William Vose Wade was born in Massachusetts in 1850. His early days included some seafaring out of Massachusetts on a schooner. He later worked on a Mississippi river boat before coming up the Missouri in the late 1860s and took a job maintaining a wood yard that provided fuel for the Missouri river steamboats. Later he was one of the workers hired to build the Ft. Yates military post. After that, Bill hauled freight for the Army using teams of oxen.