ROBINSON TYNDALE:

This large land grant, which includes the present-day site of Saint Paul and a portion of what is now Minneapolis, was supposedly given to explorer Jonathan Carver by the Dakota chiefs Hawnopawjatin and Otohtongoomlisheaw in a ceremony that took place on May 1, 1767 in Carver's Cave at what is now Saint Paul. For several decades after Carver's death, his heirs and various others tried to capitalize on the grant by petitioning the United States Congress to recognize its validity, and by selling and reselling lands in the region.

Samuel Harrison functioned as the agent for Rufus Carver, the oldest son of Jonathan Carver and administrator of the interests of Carver's American heirs. Harrison allied himself with Samuel Peters, a Connecticut-born minister who claimed to have known Carver. Together, Harrison and Peters spearheaded attempts to validate the grant, and to sell its lands, though the land speculation and sales that ensued quickly grew out of control. Congress never did validate the grant.

Attempts to profit from the Carver Grant lasted decades and enveloped scores of Carver family members, land speculators, and potential settlers. Many scholars and historians question whether the grant ever took place at all, particularly in view of the fact that Carver never mentions it in his Travels through the Interior Parts of North America (1778) nor in his other surviving writings, and because the original deed granting the lands to Carver is said to have disappeared long ago.

The Carver Grant constituted a tempting prize for promoters, and numerous speculators sought to make money out of it. Its validity was never proven, and hopes to realize financial gain from it are said to have vanished by about 1834.

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The collection contains 20 documents dated 1806 to 1861, two envelopes, and a manuscript notebook. The notebook includes a copy of an 1806 petition to the United States Senate submitted by Harrison, as agent for Carver heirs, urging the federal government to approve the grant. Also included are depositions by Peters of Vermont; itinerant preacher and land speculator Lorenzo Dow; and Ebenezer Parrish of Pennsylvania, concerning the authenticity of the grant. Documents by Tyndale, dated 1817, also assert the validity of the grant. An 1816 power of attorney from Benjamin Munn of New Jersey grants two Philadelphia men authority to sell lands in the Carver grant. An 1817 indenture records a land sale to Tyndale. Four parchment deeds (1816-1817) document Dow's marketing of the lands within the grant.

The notebook features transcriptions of documents related to the Carver Grant issue, including Samuel Harrison's testimony before a United States Senate committee chaired by Vermont senator Israel Smith that was considering issues related to the Carver Grant; a petition presented by Harris to this committee; and transcriptions of evidence submitted by Harris to the committee.

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Access Restrictions:

Access to and use of reserve materials requires the curator's permission.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Tyndale, Robinson, Papers related to the Carver Grant. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 16,609

Processing Information:

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Catalog ID number: 990074827840104294

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Carver Grant.

Land grants -- Mississippi River Valley.

Land speculation -- Mississippi River Valley.

Persons:

Carver, Jonathan, 1710-1780.

Dow, Lorenzo, 1777-1834.

Harrison, Samuel, 1756-1813.

Munn, Benjamin.

Parrish, Ebenezer, 1760-1846.

Peters, Samuel, 1735-1826.

Document Types:

Deeds

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