The New International Encyclopædia/Carson, Christopher

CARSON, Christopher (generally known as ‘Kit Carson’) (1809-68). A famous American hunter, trapper, and Western scout. He was born in Madison County, Ky., but when only a year old was taken by his parents to Howard County, Mo., where from 1824 to 1826 he served as a saddler's apprentice. In the latter year he accompanied a party of hunters to Santa Fé, N. Mex., and afterwards devoted himself almost entirely to hunting and trapping. He accompanied an expedition to California in 1829, and another to the Rocky Mountains in the following year, and from 1832 to 1840 was employed as hunter for the garrison at Fort Bent, at the headwaters of the Arkansas. He accompanied Frémont on the latter's expeditions of 1842 and of 1843-44; then spent some time on a ranch, and in 1846-47 served as a guide in Frémont's famous expedition to California. In 1853 he, with a few Mexican drovers, succeeded in driving 6500 sheep to California, and on another occasion, this time unaided, he took fifty horses and mules to Fort Laramie, fully 500 miles from his ranch. In 1854 he was appointed Indian agent for the Utahs and Apaches, at Taos, N. Mex., and in this capacity was able, by reason of his remarkable influence over the Indians, to be of great service to the United States Government. During the Civil War he served the Government with great energy in New Mexico, Colorado, and the Indian Territory, especially against the Confederates in Texas and the Navajo Indians, and in 1865 was brevetted brigadier-general. In the course of his career as a trapper, hunter, Indian-fighter, scout, and Indian agent, he met with many remarkable adventures, some of which read like romance, and he soon came to be regarded throughout the country as the typical frontiersman, resourceful in danger, an adept with the rifle, and skilled even beyond the Indians in woodcraft and the knowledge of wild animals. Consult: Burdette, Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide (Philadelphia, 1869); and Peters, Kit Carson's Life and Adventures, from Facts Narrated by Himself (Hartford, 1874).