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They headed to the Arkansas River in south-central Colorado, down the river,
over to the South Platte River, east to the North Platte junction, and then into southern Wyoming over the course of two months before returning back to
New Mexico. Reluctant to disband, Kit’s companions lingered for almost two weeks, engaging in matches that displayed their uncanny skill in handling firearms. Alex
Godey took top honors while rapidly reloading and shooting from horseback, racing at high speed. Jim Baker and Lucien Maxwell tied hitting a long-range target from a kneeling position. And so it went, with good-natured roistering lasting far into the night. At last it was all over. The throwback trappers shook hands and dispersed, never to see one another again. The specific dates of the trip and much of the details of the events are not known, but Les Vagas, New Mexico, is due east of Santa Fe
and a few days ride south of Rayado. It may have been their final destination after delivering the pelts to Sante Fe before parting ways. What is known is that the date on the rifle would tie in to those final days of the hunt, or soon thereafter when a suitable rifle was available for his friends to procure for their presentation
He lost his third wife in child birth that spring, and
on May 23 at Fort Lyon in Colorado, he suffered an aortic aneurysm. His death was reported in newspapers
across the country.
Internationally famed firearms author R. L. Wilson thought so highly of this rifle
Also published in the papers in the early 1850s were advertisements for the play “Kit Carson” in New York City at the Bowery Theatre and the book “Kit Carson: The Prince of Gold Hunters.”
In the years following the famous “final hunt,” Carson served as an Indian Agent in Taos, New Mexico for seven years starting in 1854 until the outbreak of the Civil
War. During the war, he remained loyal to the Union and served as a lieutenant colonel and later colonel in the 1st New Mexican Volunteer Infantry. He engaged Confederates in the Battle of Valverde Ford on February 20 and 21 of 1862, and, after the Confederates had been pushed out of the area, Carson tried to resign due to ill health in February 1863. Instead, he was asked to stay on and ordered to force the Apaches and Navajo (ancestral enemies) onto the same inhospitable reservation by his commander: Major General James Henry Carleton. Carleton was eventually fired in 1866 due to his brutal orders and tactics against the Navajo, and the survivors were finally allowed to return to their homeland in 1868.
Carson’s final battle was one of the largest ever fought in the West: the First Battle of Adobe Walls in Texas on November 25, 1864. Again, he was called upon by Carleton to lead a punitive expedition following raids on the Sante Fe Trail. Carson’s force was small: 335 soldiers and cavalrymen and 72 Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts. He destroyed a Kiowa village that morning and headed to the abandoned trading post at Adobe Walls and noted several Comanche villages
nearby. The combined Kiowa and Comanche force was reported at over 1,200, and possibly more. After fighting for four to five hours, Carson retreated to New Mexico after burning another Kiowa village. He was promoted to a brevet brigadier general on March 13, 1865, and placed in command of Ft. Garland in Colorado among the Ute and then returned to ranching. He escorted a delegation of the Ute to Washington, D.C. in 1868 for a meeting
with President Andrew Johnson. Though fairly young at
58, Carson had lived a hard life, and his health had been declining for several years by the time he returned to the West.
that he penned a 38-page letter about it. In it, he calls the rifle “a unique and historic American frontier decorative arts treasure” and “what has to be the finest Plains Rifle ever owned by the legendary and heroic Kit Carson” and provides details on “The Final Hunt with Fellow Trappers”
that took place in 1852, primarily from “Trail Dust: Kit Carson, Fellow Trappers Made Final Hunt” by Marc Simmons, as well as other colorful events in Carson’s life. He also notes that he was making arrangements to feature this rifle on the cover of “The Guns That Won the West” (a special reissue of “The Peacemakers”) and also for this rifle to be placed in a prominent exhibition.
CONDITION: Very good with mostly silver-gray patina visible on the lock plate and barrel along
with some areas of smooth brown, light pitting mainly on the hammer, and mild overall wear. The furniture generally has a mellow aged appearance and minor wear. The stock is also very good and
has attractive flame figure thin crack extending up from the nose of the lock, small flake below the hammer, repaired break through the lock mortise and left flat, and mild overall wear. The double, set- trigger lock is setup to require the trigger to be set before cocking, and it and the set triggers function fine. As Wilson wrote, “No other artifact is of more importance to these frontier figures than their firearms . . . And for a collector or museum today - no more treasured firearm from the 19th century West could be an artifact such as the Masterpiece Presentation Plains Rifle of Kit Carson, built by the talented Ohio Gunmaker David Leonard.” Sadly, Wilson passed away shorty after he penned his letter on the Carson Presentation Rifle.
Estimate: 100,000 - 200,000
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