Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery

The ground was first the American Cemetery. Teodora Martínez Romero gave it in 1847 to bury the American soldiers and civilians killed in the January rising, and it took Carson's name in May 1869, when he and his wife, Josefa Jaramillo Carson, were brought down from Colorado, where both had died the year before. Her sister, María Ignacia Bent, the governor's widow, lies here too; Bent himself rests in the national cemetery at Santa Fe. The panel spells Mabel Dodge Luhan as Lujan, the form of her husband Tony's name.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historical Marker Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery This historic cemetery is the final resting place for many prominent Taoseños. Notables buried here are; Christopher "Kit" Carson, a legendary scout, Padre Antonio Martinez, a famous educator and church leader, and Mabel Dodge Lujan. Others buried here are the soldiers and other local citizens killed during the January 1847 rebellion here in Taos. The rebellion was sparked by a fear by some that the annexation of New Mexico as a Territory by the United States would result in a loss of their land rights. Governor Charles Bent was killed during the rebellion.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Taos Pueblo — 2.6 mi
  Two terraced adobe houses facing each other across Red Willow Creek, lived in for something like a thousand years, with no electricity or running water inside the old walls.
• San Francisco de Asís Church, Ranchos de Taos — 4.0 mi
  The adobe church at Ranchos de Taos that artists always paint from behind, kept standing by the mud its parish spreads over it every June.
• Rio Grande Gorge Bridge — 10 mi
  A steel truss strung across a slot in the basalt west of Taos, 565 feet above the river by the careful measure and 650 by the signs, built when the road beyond it did not yet exist.

More markers nearby

• Taos — 1.1 mi
• Taos — 2.0 mi
• Taos Canyon — 3.1 mi
• San Francisco de Asis Church — 4.0 mi