Jomal
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History LessonsTAKEN FROM CHRONICLE OF THE OLD WEST
DEATH OF KIT CARSON
May 27th 1868 - ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS DENVER COLORADO
General Kit Carson died at this post between the hours of four and five o'clock, afternoon, this day, from disease of the heart, under which he has been laboring since his return from the east. He had been removed to the post some ten days since; so that Dr. Tilton, the post surgeon, could give him better attention than if he remained at his brother - in - Law's, Mr Boggs', home five miles distant.
Thus is announced the departure of an American citizen of pre-eminent worth and usefulness. His age, sixty-five years. The retrospect of his active life embraces the origin and growth of a scheme of empire, novel to human history. The individuality of the pioneer is in him especially embodied and illustrated.
His childhood was past in Booslick ( Boone's Lick ), Missouri. He was reared in the small family group which surrounded the death bed of Daniel Boone.
Departing from these associations at the delicate age of seventeen, he plunged into the immense wilderness of continent and ocean, then extending in unruffled silence from the Mississippi river to the China shore. With books and their contents he was little or not acquainted. In the fresh teachings of nature and her inspiring insticts he was profoundly instructed. Action, stirring, uninterrupted; and telling in prodigious results, has absorbed his well spent life.
What stupendous metamorphic changes have passed under his eye, succeeding one another in the solitudes. Successively have appeared the hunters, the bee hunters, the trappers for beavers and furs. The earliest pioneers of progress adventuring out into the wilderness, were absorbed by curiosity and enthusiasm, and blinded to all other impulses, as one who should recklessly embark to cross the ocean in a frail canoe.
Their successors have been the redoubtable masters of the rifle with the walnut stock, exquisitely refined in accuracy of eye, nerve, miraculous fortitude, and indomitable endurance.
Successively have come the indian traders, the agriculturalists, the guerilla settlers, the miners, the explorers and the founders and architects of society. Of all this scenic panorama of events, Carson has been the animating and oracular chief in the field. The immense area of the continent is spotted over with the scenes of desperate conflicts, of which has been the heroic and successful leader. Over what an immense expanse of plains, of snow clad sierras, of rivers, lakes and seas, has he cut out the first paths into which now the locomotives, the teamships, the organized two halves of human society, are massing the activity, the power, the condensed energy of ancient and modern times.
To his companions Carson has been always known as the most genial and excellent of men - of sleepless activity wherever a charitable act has been within his reach.
Daring, devoted and sincere, his fidelity has been unblemished in every hour of his life, and in every relation. Citizen, soldier, husband, father, neighbor - in all these relations his guiding instinct has been innate chivalry, from the practice of which nothing has ever deflected him. He had in him a personal courage which came forth when wanted, like lightening from a cloud, at other times unobtrusive and unnoticed.
He has always been identified with Colorado, and has resided and died among us. The best of husbands and fathers, his family was a shining example of domestic love and happiness. His children, four sons and a daughter, all under fifteen years of age, are orphans worthy of their parents and wards of the American people.[/size]
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