Background
Carver was born on April 13, 1710 in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The family moved to Canterbury, Connecticut, when Jonathan was a child.
(Jonathan Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of N...)
Jonathan Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768 became a bestseller in London in the 1780s, and arguments over its author's accuracy and honesty have raged ever since. This book published for the first time the well-known explorer's original account of his expedition. Editor John Parker compares and interweaves the four manuscript versions of Carver's journals discovered in the twentieth century in the British Museum to form the text of this book. Also included are the hitherto unpublished journal of veteran fur trader James Stanley Goddard, who accompanied Carver; related correspondence; a Dakota dictionary; commissions and other records; and a bibliography of major editions of the Travels. In this volume John Parker explains the alleged plagiarism, examines Carver's early life, and offers new information on the land swindle in the Midwest known as the "Carver grant." Editor John Parker was curator of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, a collection specializing in early travel and exploration.
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Carver was born on April 13, 1710 in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The family moved to Canterbury, Connecticut, when Jonathan was a child.
Carver entered military service in the French and Indian War as a sergeant and was wounded in 1757 in the horrible siege of Ft. William Henry, which became synonymous on the frontier with "atrocity. " Two years later Carver was promoted to lieutenant and was raised to captain of a Massachusetts regiment the following year. Gen. Thomas Gage, particularly, thought highly of Carver's military ability. When the French and Indian War ended, Carver began the travels which made him famous in America and Europe. He started from Boston and made his way to the British frontier post of Mackinac, where the commandant, Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers fame), encouraged him and supplied trade goods to be used as presents for the Native Americans through whose country he would be traveling. Carver ascended the Mississippi River to the mouth of the Minnesota, which he then followed. He eventually reached Lake Superior and spent several months on its northern and eastern margins, exploring its bays and the rivers which entered the lake. He returned to Mackinac in 1767. During the following year Carver took the journal of his wilderness travels to Boston in hopes of having it published. Disappointed, he sailed for London to announce his discoveries to the world. In England he petitioned the King for reimbursement of the money he had spent in his explorations. The result was an examination by the Board of Trade, which granted him permission to publish his journal. Although it was quite popular, the sales were insufficient to support him, and he had to take other work, such as clerking in a lottery office. He spent most of his time writing or trying to get more of his writings published. His Travels through the Interior Parts of North America (1778) ran through numerous editions and was translated into foreign languages, becoming one of the most popular early travel accounts of America. But because Carver padded his journals with a section of information on Native American customs garnered from other authors, whom he did not identify, he was charged with plagiarism, and his reputation as both writer and explorer suffered. During 1778-1779 he lent his name to a work titled The New Universal Geography and wrote a technical work, Treatise on the Culture of the Tobacco Plant, but these books did not enjoy the sales of his Travels. Carver died destitute on January 31, 1780, and his English wife buried him in a paupers' field. His reputation has been hounded by charges of fictionalizing and plagiarism. Even today, historians are laboring to restore his once high standing.
(Jonathan Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of N...)
Carver married Abigail Robbins and became a shoemaker. He is believed to have had seven children. He spent a large part of his life in England, remarrying there though he had never bothered to divorce the wife he had left in America.
