Beschreibung:

Peters, DeWitt C. The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson: The Nestor of the Rocky Mountains from Facts Narrated by Himself. New York: W.R.C. Clark & Co.., 1858. 8vo, full leather, 5 spine bands with gilt lettering, embossed front and rear boards, gilt and embossed page edges, 7 plates, 534pp. Lacking frontis and tp, but has the ads, contents, author's preface. We have not located this elaborate binding in other listings of this edition. Possibly a presentation copy. This volume has the Carson family listed in iron gall ink on the blank back of the first plate (between pp. 82-83). The listing begins with the marriage of "Christofal" Carson to Josefa Jamarillo on 2 Feb. 1843, and lists 8 children along with birth dates. It also lists a death date for the first-born son, Charley (b. May 1850 - d. 30 Apr. 1852). The last entry is "girl born on the 13th of April 1868" with "Josephine Carson" penciled in before "girl." Josefa died just 10 days later, on the 23 of April, and Carson himself died a month after she did, on 23 May 1868. There is some question about the provenance of this volume - did it in fact belong to the Carson family, possibly even Kit, particularly since the listing ends just before his death and nothing was added after. This issue was addressed by History Detectives in Episode 8, 2012. The conclusion was that it was probably not kept by Kit (who learned to read and write while in military service) or Josefa (who was literate in Spanish) (although it is interesting that Carson is listed as Christofal - the (sort of) Spanish rendering of Christopher). History Detectives did locate a great grandson, John, who had handwriting samples of three children, Charles, Kit, Jr., and Teresina. A comparison suggested the closest match was to Teresina (third child, b. June 28, 1855). The listing of an exact date of death for the first son, which does not seem to be part of the public record, indicates that it was someone close to the family who would have had knowledge of this event. There are other indications that it may have been in Teresina's possession. Christopher Houston Carson (1809-1868) was born in central Kentucky and moved at the age of one to Missouri to land purchased by Daniel Boone from the Spanish prior to the Louisiana purchase - when this was still "real frontier." But it was this environment in which young Kit grew up. Even this area was civilizing rapidly, and by the time he was apprenticed to a saddle maker, he found the shop stifling. At 16 he headed for Santa Fe with a merchant caravan, and spent the winter with a trapper, learning the fur trade. He also began learning languages required to deal with his customers and neighbors - eventually Spanish, Navajo, Apache, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Paiute, Shoshone, Ute. He spent the next decade trapping. He married Arapaho Singing Grass, and remembered these days as the happiest of his life. But Singing Grass developed a fever and died sometime before 1840 (he was very private about personal events, and this book does not explore his earlier marriages). He married a Cheyenne woman shortly after, but she joined her tribe when they moved camp. In 1842 he met Josefa, whom he married the next year. He returned to Missouri about this time, taking his first daughter with him to live with relatives and receive an education. It was also at this time he met John C. Fremont, who was looking for a guide to the South Pass of the Continental Divide. The next year Fremont continued from South Pass to the Columbia River. In 1845, Fremont was determined to find the source of the Arkansas river, but proceeded to California, apparently to stir up pro-American sentiment, as this was Mexican territory at the time. It was in California with Fremont and Commodore Robert Stockton that Carson began his military career. He went on to serve in the Mexican War, and later the Indian Wars, particularly against the Navajo. Today, he is most associated with the Navajo removal - the "Long Walk" - to B