Kit Carson's Autobiography

By Edited by Milo Milton Quaife

This account, as modest and undemonstrative as Carson's feats were remarkable, covers his life as a trapper, Indian fighter, guide, and buffalo hunter up to the fall of 1856. Among the high spots during these years were his trapping expedition to California with Ewing Young, his celebrated duel with Shunar at the Green River rendezvous of 1837, the three expeditions with John C. Frémont, his exploits in the Mexican War, and his service as an Indian agent.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Press
• Release date: Mar 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835395232

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Edited by

Milo Milton Quaife

KIT CARSON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Copyright © Milo Milton Quaife

Kit Carson’s Autobiography

(1935)

Arcadia Press 2019

www.arcadiapress.eu

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Kit Carson's Autobiography

Preface

Historical Introduction

Kit Carson’s Autobiography

KIT CARSON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Preface

WITH the issuing of the first volume of The Lakeside Classics at Christmas time, 1903, the writer of these Publishers’ Prefaces unwittingly also assumed the responsibility of selecting the subject matter to be printed. In the preface of that volume, he explained the purpose of the publication, as follows: The aim of this little series is not to add another collection of English classics to the many already published, but to present to the friends and patrons of an old-established press an occasional book of the best English prose, representing in its mechanical details the ideals of that press in workaday bookmaking.

It was not contemplated to make the publication an annual affair, but the appreciation from so many of the fifteen hundred recipients was so flattering that the publishers decided to venture another volume the following year and again the year after. So almost unconsciously that which was intended to be occasional became regular, and not unlike other Christmas remembrances oft repeated, they have become more or less a pleasant habit on the part of the publishers and a sort of vested expectancy on the part of the friends and patrons.

To select once a year some title of the best English prose was not much of a burden. The only requirement was to find some piece of good literature that had not become stale from numerous new editions, and with the help of the late John V. Cheney, then librarian of the John Crerar Library of Chicago, the Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents, William Penn’s quaint Fruits of Solitude, and the Memorable American Speeches appeared from year to year with regularity and without worry to the writer and with polite appreciation on the part of the recipients.

But the publication in 1911 of the Autobiography of the late Gurdon S. Hubbard was a veritable New Deal for the series, and created as much trouble and worry for the writer as the more famous (or infamous?) late New Deal has for business and the country at large. The historical note in the Hubbard Autobiography brought such enthusiastic praise from its readers that the publishers realized that by reprinting titles containing the personal relations of our frontiersmen and early settlers, they would add greatly to the interest of the series and would be making a real contribution towards a wider knowledge of the early history of the West.

This change in subject matter has made the finding of suitable titles no longer a little chore, but the most laborious, difficult, and worrying obligation the writer has to fulfill during the entire year. The range of choice is no longer the entire field of English literature, which has been so thoroughly explored and of which even a layman has a working knowledge, but is now confined to a field where many of the titles have long been out of print and are extremely rare, and which are little known except to historians specializing in the early West or to collectors of Americana. The choice is further limited by the peculiar requirements of the series; for the book must be a personal relation in order that the reader may feel the reality of first-hand information; it must be sufficiently scarce so as to be fresh to the average reader; if it is too long, its thickness makes a clumsy book; and above all, it must be of human interest to hold its readers who range in taste from the most discriminating bibliophiles and collectors of Americana to that recipient who expresses his enthusiastic praise by writing annually that it is the only book I read the entire year. Yet, somehow, with the aid of catalogues of book sales and dealers in old books, with suggestions from historians, collectors, the editor, and the readers themselves, and by constant reference to his own card catalogue built up during a number of years, the writer, after weeks and months of reading, finally decides upon a title and turns it over to Dr. Quaife for editing. Then, like the small boy’s joy when freed from the drudgery of school by the first day of summer vacation, the writer can, with a delicious feeling of irresponsibility, again dally with other reading and enjoy the pleasant, social intercourse of quiet evenings.

