Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/87



CARVER'S SOURCE FOR OREGON 59

party. This man had been a neighbor of Rogers' in New Hampshire, and an officer in the "Rangers", and was well qualified for hardship and danger and dealing with Indians. Captain Tute's lieutenant was to be Mr. James Stanley God- dard, an Englishman who had been active in the fur trade already and was reported to be especially successful in influ- encing the Indians of Wisconsin. His name appears in other documents of that period. In one of these documents it will be noted that Captain Carver is described as being in the company of a "Mr. Bruce," near the Falls of St. Anthony. This reference probably is to one William Bruce, who had been going into that region for a number of years, but whose name is not mentioned in Carver's "Travels", as published.

In accordance with these instructions Captain Carver, in company with experienced traders, journeyed to the Mississippi valley and the Falls of St. Anthony, and wintered somewhere on the Minnesota river, which enters the Mississippi at Fort Snelling between the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He made friends with the Sioux Indians there, and incidentally obtained from them a deed for a large tract of land which has become known in the history of Wisconsin as the Carver Grant ; and in the Spring of 1 767 proceeded down the river to Prairie du Chien, where many Indians then gathered every year to meet French and English traders from New Orleans and Mack- inac and elsewhere and engage in an annual "rendezvous." Whether Captain Carver during the winter knew of Major Rogers plans for Western exploration may be an open ques- tion; the following quotation from his original journal will throw some light upon that subject. It is evident that he had ingratiated himself with the Sioux chiefs. 4

Mention has been made in one of the previous discussions of the original manuscripts of Carver's book being deposited with the Sir Joseph Hank's papers in the British Museum at London. During the summer of 1921 the writer was fortunate in being able to secure a careful and critical examination of

4 He induced several of their chiefs to go to Mackinac to see Major Rogers, and also to sign a deed for a large tract of land, for evidence of which see Carver's "Travels," Third Edit.