William Hancock was a pioneer of both Kentucky and Missouri. In the former State he helped to fight the Indians and guard the forts, and experienced the dangers and privations of those times. He came to Missouri among the first Americans who sought homes here, and was the first settler on the Missouri river bottom, in Warren County, which has since borne his name. He was married in St. Charles County to a Miss McClain, by whom he had three children, two daughters awl a son named William, Jr. The latter died at home, unmarried. One of the daughters, named Mary, married Capt. Hamilton, and they now live on the old homestead: Capt. Hamilton served with distinction in the war with Mexico. The other daughter married Dr. George Y. Bast, of New Florence, Mo. Mr. Hancock was a jovial man, and fond of practical jokes. He and Anthony Wyatt and Jacob Darst once took a flat-boat loaded with pork and peltries to Natchez, Miss., and while there they concocted a plan to show Darst who was a devil-may-care sort of a man-as a wild man of the forest. Accordingly they rigged him out in an appropriate costume, and exhibited him with great succes, the room being crowded with visitors during the entire exhibition. Darst enjoyed the joke equally as well as his two companions, and they all reaped a substantial reward for their pains. Hancock and John Wyatt ran for the Legislature once, and the vote was a tie. They tried it over, and tied again, when Hancock withdrew and let Wyatt have the office.
