In March, Letitia’s lawyer posted a summons in the Statesman Journal to one Henry Walker (whom Davey had told that Letitia owned all the cows but seven) and Thomas Knighton (from whom Davey had purchased Charity with Letitia’s money way back in Missouri—he was one of their drovers). “I’ve also seen who put in claims against the estate. G.B. is getting paid for his ‘expenses.’ Davey’s son put in and was paid $242 for labor.”
“What labor?” They were in the lawyer’s office. “That boy rarely lift a hand to help his daddy. Maybe he claim he be paid for going to California. You heard any more about the buyer comin’ in or when?”
“Not a word. No evidence that the land’s been sold. Nothing about the larger herd either. I suspect Smith sold them outside of the auction or kept them for himself. We might not get those cows back.”
“He must be keeping them somewhere. No one’s seen ’em,” Letitia said. “I goes back to look now and then.”
“I can’t get you the land, I’m sorry. But maybe we can get you money for your labor and those cows wrapped with a little justice.”
What would justice look like, Letitia wondered. Her color kept her from being seen as a legal wife, as someone who could inherit, who could even testify against a white man. Her color and her gender kept her from ever voting to make changes in these laws that threatened to exclude her and her children or from making life better for all women and children. Letitia thought of Betsy. She too knew about being wronged. She too was as amputated from the land as Letitia was. They were both staying when they’d soon be required to leave.
In February of 1854, a little over a year after the auction, her lawyer was ready to sue. He’d taken “witness statements” and she had witnesses to help her cause.
“Does I have to speak to the court against him? What if they takes me or my children away?” They sat in his office, now lined with bookcases and a shiny leafed potted plant at the corner of his desk.
“Where are you staying?”
“In Polk County, with the Gages. I never knew when G.B. come in the night and force us out so I took up the Gages’ kind offer. I be going south to the Cow Creek Valley to help a family birth their baby, coming back and forth. You tell me when to be where and I be there.”
He nodded. “I’ll be speaking for you, Mrs. Carson.” Thayer had never asked and she had never told him, but it pleased her that he called her by that name. “Much of this will go back and forth on paper. But you’ll be sworn in official for the laying out of facts. I’ll be the one to question Mr. Greenberry Smith. You won’t have to say a word. I will ask the questions. Now that we’ve found Walker and Knighton, we have good evidence not only that you worked for Mr. Carson but that you were also the owner of those missing cows. We’re going to sue him for $5,000.”
She began to hope, though he warned her that the ins and outs of justice could take months, maybe even years. She had waited a long time to decide to stand out. But she’d also waited to find a man to love, to have two healthy children to raise; even longer to feel free and safe. She could wait to seek justice.
Letitia and her children lived in three places that year: with the Gages, then with the Eliff household where a baby was due in the Cow Creek Valley of southern Oregon, and then back to what had once belonged to her and Davey. She always visited the farm when she came for legal proceedings, walked the fields, checked the trees, chopped at blackberry bushes crouching in. Roth wobbled behind her, stood with her when the children raced among the apple trees.
The seasons changed. When it came time to roast the camas, Letitia and the children went with Little Shoot, traveling a few miles to where the clan dug the hole and built the fire to roast the roots. They stayed the day, watching the stick games and gambling stones pass between quick hands. Letitia knew she wasn’t of these fine people, but she felt a kinship with them. In some ways the time with the group took her back to when she lived in the slaves’ houses as a child, everyone kin, everyone looking out for each other. And despite the uncertainties of the future, she felt safe. Not just with the Kalapuya but within her heart. There was no certainty, no papers that could protect her. She had to live every day trusting that with friends and God’s help she could put this latest cower to rest. It required repetition.
Later that fall, her attorney met her at the farm. He said he wanted to see what they had built together. The buildings stood empty, the barn door swung on one leather hinge. No one had moved there yet. Letitia and Betsy picked apples and put them in a basket as they waited for the attorney. Letitia looked for evidence of the cows returning. She’d seen a cow pie near the barn, and tracks but no animals.
