Christopher Carson (1809-1868), commonly called Kit Carson, was an American hunter, Indian agent, and soldier. He was one of the best-known and most competent guides available to explorers of the western United States.

Kit Carson's career in the West spanned the years from 1825 to 1868, a period of rapid national expansion, exploration, and settlement. His most important Western contributions came as a guide to the expeditions of John C. Frémont, as a messenger and soldier under Gen. Stephen W. Kearny in California, and as an Indian agent just prior to the Civil War. His name is inseparably connected with American expansion into the Far West.

The sixth child of Lindsay and Rebecca Robinson Carson, Kit was born on Dec. 24, 1809, in Madison County, Ky. He spent his childhood in frontier Missouri and apparently received little formal education, because he was illiterate most of his life. In 1824 he became...