David R. Carson is of English-Irish extraction, and was born at Line, Monroe Co., E. Tenn., on the 20th of September 1809. When fourteen years old in November 1833, his father William Carson brought his family, consisting of Himself, his wife, Rosanna (McCully) Carson, three boys and five girls, to Carroll County, Ind., and settled on a farm in Jefferson Township. William Carson died in 1852 and Rosanna Carson in 1873.

With a log schoolhouse education and a knowledge of farming, David Carson left home in 1843: was united in wedlock on the 23d of March of that year, to Elizabeth Hamill of White County, and a native of Tennessee, and moving to a farm north of the center of Jefferson Township, continued to live there until the year 1874. His first wife dying in 1872, Mr. Carson was remarried to Mrs. Sarah A. Davis. By his former marriage, two children Mary J. (wife of Alexander Barnes) and William A. are living.

In his political views, Mr. Carson has always sided with the Democratic party, while religiously speaking, he, as well as his present wife, belong to that division of the Presbyterian Church known as Seceders. Of his father's family, two brothers, William Carson, Esq., and John M. Carson, and two sister, Rosanna Dalzell and Elizabeth Steele, are living besides himself.