The above audio file is an account of frontier scout Tom Tobin (1823–1904) and his pursuit of the Espinosa family of killers, as told to and related by Christopher Kit Carson III, a grandson of both Tobin and legendary frontiersman Kit Carson (1809–68). The younger Carson (who was born June 30, 1883, and died at age 91 on Nov. 28, 1974) heard the story from his Grandfather Tobin on May 1, 1900—the latter’s 77th birthday—as the two were out looking for lost horses. Carson was 16 at the time. He shared the account of Tobin’s adventure in a Dec. 30, 1968, taped interview with Robert Leonetti, then a graduate student at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colo.
The original transcript was never published, but an edited transcript of the interview, provided by Leonetti’s brother, Daniel, appears in the June 2022 issue of Wild West. WW
