Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/377



JONATHAN CARVER AND THE NAME OREGON 365

press. Among the papers bequeathed -by Sir Joseph Banks, there is a note "to the Reviser", in which Carver asks that nameless gentleman, in case he finds any accounts which are unconnected, to be so good as to let him "know by Mr. Pain ancUvery information shall be given that the author is capable of ". In London, of course, Carver had access to all known material in the way of books (including the recently pub- lished History, by James Adair) and maps and no doubt gave his writings a final revision. If he then added the name Oregon we now know of no other source for it than his own mind or that of Major Robert Rogers, who had been in London and had received assistance from Carver in pre- senting claims against the government. But it is not at all likely that the name was written into the final revision there in London. 24

There are those who prefer to condone the moral lapses of Carver as a writer, and, for their consideration, another name of Indian origin will be mentioned, as we conclude this dis- cussion. It will be noted that, in the original rendering of the lines of "Thanatopsis", the construction of the verse placed the accent upon the second syllable of the name Oregon. There can be no connection between William Cullen Bryant and Jonathan Carver, except by mere coincidence, but this serves to introduce a word taken from the dialect of the Pequot Indians of New England spelled w-a-u-r-e-g-a-n and uttered with the accent on the second vowel. Had Carver been a man of real vision in writing and capable of evolving a etiphoneous name for the fourth river of his scheme, he might have reverted in thought to the days of his youth when hunting or fishing among the wooded hills of Connecticut or listening to Indian tales by the fireside, and recalled this beautiful Wauregan, which means " good", and altered that to Oregon, for surely the Columbia is a goodly river. But that was beyond the literary or mental ability of Jonathan Carver. Instead he appears to have merely pilfered the name Onragon 25 from Major Robert Rogers, with slight variation.

24 It is impossible to say how much the style of Carver's published book owes to the reviser of the manuscript; possibly enough to justify Professor Bourne's criticism. The name Oregon as printed may have taken final form by the hand of the reviser.

25 See page 122 of Ponteach, Caxton Club edition. (It is purposed to con- tinue this discussion and show the relationship between Robert Rogers and the name Oregon as indicated by documentary material now being transcribed. T. C. E.)