Editing Kit Carson (section)

== Personal life ==
In 1847, the future General [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] met Carson in [[Monterey]], [[California]]. Sherman wrote: "His fame was then at its height,... and I was very anxious to see a man who had achieved such feats of daring among the wild animals of the Rocky Mountains, and still wilder Indians of the plains.... I cannot express my surprise at beholding such a small, stoop-shouldered man, with reddish hair, freckled face, soft blue eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage or daring. He spoke but little and answered questions in monosyllables."

Colonel [[Edward W. Wynkoop]] wrote: "Kit Carson was five feet five and one half-inches tall, weighed about 140 pounds, of nervy, iron temperament, squarely built, slightly bow-legged, and those members apparently too short for his body. But, his head and face made up for all the imperfections of the rest of his person. His head was large and well-shaped with yellow straight hair, worn long, falling on his shoulders. His face was fair and smooth as a woman's with high cheekbones, straight nose, a mouth with a firm, somewhat sad expression yet kissable lips, a keen, deep-set but beautiful, mild blue eye, which could become terrible under some circumstances, and like the warning of the rattlesnake, gave notice of attack. Though quick-sighted, he was slow and soft of speech, and posed great natural modesty."

Lieutenant George Douglas Brewerton made one coast-to-coast dispatch-carrying trip to Washington, DC, with Carson. Brewerton wrote: "The Kit Carson of my ''imagination'' was over six feet high—a sort of modern Hercules in his build—with an enormous beard, and a voice like a roused lion.... The real Kit Carson I found to be a plain, simple... man; rather below the medium height, with brown, curling hair, little or no beard, and a voice as soft and gentle as a woman's. In fact, the hero of a hundred desperate encounters, whose life had been mostly spent amid wilderness, where the white man is almost unknown, was one of Dame Nature's gentleman...."<ref>Roberts 187</ref>

=== Freemasonry ===
Carson joined [[Freemasonry]] in the Santa Fe Territory of New Mexico, petitioning in Montezuma Lodge No. 101. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on April 22, 1854, passed to the degree of Fellowcraft June 17, 1854, and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason December 26, 1854,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mastermason.com/Millennium382/Papers/KitCarson.pdf|title=Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson|last=Brunton|first=Grover W., 33rd|date=April 11, 2004|access-date=February 2, 2017}}</ref> just two days after his 42nd birthday. Carson, together with several other Freemasons in Taos, petitioned to charter Bent Lodge No. 204 (now Bent Lodge # 42) from the Grand Lodge of Missouri AF&AM, a request that was granted on June 1, 1860, with Carson elected Junior Warden of the lodge.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kitcarsonhomeandmuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GuideYoung.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202234846/http://www.kitcarsonhomeandmuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GuideYoung.pdf|url-status=usurped|archive-date=February 2, 2017|title=Meet Kit Carson: A guide for young people|publisher=The Kit Carson Home and Museum|access-date=February 2, 2017}}</ref> Carson served as Senior Warden the following year and would have served as Worshipful Master, but the lodge went dark due to the Civil War.

The Masonic fraternity continued to serve him and his family well after his death. In 1908, the Grand Lodge of New Mexico erected a wrought iron fence around his family burial plot.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IWARDgAAQBAJ&q=kit+carson+1908+grand+lodge&pg=PT188|title=199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die|first=Loren|last=Rhoads|year= 2017|publisher=Running Press|isbn=9780316473798|via=Google Books}}</ref> The following year, the Grand Lodge of New Mexico granted a new charter to Bent Lodge 42 and challenged the Lodge to purchase and preserve Carson's home.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.kitcarsonmuseum.org/the-house/acquisition/|title=Acquisition|newspaper=Kit Carson Home and Museum|access-date=February 2, 2017}}</ref> More than a century later, the Museum of Kit Carson's House is still managed by Bent Lodge.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bentlodge42.org/|title=Bent Lodge No. 42 AF & AM Taos, New Mexico USA|website=bentlodge42.org|access-date=February 2, 2017}}</ref>

