This collection (6 items) consists of legal documents and memorandums pertaining to the chain of ownership of a 2,000 acre property. The tract was a part of the land allegedly granted to Jonathan Carver from the Naudowessie Indians during his 1766-1768 journey to present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The first 2 partially printed documents, numbered 188 and 189 and signed by John C. Fox, Simeon Avery, and Ezekiel Webb, each grant 1,000 acres of the Carver land to the bearer (February 6, 1796). The third item is an indenture to transfer the land from Benoni Adams to James W. Howard, both of New York City (September 12, 1796). In a document dated November 8, 1836, Seth Whalen of Milton, New York, granted Isaac Nash power of attorney for dealing with the same property. The final 2 items are manuscript memorandums listing the chain of ownership of these 2,000 acres and binding a group of Vermont residents to the Carver heirs for the sum of $200,000. The first memorandum includes small drawings of the tortoise and snake totems of the Naudowessie chiefs who allegedly granted the lands to Jonathan Carver.
Jonathan Carver was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on April 13, 1710, the son of local government official, David Carver, and his wife, Hannah Dyer. As a child, he moved with his family to Connecticut, and there, he married Abigail Robbins in 1746 and worked as a shoemaker. They later settled in Montague, Massachusetts, and had at least seven children. In 1755, Carver joined the colonial militia and he subsequently fought in the French and Indian War, serving in engagements at Crown Point, Lake George, Fort William Henry (where he was briefly imprisoned), and Fort Edward. In 1763, he left the Army and set out to explore the territories newly acquired from the French, armed with some knowledge of drafting, mathematics, and trade. By this time, he had befriended the popular solider and frontiersman, Major Robert Rogers.
In August 1766, Carver traveled to Fort Michilimackinac in Michigan, where Rogers, who was commander there, contracted him to search for the Northwest Passage and to encourage Native Americans to conduct their trading at Michilimackinac. Carver traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and up the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers to the Mississippi River. In the winter of 1766-1767, he lived among the Naudowessie Indians and encouraged them to engage in fur-trading at Michilimackinac. In the spring of 1767, Carver awaited supplies to be sent by Rogers, but the latter had come under suspicions of plotting treason with France against England, and was arrested in December 1768, leaving Carver with little to show for his two years of exploration.
Carver left for England in 1769 to petition the British government for payment to cover his expedition to find the Northwest Passage, and eventually received about £1300. Needing additional funds, he fabricated a land grant by the Naudowessie Indians for property actually owned by their enemies, the Ojibwe, in Wisconsin. In 1774, despite having a wife in America, he married a British woman, Mary Harris, with whom he had two children. In 1778, he published Travels through the Interior Parts of North America in the Years 1766, 1767 and 1768, based on the journals he kept during his journey. He died in 1780.
