ession. was
JONATHAN CARVER AND THE NAME OREGON 345
alluded to Carver having studied for the medical prof As to the charge of illiteracy Profession Bourne evidently . partly mistaken. If anything is to be said against the ability of Carver to write, it is that he could and did write "not wisely but too well." There is a bit of evidence as to his having been a shoemaker, but nothing as to his having practiced medicine, and his education seems to have been more along the line of surveying and draughting; for Mr. John Thomas Lee 4 of Madison, Wisconsin, has found instances of actual work of that kind by Carver. As a matter of fact, nothing is positively known of Carver's education, employment, occupation, trade or profession up to the time of his enlistment as a soldier. Ap- parently he was not a man of sufficient prominence to have acquired property or been noticed in any public manner. There appears the record of his marriage at Canterbury in the year 1746, and of the birth of children there and also at Montague, in Northern Massachusetts, from which place he enlisted for military duty at about the age of forty-four years.
While Professor Bourne 5 was a trifle hasty in his estimate of the literary inability of Jonathan Carver, he was unanswer- able in proving the main contention of his argument, namely, that the second and greater part of Carver's book was copied from the writings of earlier explorers, Hennepin, LaHontan and Charlevoir, and other books. This extensive plagiarism had been known to scholars many years, but had never been so authoritatively emphasized. There has been a disposition to condone this as being more or less a reflection of the stand- ards of writing at the time, but the fact is admitted. Professor Bourne also denied that the first part of the book is a source of original information.
The marital relations of Jonathan Carver were not honorable. He appears to have deserted his first wife and family when, if not before, he started upon his journey to the West, as is indicated by a petition for relief by Mrs. Carver to the general
Mr. Lee may be called the apologist for Jonathan Carver. s (See Proceedings of State Historical Society of Wisconsin,
His two contri-
are exceedingly accurate, fair and complete. But he has failed to take Major Rogers' influence sufficiently into account, and evidently was not aware of the limited acquaintance of Dr. Lettsom with Carver. Much data herein referred to will be found in his two papers.
5 Professor Bourne was regarded as the leader of modern criticisms of Carver a Travels- see vol. XI., pp. 287-302 of American Historical Review. But the late Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites of the Wisconsin Historical Society took the same view; see vol. 1 8, of the Collections of said society, pp. 280-81.