=== Marriages ===
Carson was married three times. His first two wives were Native American. His third wife was born of an old Hispanic family in [[Taos, New Mexico]], then part of the Republic of Mexico. Carson was the father of ten children. He never wrote about his first two marriages in his ''Memoirs''. He may have thought he would be known as a "squaw man", which was not welcomed by polite society.<ref>Roberts 71</ref>

In 1836, Carson met an Arapaho woman, Waanibe (Singing Grass, or Grass Singing), at a mountain man rendezvous held along the Green River in [[Wyoming]]. Singing Grass was a lovely young woman, and many mountain men were in love with her.<ref>Sides pp. 29–30.</ref> Carson was forced to fight a duel with a French trapper, Chouinard, for Waanibe's hand in marriage. Carson won but had a very narrow escape. The French trapper's bullet singed his hair. The duel was one of the best known stories about Carson in the 19th century.<ref>Roberts p. 70</ref>

Carson married Singing Grass. She tended to his needs and went with him on his trapping trips. They had a daughter, Adaline (or Adeline). Singing Grass died after she had given birth to Carson's second daughter circa 1839. His second child did not live long. In 1843, in Taos, the young child fell into a boiling kettle of soap tallow and subsequently died.<ref>Roberts p. 98</ref>

[[File:Josefacarson02crop.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|alt=Josefa Carson|Josefa Carson, Carson's third and last wife, holds Carson's son]]
Carson's life as a mountain man was too hard for a little girl, so he took Adaline to live with his sister Mary Ann Carson Rubey in [[St. Louis]], Missouri. Adaline was taught in a school for girls. Carson brought her West when she was a teenager. She married and divorced a George Stilts of St. Louis. In 1858, she went to the California goldfields. Adaline died in 1860<ref>Roberts pp. 101–102</ref> or after 1862, probably in [[Mono County, California]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Kit Carson & His Three Wives: A family history |first=Marc |last=Simmons |publisher=UNM Press |date=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8M5iW1cYt7IC&q=%22Adaline%20carson%22&pg=PA165 |isbn=978-0-8263-3296-7}}</ref>

In 1841, Carson married a Cheyenne woman, Making-Out-Road. They were together only a short time. Making-Out-Road divorced him in the way of her people by putting Adaline and all of Carson's property outside their tent. Making-Out-Road left Carson to travel with her people through the West.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Crossing Wyoming: Kit Carson and a Changing West {{!}} WyoHistory.org |url=https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/crossing-wyoming-kit-carson-and-changing-west |access-date=2025-04-01 |website=www.wyohistory.org}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Lepore |first=Jill |date=2006-10-01 |title=Westward Ho! |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/10/09/westward-ho-4 |access-date=2025-04-01 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

About 1842, Carson met Josefa Jaramillo, the daughter of a prominent Mexican couple living in Taos. To marry her, Carson left the [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian Church]] for the [[Catholic Church]]. He married the 14-year-old Josefa on February 6, 1843. They had eight children.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

=== Illiteracy ===
Despite being fluent in multiple European and Indian languages, Carson was illiterate. He was embarrassed by that and tried to hide it.<ref>Sides 50–51</ref> In 1856, he dictated his ''Memoirs'' to another and stated: "I was a young boy in the school house when the cry came, Injuns! I jumped to my rifle and threw down my spelling book, and thar it lies."<ref>''The Legendary Mountain Men of North America'' {{ISBN|978-1-312-92151-1}} p. 87</ref>

Carson enjoyed having other people read to him and preferred the poetry of [[Lord Byron]]. Carson thought that Sir [[Walter Scott]]'s long poem, ''[[The Lady of the Lake (poem)|The Lady of the Lake]]'' was "the finest expression of outdoor life".<ref>Roberts 186</ref> Carson eventually learned to write "C. Carson", but it was very difficult for him. He made his mark on official papers, and it was then witnessed by a [[clerk]] or other official.<ref>Roberts 55</ref>