Thayer arrived and looked up at the odd-shaped hill. “Heard about this landmark. It really does have a coffin look to it.” He dismounted, removed his hat. “Hot.” He wiped his wide forehead with his forearm. “But not humid like New York.” He said the word like “New Yak.”
She offered him an apple and he bit, the crunch clear and sharp.
“We’ve gotten a response from Mr. Smith’s attorney. He’s contesting any number of points. But we expected that.” He was quick to reassure her. “A jury has been impaneled and we’re going to court.”
The palms of her hands began to sweat. “I needs to be there?”
“It isn’t necessary.”
But she’d already decided. “I wants to be.” Like every woman of color, her life was a blend of fitting in and standing out. In that court, for her children and herself, she needed to model stepping up.
The months of waiting had taught her that she did not pursue this lawsuit out of desperation or fear; she could see her way through into the future and it no longer frightened her. She had a new story to tell. No, this lawsuit was seeking justice for her children and for Davey and maybe, one day, for another woman who fell in love with a man of a different color. It was one small way to heal a wounded world.
The courtroom was on the second floor of the new county courthouse. It housed linseed-oiled chairs and a large desk that the District Court judge sat behind. He looked tired from traveling the circuit to various inns and barrooms transformed into courtrooms. At least Corvallis boasted a proper site to conduct legal affairs. Along the wall twelve men fidgeted on spindly chairs. Letitia assumed they were hoping this wouldn’t last long. The judge’s name was Williams.
“Fair, wise. Politically astute. This is an important case for him to be assigned,” Thayer whispered to her. “Look who else is here. Bois is a territorial prosecuting attorney, Wilson a deputy US district attorney, and there’s even a deputy United States Marshal.”
“They expecting trouble?” she whispered.
“Political trouble maybe, depending on how this all comes out.”
“Do I . . . need to worry they remove me? That exclusion law?”
“No, no. They repealed it a few months ago. Maybe the news didn’t reach the Umpqua Valley what with the Indian war going on there.” He patted her hand.
“I knows one of those men.” Letitia nodded to the jury chairs.
“Which?”
“Rinehart. He came in ’45 with me and Davey. I midwife his boy, Charles, back in Missouri.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“He know G.B. Smith too, come in that same company.”
“Any others?” Thayer took notes.
“Maybe if I hear the names, but no.”
“Fortunately several came recently, in ’52. And from free states like Ohio and New York and Massachusetts. Most jurors are from slave-holding states. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia.” He checked off a list.
“None from Missouri?”
“One. Bounds, but he got here in ’50 so I doubt he knows about G.B. Smith. I think we have a fair group.” He patted her hand. His felt cool.
Visitors filled the chairs behind them. A man with a pad took notes. “The Statesman,” her lawyer said. “This is a big case in the Territory, one that speaks to justice. Pro-slavery advocates are especially interest
ed. We’ll see what kind of state our Oregon intends to be.”
G.B. Smith sat beside and across from Letitia and her attorney. His face flushed when he looked at her and she realized her lawsuit had embarrassed him, made him public in a way he didn’t want. He wore Davey’s vest bought at the auction. Hope it keep him warm.
Thayer presented their case, how he’d come up with the $5,000 claim based on her years of labor and the value of the cows.
G.B.’s lawyer, Kelsay, replied. “First of all, my client has a bill of sale proving that this woman was nothing but a slave bought by the deceased back in Missouri.”
“No,” Letitia whispered to Thayer. “I had free papers. He know that. He tried to take them from me back in Missouri on patrol. Sarah Davis know I’m free. We ask her.” Not being chased. Nothing to fear. Not going to die. She caused her heartbeat to calm.
“Something wrong, Mr. Thayer.”
“No, your honor.” Thayer continued, “But if the defendant has such a bill of sale, would it not be helpful to the court for him to produce it? I suspect it is a myth. And we can produce a witness who would testify to the plaintiff’s free status at the time of her overland journey.”
