Small in Stature
Large in Lore
Christopher “Kit” Carson
by Antoinette Wharton
If you’ve watched the Oscar-winning movie
“The Revenant”, understanding the American
world in the 19th century is more comprehensible
instead of simply reading about it in a history
book. The vicious life cycles accompanied by the
frigid weather conditions fur trappers experienced
in the Rocky Mountains is a scene graphically
painted by the movie. While this story is based
on a true story of another historical man’s life, it
borders on similar life events of Christopher “Kit”
Carson.
Born on Christmas Eve in 1809, Kit was the
ninth of 14 children. Upon his father’s death at
the age of nine, Carson was unable to gain any
further education as he had to begin a trade. At
the age of 14, Kit was working as an apprentice
to a saddle and harness maker. However, the
young man soon became restless and after about a
year he joined a wagon train heading west on the
Santa Fe Trail in 1826. On the Trail, he learned
many different skills, but was hired as a trapper
in California despite his small frame and stature
standing only five and one half inches tall.
Living as a trapper, as many men did, Carson
became immersed with the Native American
culture, at times living exclusively with tribes. His
first two wives were Cherokee and Arapahoe, both
sadly dying at young ages, one after childbirth of
his daughter in 1836. Even through the war and
hardships facing American and Natives alike, he
was able to maintain diplomacy with both sides.
In the 1840’s, he moved into a more permanent
residence in Taos, New Mexico, where he married
his third wife Marie Josefa Jaramillo. They settled
into a Spanish-Colonial style home which remains
intact today and is marked as a National Historic
Landmark. The home where they raised their
seven children is now open to the public as a
historic house museum.
In 1868, a few years after he moved his family
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New legends magazine