Charles Burdett - Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide

In offering to the public a revised and complete history of the most remarkable of American frontiersmen, we perform a pleasing task. All the attainable circumstances connected with his life, adventures and death are fully set forth, and we offer this in confidence as a reliable authority for the reader.

No one should hesitate to familiarize himself with the exploits of the subject of this volume. They evince a magnanimity and an uprightness of character that is rarely found in one leading so daring and intensely wild a life, and cannot but contribute their share of lustre to the interesting records of the Far West. We regret that his modesty, equally proverbial with his daring, prompted him to withhold many of the exciting incidents of his career from the public.

We have compiled a portion of this work from such official reports of his great skill, indomitable energy, and unfaltering courage as have been communicated by his friend and commander, Col. Fremont, who has invariably awarded to him all the best attributes of manhood, when opportunity afforded. Added to these, our hero had been prevailed upon by a few of his friends to communicate some of the records of the most important passages in his extraordinary and eventful life, which are embodied in this volume.

His has indeed been a life of peculiarly exciting personal hazards, bold adventures, daring coolness, and moral and physical courage, such as has seldom transpired in the world, and we have been greatly impressed, in its preparation, with the necessity for a thorough work of this kind. All are aware that the young, and even matured, often seek for books of wild adventure, and if those of an unhurtful and truthful character are not found, they are apt to betake themselves to trashy and damaging literature. In this view, this work has a purpose which, we trust, will commend it to every family throughout the land.

As, for their intrepid boldness and stern truthfulness, the exploits and deeds of the old Danish sea-kings, have, since the age of Canute, been justly heralded in song and story; so now by the world-wide voice of the press, this, their descendant, as his name proves him, is brought before the world: and as the stern integrity of the exploits and deeds of the old Danes in the age of Canute were heralded by song and story; so too, in this brief and imperfect memoir, are those of one who by name and birthright claims descent from them. The subject of the present memoir, Christopher Carson, familiarly known under the appellation of Kit Carson, is one of the most extraordinary men of the present era. His fame has long been established throughout this country and Europe, as a most skillful and intrepid hunter, trapper, guide, and pilot of the prairies and mountains of the far West, and Indian fighter. But his celebrity in these characters is far surpassed by that of his individual personal traits of courage, coolness, fidelity, kindness, honor, and friendship. The theatre of his exploits is extended throughout the whole western portion of the territory of the United States, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and his associates have been some of the most distinguished men of the present age, to all of whom he has become an object of affectionate regard and marked respect. The narrative which follows will show his titles to this distinction, so far as his modesty (for the truly brave are always modest) has permitted the world to learn anything of his history.

It appears, from the various declarations of those most intimate with Christopher Carson, as well as from a biography published a number of years before his death, that he was a native of Madison county, Kentucky, and was born on the 24th of December, 1809. Colonel Fremont in his exhaustive and interesting Report of his Exploring Expedition to Oregon and North California, in 1843-44, says that Carson is a native of Boonslick county, Missouri; and from his long association with the hunter, he probably makes the statement on Carson's own authority. The error, if it is an error, may have arisen from the fact stated by Mr. Peters, that Carson's father moved from Kentucky to Missouri, when Christopher was only one year old. He settled in what is now Howard county, in the central part of Missouri.

At the time of Mr. Carson's emigration, Missouri was called Upper Louisiana, being a part of the territory ceded to the United States by France in 1803, and it became a separate State, under the name of Missouri, in 1821. When Mr. Carson removed his family from Kentucky, and settled in the new territory, it was a wild region, naturally fertile, thus favoring his views as a cultivator; abounding in wild game, and affording a splendid field of enterprise for the hunter, but infested on all sides with Indians, often hostile, and always treacherous.

As Mr. Carson united the pursuits of farmer and hunter, and lived in a sort of block-house or fort, as a precaution against the attacks of the neighboring Indians, his son became accustomed to the presence of danger, and the necessity of earnest action and industry from his earliest childhood.

At the age of fifteen, Kit Carson was apprenticed to Mr. Workman, a saddler. This trade requiring close confinement, was, of course, utterly distasteful to a boy already accustomed to the use of the rifle, and the stirring pleasures of the hunter's life, and at the end of two years, his apprenticeship was terminated, for Kit, who, with his experience as the son of a noted hunter, himself perfectly familiar with the rifle, and, young as he was, acknowledged to be one of the best and surest shots, even in that State, where such merit predominated at that time over almost every other, could not bear in patience the silent, sedentary monotony of his life, voluntarily abandoned the further pursuit of the trade, and sought the more active employment of a trader's life.

His new pursuit was more congenial. He joined an armed band of traders in an expedition to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. This, at that period, (1826,) was rather a perilous undertaking, on account of the Indian tribes who were ever ready to attack a trading caravan, when there was any prospect of overcoming it. No attack was made on the party, however, and no incident of importance occurred, if we except the accident to one of the teamsters who wounded himself by carelessly handling a loaded rifle, so as to render it necessary to amputate his arm. In this operation Carson assisted, the surgical instruments being a razor, an old saw, and an iron bolt, heated red hot, in order to apply the actual cautery. Notwithstanding this rough surgery, the man recovered. 1 1 Peters.

In November (1826) the party arrived at Santa Fe, the capital, and the largest town in the then Mexican province of New Mexico. This place is situated on the Rio Chiuto, or Santa Fe river, an affluent of the Rio Grande, from which it is distant about 20 miles. It was then, as now, the great emporium of the overland trade, which, since 1822, has been carried on with the State of Missouri. The houses are chiefly built of adobes , or unburnt bricks, each dwelling forming a square, with a court in the centre upon which the apartments open. This mode of building, originally Moorish, prevails in all the colonies settled by the Spaniards, as well as in Old Spain, and the oriental countries. It makes each house a sort of fortress, as General Taylor's troops learned to their cost at the siege of Monterey. The front entrance of each house is large enough to admit animals with their packs.

Santa Fe is well supplied with cool water from springs within its limits, and from fountains above the city near the neighbouring mountain. The appearance of the place is inviting and imposing, as it stands on a plateau elevated more than 7000 feet above the sea, and near a snow capped mountain, which rises 5000 feet above the level of the town; but the population is said to be exceedingly depraved. The present population is about 5000; but at the time of Carson's first visit, it was comparatively a small town.