“Mr. Kelsay?”
“We’ll provide it to the court. Therefore,” Kelsay continued, “when her master died she was owed nothing. Her emancipation is payment enough. Secondly, the seven and a half years she claims to have worked for the deceased as a free Negro under contract is a lie. We have witnesses saying she was often sick, so sick she stayed with Joseph Gage and family and the deceased paid for all her care during that time when he had no return in labor for six months or more. When she was delivered of her child, she did not work for months.” He looked at his notes. “About the cows. When were the twenty-nine cows she claims are hers purchased? Are there bills of sale for said cows? No.” Kelsay poked at his palm for emphasis. “In return, she’s had the use of the deceased’s ten cows for ten years earning money from cheese and butter and beef, so she’s already been compensated well beyond the entitlement for labor that she claims.”
Letitia shook her head. He was saying so many wrong things.
“Finally, members of the jury.” Kelsay turned to the men, some looking like they’d like to be let out for a smoke, others wearing curiosity on their weathered faces. “The deceased also paid to bring this slave across the continent, at no small expense as many of you know, feeding, clothing, keeping her and her child safe. Then he clothed and fed her and her children for nearly ten years.”
“Seven,” Letitia whispered to her attorney. “We only had a little over seven years together.”
“She’s had enough compensation. She deserves not a dime more. I urge you to find for the defendant.”
Thayer had objected and replied to many of the false claims. Neither she nor G.B. were called as witnesses and she watched G.B.’s face change from sneers to flashes of anger, then back to satisfied. She was the only person of color in the room. She stood out, but for the first time she wasn’t wishing she could sink into the comfort of a fundamentals circle. She was calm having her life splayed out, glad she was taking on a man who bullied her and others before her, she imagined. He was a marse in his heart and would always be unless someone stripped him of his whip. She had a written contract, that’s what this suit was about.
The judge asked a few questions. Thayer presented Knighton’s statement about Letitia’s cow ownership and Walker’s verifying that Davey told him Letitia had done most of the work, owned all but seven of the cows a few years previous. People had stood for her, stood with her.
The jury deliberated while Letitia and the Reads took tea in Thayer’s office. Before the brew cooled off, they were summoned back.
“Do you have a decision?” Judge Williams asked.
The foreman stood. “We find for the plaintiff, nine to three.”
A little chirp went up in the back. Letitia recognized it as Nancy’s cheer of joy.
“We win?” she whispered to her attorney.
“Yes, indeed. But the judgment is yet to be considered.”
What would they grant her? Whatever the amount, it would be helpful but not necessary now. They had won the point, won the day in showing that a white man could not simply abuse a colored woman without justice interceding.
The Statesman newspaper reported on the trial, stating that she’d lost and that it was a shame.
“He must have gone out to lunch,” Thayer told her as he read her the story. “We won’t wait for a retraction. They seldom come. But we know we won. Now we’ll see how much of an award they’ll make to you, and what they’ll do about the cattle.”
“I ain’t seen those cows nowhere,” Letitia said. “He’s probably already sold them.”
“You’ll achieve some income from all this, Mrs. Carson. Can you hold out until they decide? It could be months.”
“I hold out. I being held.”
In January 1855, G.B. paid $529 as a portion of the judgment against him, anticipating a final award. He paid even before her lawyer Thayer received the notice. In May, the court ordered another $300 that G.B. paid to the court.
“But $800 isn’t enough,” Thayer told her. “I’ll file a new motion saying that at the very least you are owed $1,500 reached by charging $200 per year for your labor from May 1845 until March 1853. You’re entitled to a minimum of $700 more to meet the labor claim.” For good measure, he also issued a summons for Sarah Davis as G.B. continued to contend that Letitia was a slave and therefore deserved nothing but her freedom.
