William Christian was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1743. A resident of Fincastle County, Virginia he served in the Virginia Militia prior to the American Revolution and then became a lt. col. in the 1st Virginia Regiment in 1775. He led several expeditions against American Indians on Virginia's southwestern frontier and was one of the treaty commissioners following the Battle of Long Island of the Holston who negotiated with the Cherokee people. He died while fighting a group of American Indians in Clark County, Indiana on April 9, 1786.