Seth Ward

Who was Seth Ward?

Seth Edmund Ward was a trader on the California, Oregon and Santa Fe trails who parlayed his success into a real estate empire that included today's Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

Ward was born in Campbell County, Virginia. His father died when he was 12 and he was apprenticed to an Indiana farmer. Tired of farming he returned home where his mother gave him $25 and he was left to his own devices. He traveled to Independence, Missouri where he was hired by Lancaster P. Lupton to be a trapper for his company in Colorado and traveled to Fort Lupton, Colorado.

In 1848 with the collapse of the fur trade business, he struck up a business with William Guerrier with the firm of Ward and Guerrier to provide supplies for settlers in Colorado and Wyoming.

In 1853 he married Wasna, a Teton Sioux woman, and fathered four children.

On April 30, 1857, through connections with Robert Campbell, Ward and Guerrier were commissioned to be the official sutlers at Fort Laramie, giving them a monopoly at the busiest post on the frontier. They were to move later to Register Cliff. Since they were trading goods for oxen from the settlers it is said that Guerrier and Ward were the first ranchers in Wyoming history.²²