Jonathan Carver

Jonathan Carver (April 13, 1710 – January 31, 1780) was a settler-colonialist who sought to further the colonies' westward expansion through invasion and control of indigenous territories. He was also a writer. He was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts and then moved with his family to Canterbury, Connecticut. He later married Abigail Robbins and became a shoemaker. He is believed to have had seven children.

In 1755 Carver joined the Massachusetts colonial militia at the start of the French and Indian War. In 1757, Carver, a friend of Robert Rogers, enlisted with Burke's Rangers. Burke's Rangers would in 1758 become a part of Rogers' Rangers. During the war he studied surveying and mapping techniques. He was successful in the military and eventually became captain of a Massachusetts regiment in 1761. Two years later he quit the army with a determination to explore the new territories acquired by the British as a result of the war.

Initially Carver was unable to find a sponsor for his proposed explorations but in 1766, Robert Rogers contracted Carver to lead an expedition to find a western water route to the Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Passage. There was a great incentive to discover this route. The king and Parliament had promised a vast prize in gold for any such discovery. The eastern route to the Pacific was around the Cape of Good Hope. That route was both lengthy and contested by competing European powers. Eventually, he coerced the Naudowessie people into signing over large swaths of their land on May 1, 1767.

Carver, Minnesota, Carver County, Minnesota and Jonathan Association in Chaska, Minnesota were named in honor of Jonathan Carver for his exploration and mapping of the region.

Carver left Fort Michilimackinac at present-day Mackinaw City, Michigan in the spring of 1766. Taking large fur-trading canoes, he traveled the well-utilized trade routes of the French. His route took him along the northern coast of Lake Michigan, cut across to what is now the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin and proceeded along the western edge of the bay until reaching what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin.

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