The discovery of the Autobiography of Kit Carson (for most finds of a satisfactory title take on the aspect of a discovery) was by mere chance. The writer had just finished the last of several visits to the Ayer Collection of Americana at the Newberry Library looking over various titles that had come to his attention. Finding nothing suitable, he was enjoying a friendly chat with the curator of the collection, Mrs. Pierce Butler, when she suggested that there were many manuscripts in the library, some of which might be worth printing. She and the writer went to the stack room, and after showing him several manuscripts whose titles seemed unpromising, Mrs. Butler pulled out a case containing the original manuscript of Kit Carson’s dictation of his life, the story of his adventurous years on the plains and in the mountains.

The history of the manuscript is told by Dr. Quaife in his historical introduction. Using one of the two copies that had been made from the original, Miss Blanche C. Grant published the Autobiography at Taos, New Mexico, in 1926, but that edition was in pamphlet form, and we are confident that its circulation was not of sufficient extent to make it an old story to our readers. Characteristic of so many frontiersmen, Kit Carson was an extremely modest man. In his life on the plains and in the mountains, he so often faced the dangers of accident, starvation or hostile Indians that he apparently came to consider them all in a day’s work. Fortunately, his fame does not rest upon his own tale. Many incidents told here in such a matter-of-fact manner have also been told in greater detail and with an appreciation of their dramatic character by others, who were present at their occurrence, such as Frémont and Brewerton. But this autobiography shows the real man as no relation by a second person could.

We wish to express our appreciation for the valuable assistance given to Dr. Quaife, the editor of this edition, by Mr. Charles L. Camp of the University of California, who placed at the disposal of Dr. Quaife his extensive and valuable material on the life of Kit Carson.

With confidence that we are adding an interesting and valuable title to the series and with our holiday greetings, we remain,

THE PUBLISHERS

Christmas, 1935

Historical Introduction

MANY volumes of The Lakeside Classics Series have been devoted to narratives of trade and exploration in the trans-Mississippi West. If we include under this designation the Canadian Northwest, with the single exception of Mrs. Kinzie’s Wau Bun, from 1923 to the present time every issue has been devoted to this area. All of the volumes thus published have been reprints of earlier, and now rare or obscure books, and the reader who has preserved a complete set of The Lakeside Classics possesses a rather extensive library of the more important sources for the development of the American West.

In the world of the silver screen cycles come and go, but one type of picture, the western, flourishes perennially. Therein the observer can detect a great truth of American history. The mastery of the frontier is the great romance of America, and its story engages the deepest affections of our people. In this story two popular heroes stand preéminent, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson. Other men may have been no less brave, and no less skilled in wilderness lore, but the popular fame of Boone and Carson as the outstanding frontier heroes of their respective generations is securely established. Seldom, however, has a hero entered less auspiciously upon the pathway to fame and glory than Carson. Reared on the crude Missouri frontier, physically small and unimpressive, wholly without formal education, orphaned in childhood, and apprenticed to the prosaic craft of a leather worker, he began his western career by running away from his home and employer. The latter advertised the fact to the world by inserting this notice in the Missouri Intelligencer:

Notice is hereby given to all persons,

That Christopher Carson, a boy about 16 years old, small of his age, but thick-set; 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 first 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 the penalty of the law. One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back the said boy.

Franklin, Oct. 6, 1826.

DAVID WORKMAN

Neither the penalty of the law, nor the inducement of one cent reward, however, deterred Charles Bent—if, indeed, he ever saw the advertisement—noted merchant of the Santa Fé Trail, from harboring the tow-headed boy who thus made his first appearance upon the literary horizon; and in the humble role of cavvy boy in Bent’s Santa Fé caravan, in the autumn of 1826, sixteen-year old Kit Carson embarked upon his notable career. Thirty years later, a postgraduate of the University of the Wilderness, and for a decade past a national hero, Carson was persuaded to appease the popular appetite for information about his career by dictating to a literate friend his own story of his life to date. Less than thirty thousand words in all, and characterized by a modesty which oftentimes tends to mislead through understatement, the simple autobiography thus produced became the basis of all subsequent lives of Carson. Yet until 1926 it remained unprinted, and until the present moment even the biographers of Carson have been ignorant of the circumstances under which it was produced. How, and why, these things came to pass, we shall endeavor to unfold.

The proverb about a hero being without honor in his own immediate neighborhood has no application to Carson. His fame was first established among