Editing Kit Carson (section)

==Ranching, family life, and herding sheep (1848–1853)==
After the [[Mexican–American War]] transferred California and New Mexico to the United States, Carson returned to Taos to attempt to transition into a career as a businessman and rancher. He developed a small rancho at Rayado, east of Taos, and raised beef. He brought his daughter Adaline from Missouri to join Josefa and the family in a period where family life settled the frontiersman. Josefa loved to sew, and he bought her an early sewing machine, one of the first Singer models, a resourceful tool for their expanding family. She managed the household, in the tradition of the Hispanic women of New Mexico, while he continued shorter travels.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Simmons |first1=Marc |title=Kit Carson & His Three Wives, a Family History |date=2003 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque, New Mexico |isbn=0-8263-3296-X |pages=81–83, 91–93}}</ref> In the summer of 1850, he sold a herd of horses to the military at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. The following year, he took wagons on a trading expedition to Missouri and back along the [[Santa Fe Trail]]. In 1852, for old times sake, he and a few of the veteran trappers made a loop trapping expedition through Colorado and Wyoming.<ref name="Remley">{{cite book |last1=Remley |first1=David |title=Kit Carson, The Life of an American Border Man |date=2011 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman, Oklahoma |isbn=978-0-8061-4273-9 |pages=185–189}}</ref>

In mid-1853, Carson left New Mexico with 7,000 thin legged churro sheep for the [[California Trail]] across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and into California. He was taking them to settlers in northern California and southern Oregon. Carson had with him six experienced New Mexicans from the haciendas of the Rio Abajo to herd the sheep. Upon his arrival in Sacramento, he was surprised to learn of his elevation, again, to a hero of the Conquest of California; over the rest of his life he was recognized as a celebrated frontiersman, an image developed by publications of varied accuracy.<ref name="Remley" /><ref name="diary">{{cite book |last1=Beeson |first1=Welborn |editor1-first=Bert |editor1-last=Webber |title=The Oregon & Applegate Trail Diary of Welborn Beeson in 1853 |edition=Second |year=1993 |publisher=Webb Research Group |location=Medford, Oregon |isbn=0-936738-21-9 |page=80}}</ref>