“This may be all we’ll get on the labor issues, Mrs. Carson.” A.J. Thayer leaned back in his chair. “Your children are well behaved.”
“Yessuh, they are good children.” Martha wore a dress Letitia’d made for her and five-year-old Adam a suit she’d stitched herself. Both children sat quietly, gazing at the plants and shelves of books, their feet short of the oak floor.
“So I say let’s sue him separately for the cows.”
“Suh?”
“The cows are property that haven’t appeared in the records. There’s no evidence of the cows, yet everyone reports there were twenty-nine. He’s absconded with them somehow. Those cows belong to you.”
And so they went to court again, seeking $1,200 as the value of the herd. But with the money G.B. had already paid, Letitia stopped at the mercantile and asked for the box labeled “Mrs. David Carson” to be brought forward. She paid for the tea set and candlesticks . . . in full.
They hadn’t been able to reach Sarah Davis to testify about the cows. Funny, Letitia’s journey west began in a way with the Bowmans and a cow. She knew the lawsuits would be settled and surely the farm would sell, and any money left would go to the heirs—Davey’s sister, brothers, uncles—the fruits of Oregon being harvested in North Carolina. She’d learned that Smith Carson, Davey’s brother, had died the June they’d left Missouri. She wondered if he had children.
She would take the money and stay in the southern Umpqua Valley. The Gages had already moved and she’d delivered Melvina Eliff of a girl, Alice. She’d been asked to remain with them, she and the children. As much as she’d miss Nancy, it was a good place for her, away from the memories of Davey’s death. Nancy found someone else to midwife her latest, Sumner, born in May. Letitia made a new start in Cow Creek Canyon, hadn’t waited for the outcome of legal issues to begin a new life. She had money G.B. Smith had paid. She’d have some left after paying her attorney. She wasn’t afraid of the unknowns. She’d left her cowers behind.
“He pay more?”
“He did.” It was 1856 and Thayer filled his client in on their latest success at his office. “Another $780 to meet the demand of the labor agreement, so the full $1,500. And here’s more. He claims now that the estate was worth $2,250 and it has claims against it of $3,250.79 with $300 cash on hand.”
Letitia had stopped in Corvallis to see her attorney after finding what she hoped would be the perfect property in Douglas County
close to the Eliffs and Gages.
“Davey’s heirs get nothing? That ain’t right.”
“That’s the executor of the estate figures. He’s blaming you for putting the estate into debt. But no matter. If we win the suit for $1,200 for the cows he sold, he has to make that payment out of his pocket, not the estate. The sale of the land he said was worth $2,000 by itself. That’ll go into the estate value. The debts will be covered and heirs will inherit. Just not your $1,500 and the costs of securing justice.”
“Property back in Missouri, Davey never sell it. His heirs take that. Me and my family only claim what we built in the Soap Creek Valley.”
“You’re a fair woman, Mrs. Carson. Fair, indeed.”
In October, four years after Davey’s death, the jury of twelve men met again and found for the plaintiff. They ordered G.B. Smith to make payment for Letitia’s cattle. This time as an individual who had sold a herd of cows and never bothered to add that value to the estate. He hadn’t even gotten money for that herd of twenty-nine cows; he’d sold them to himself. His only response to the $1,200 judgment of October 12, 1856, was that he only had twenty-eight cows. One had come up missing.
Nancy was there with her brood. Letitia would be leaving for southern Oregon the next morning. They’d dug up six apple saplings and took the table and child’s bed from the cabin, all that had been left behind. She lingered at Davey’s grave. She straightened the wooden cross Little Shoot had pounded at the head of Davey’s mound. No one had yet moved onto the property though mice had moved into the house. Letitia hoped someone would come there who would love it as they had, who would plant their feet there and be nurtured by the encircling hills.
“You get the Gages to write.” Nancy wiped at her tears. Letitia wouldn’t be coming back and forth for court now. The case was settled and she had enough to begin a new life and keep her children safe.
A Light in the Wilderness Page 26
