William Guerrier dies spectacularly when sparks from his pipe ignite a barrel of gunpowder at one of his trading camps in Wyoming. An early pioneer who had worked for William Bent, he had founded a company with Seth Ward that had gained the exclusive sutler's franchise at Fort Laramie. He is also said to be the first rancher in Wyoming. His only son Edmund, born of his Cheyenne Indian wife, will become a respected scout and interpreter in the post-Civil War years. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Richard G. Hardorff, Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 50-51.