Christopher Carson, by his countrymen familiarly called "Kit Carson,"
was born in the County of Madison, State of Kentucky, on the 24th day
of December, 1809. The Carson family were among the first settlers
of Kentucky, and became owners of fine farms. Besides being an
industrious and skillful farmer, the father of Kit Carson was a
celebrated hunter. When the Indians of Kentucky became quieted down,
putting an end to the calls upon his courage and skill as a woodsman,
he settled into a simple, respectable farmer. This monotonous life
did not suit his disposition; and, as the tide of emigration into the
wilds of Missouri was then commencing, where both game and the red man
still roamed, he resolved to migrate in that direction. It was only
one year after the birth of his son Christopher, that Mr. Carson sold
his estate in Kentucky and established himself, with his large family,
in that part of the State of Missouri now known as Howard County. At
this time Howard County, Missouri, was a wilderness, on the remote
American frontier. At his new home, the father was in his element. His
reputation of carrying an unerring rifle and always enacting the deeds
of a brave man, was not long in following him into this wilderness.
Mr. Carson's only assistant, on his first arrival in Howard County,
was his eldest son, Moses Carson, who was afterwards settled in the
State of California, where he resided twenty-five years before the
great California gold discovery was made.

For two or three years after arriving at their new home, the Carson
family, with a few neighbors, lived in a picketed log fort; and when
they were engaged in agricultural pursuits, working their farms, and
so forth, it was necessary to plough, sow and reap under guard,
men being stationed at the sides and extremities of their fields to
prevent the working party from being surprised and massacred by wild