“Fort Wadsworth,
New York Harbor,
January 7th, 1874.

“Mr. John S.C.  Abbott,
Fairhaven, Conn.

“Dear Sir:—­

“I have just read your interesting life of Kit Carson, and write to give you a short account of his last sickness and death.  I first met him at the house of a mutual friend, not far from Fort Lyon, C.T., late in the Fall of 1867.  He had then recently left the service of the U.S., having been colonel of a regiment of New-Mexican volunteers during the war of the rebellion.

“As I was a successful amateur trapper, he threw off all reserve, and greeted me with more than usual warmth, saying, ’the happiest days of my life were spent in trapping.’  He gave me many practical hints on trapping and hunting.

“He was then complaining of a pain in his chest, the origin of which he attributed to a fall received in 1860.  It happened while he was descending a mountain.  The declivity was so steep that he led his horse by the lariat, intending, if the horse fell to throw it from him.

“The horse did fall, and although he let go the lariat, it caught him and carried him a number of feet, and severely bruised him.

“In the Spring of 1868, he took charge of a party of Ute Indians, and accompanied them to Washington and other cities, going as far east as Boston.  He consulted a number of physicians while on the trip.

“It was a great tax on his failing strength to make this journey; but he was ever ready to promote the welfare of the Utes, who regarded him in the light of a father.

“I saw him in April, 1868.  His disease, aneurism of the aorta, had progressed rapidly; and the tumor pressing on the pneumo-gastric nerves and trachea, caused frequent spasms of the bronchial tubes which were exceedingly distressing.

“On the 27th of April, Mrs. Carson died very suddenly, leaving seven children, the youngest only two weeks old.  Mrs. Carson was tall and spare, and had evidently been a very handsome woman; she was thirty-eight years old at the time of her death, and he informed me that they had been married twenty-five years.  Her sudden death had a very depressing effect upon him.

“I called frequently to see him; and as he was living on the south side of the Arkansas River five miles from Fort Lyon where I was stationed, and the Spring rise coming on, making the fording difficult, I suggested that he be brought to my quarters, which was done on the 14th day of May.

“This enabled me to make his condition much more comfortable.  In the interval of his paroxysms, he beguiled the time by relating past experiences.  I read Dr. Peters’ book, with the hero for my auditor; from time to time, he would comment on the incidents of his eventful life.

“It was wonderful to read of the stirring scenes, thrilling deeds, and narrow escapes, and then look at the quiet, modest, retiring, but dignified little man who had done so much.