Born in Illinois prior to it becoming a state, Lucien’s father, Hugh Maxwell,
was an Irish immigrant. His mother was French nobility. Lucien left home
at fifteen to attend Vincentian College in Missouri. He then headed west
with the American Fur Company where he met a trapper named Kit Carson,
they became lifelong friends. John Fremont hired Lucien to hunt for his
first expedition to Oregon. He then went with Fremont to California in
1845-46 to claim it as U.S. Territory. He married Charles Beaubien’s
daughter Luz. Lucien and Luz would inherit her father’s large land holdings
in New Mexico and Colorado. They would acquire additional lands over the
years until they owned 1.7 million acres of northeast New Mexico and
southern Colorado. He employed a young Buffalo Bill Cody to take care of a
goat ranch. Maxwell and Kit Carson founded the town of Rayado in 1847.
Lucien and Luz built a house there in 1848. The Maxwell house is now part
of the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch serving as a museum.
They sold the land grant in 1870 to the Maxwell Land Grant and Railroad
Company. Property lines were disputed. Native people were removed from
their lands; resulting in the Colfax County War that lasted for twenty years.
Learn more about Lucien Maxwell and his encounter with Will Smith,
Texas Ranger, in the award-winning Comanche Trace Book 4 of the
Westward Sagas Series.
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