David Carson

David Carson was an Irish-born settler who migrated from Missouri to Oregon in 1845 with Letitia Carson and their infant daughter Martha. The family established a farm in the Soap Creek Valley of the Willamette Valley, raising livestock and crops on a land claim made under Oregon’s provisional land laws.

Carson died intestate in 1852. The administrator of his estate refused to recognise Letitia or their children as his heirs and sold much of the family property, prompting Letitia Carson to bring successful legal actions that became significant episodes in the history of Black property rights in early Oregon.

In Jane Kirkpatrick’s A Light in the Wilderness, Letitia Carson treasures the papers proving she is free, but legal freedom does not prevent racism as she crosses the Oregon Trail with Irish cattleman David Carson.