by Marshall Trimble
In October 1849, a trader named James White, his wife Ann and their
infant daughter were traveling on the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico when
they were attacked by a band of Apache. James was killed while Ann and
the child were taken captive. Major William Grier and a company of
Dragoons went in pursuit of the raiders. Their scout was Kit Carson
whose sensational, bigger-than-life adventures were being chronicled in
popular dime novels of the day.
On the twelfth day out they spotted a large camp and attacked. As the
warriors were fleeing, one fired an arrow into the breast of Mrs.
White. Her child was never found.
Mrs. White had been dead only a few minutes and her body was still
warm. Among her possessions was a copy of the popular dime novel Kit Carson: Prince of the Gold Hunters,
a story about Carson saving a beautiful woman from death at the hands
of a band of Indians. Carson couldn't read nor write and when the story
was read to him, he muttered "Throw it in the fire!"
He was deeply shaken by the fact that this woman probably died hoping
the famous scout would come to her rescue. Life doesn’t always imitate
art. Unlike in the dime novels, he got there too late. It was said the
incident haunted Carson for the rest of his life.
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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