbles along the streets occasionally with the aid of a cane he has owned since the Civil War.  He is getting feeble, though he still has a good appetite. 

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