California Joe Milner

Moses Embree Milner (May 8, 1829 – October 29, 1876), also known as "California Joe", was an American miner and frontier scout.

At age 14 he moved west to St. Louis, Missouri for a short time and then on to Fort Laramie where he became a fur trapper.

[1] In 1846, during the Mexican–American War, Milner began working as a scout for General Stephen W. Kearny and Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan.

[3] On an undisclosed winter night in late 1875, Milner and a man named Tom Newcomb stopped by the camp of John Richard and his nephew, Alfred Pallardie, near the headwaters of the Running Water.

What happened next is unknown, but Newcomb arrived at Fort Robinson the next day claiming that Milner had murdered both Richard and Pallardie at their camp.