| Description: |
William “Billy” McKay was born at Fort George, the son of famous trapper and guide Thomas McKay and his wife, Timmee T’lkul Tchinouk. Billy’s father sent him, along with brothers John and Alexander, to be educated in the eastern United States in 1938. He completed his medical studies at Geneva, New York and Willowby, Ohio. At 19 he was too young to receive his diploma but was granted a licence to practice medicine. He subsequently worked as operator of a frontier trading post, a government agent in treaty negotiations, and then as a commanding officer of the Warm Springs Indian Scouts. He was then assigned as a government physician attached to Indian Agencies (Warm Springs, Kalamath and finally the Umatilla Reservation). He died on the Umatilla Reserve of a heart attack on January 2, 1893. |
M