Christopher Carson, by his countrymen familiarly called “Kit Carson,” was born in the County of Madison, Kentucky, on December 24, 1809. The Carson family were among the first settlers of Kentucky and became owners of fine farms. Besides being a skillful farmer, the father of Kit Carson was a celebrated hunter. When the Indians of Kentucky 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. Only one year after the birth of his son Christopher, 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.
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 constantly 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 afterward 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. When they were engaged in agricultural pursuits, working their farms, and so forth, it was necessary to plow, sow, and reap under guard. Men were stationed at the sides and extremities of their fields to prevent the working party from being surprised and massacred by wild and hostile savages who infested the country.
Source: The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself. Author: De Witt C. Peters.