Born on Christmas Eve in 1809 near Richmond, Kentucky, Christopher “Kit” Houston Carson could have easily passed into obscurity. His father, Lindsey Carson, had ten children from a first marriage and five more with Kit’s mother, Rebecca Robinson. A Scots-Irish Presbyterian farmer and cabin builder, Lindsey was a veteran of America’s early conflicts, having lost two fingers fighting the Fox and Sauk peoples. Before Kit could walk, the family moved to Missouri, bringing them close to another famous frontier family.
The two families became close, even intermarrying, and Carson developed a childhood friendship with his cousin, Adeline Boone. Life on the frontier was brutal. In 1818, a fallen tree limb crushed his father to death, leaving the family destitute. After four hard years, his mother remarried.
The outdoors felt more like home to Carson than a saddler’s workshop. As a joke, his employer, Workman, placed a newspaper notice offering a one-cent reward for Carson’s return. Instead of going back, Carson settled in Taos and became determined to learn frontier life. He never learned to read or write English, but he learned Spanish and several Native American languages, as well as indigenous sign language.
Between 1827 and 1829, Carson did whatever survival required. While these odd jobs weren’t glamorous, they hardened him for the unforgiving Southwest. His first big expedition came after the winter of 1828. In the late summer of 1829, the party entered Apache territory and was attacked.
Records of the encounter are scarce, but many suggest this was the first time Carson claimed a Native American scalp. A January 1833 incident encapsulated Carson’s grit and brutality. After Crow warriors took nine horses from his camp, Carson pursued them. His last fight with the famously strong natives came in 1838 while traveling with Jim Bridger.
After encountering a village devastated by smallpox, the party hunted down the remaining Blackfoot and engaged them in battle. The real danger on the frontier, however, was the frontier itself. In 1834, while hunting alone, Carson crossed paths with two grizzlies and barely escaped by scrambling up a tree. One bear tried shaking him loose before losing interest.
Carson later admitted he had never been so scared in his life. Carson had a brief period of marital bliss with Wanabey, welcoming their daughter Adaline. After giving birth to their second daughter, Wanabey passed on. Tragedy followed when Carson’s second child fell into boiling soap tallow and succumbed to her injuries.
He later took his daughter Adeline to stay with relatives in Missouri. On his way home, aboard a Missouri River steamboat, Carson met US Army officer John C. Fremont. Fremont later wrote that he was pleased with Carson, noting he was exactly what he was looking for.
In 1842, Carson guided Fremont on the Oregon Trail to South Pass, Wyoming. That same year, Carson met Josefa Jaramillo. Her father was reluctant to agree to the match because Carson wasn’t Catholic and couldn’t read. To put her mind at ease, Carson converted to Catholicism in January 1843.
In the spring of 1846, rumors spread that settlers faced an imminent Native assault. Carson and other frontiersmen cut down between 120 and 300 men, women, and children in what Carson described as a “perfect butchery. ” After finding Mrs. Ann White, a captured settler, Carson concluded, “I am certain that if the Indians had been charged immediately on our arrival, she would have been saved.
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Carson later reflected that Ann White may have read a dime novel hoping he would save her. Kit Carson, the legendary frontiersman, lived a life of brutal survival, violent encounters, and fleeting moments of domestic peace, forever cementing his place in American history.