In his various activities, Carson played many parts, including those of
hunter, ranchman, and miner.
As historians and writers of Western romance picture him, Kit Carson
was solely an Indian-fighter and scout. Frontier exigencies, indeed,
compelled him to be these, but he was much more. He was a sagacious
civic chieftain as well as intrepid leader in war, Indian, foreign and
civil; a wise counselor of red men and white; a man who touched the
West's wild life at more points than any other person of any day; a man
who blazed trails on which great commonwealths were afterward built,
and who helped to build some of them.
Born in Kentucky ten months later than Lincoln, and seventy-five miles
east of Lincoln's birthplace, Kit Carson, at an early age, was carried
to Missouri by his parents. He received little school education, but
learned to ride, to handle a rifle, and to trap bear and beaver on that
borderline of civilization. He was set to work at a trade which had no
attractions for him; and his imagination was fired by the tales of the
strange and stirring scenes and deeds in the vast expanse off toward
the sunset that came to him through passing hunters and traders. The
_Missouri Intelligencer_, a weekly newspaper published in Franklin, on
the Missouri River, in its issue of October 12, 1826, tells the sequel:
Notice is hereby given to all persons that Christopher Carson, a
boy about sixteen years old, small for his age, but thick-set, with
light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard
County, Missouri, to whom he had been bound to learn the saddler's
trade, on or about the 1st of September last. He is supposed to have
made his way to the upper part of the state. All persons are notified
not to harbor, support, or assist said boy, under penalty of the law.
One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back the
said boy.