necticut regiment, raised during the French
war. He came very near losing his life at the massacre of Fort William
Henry, but escaped, and after the declaration of peace between France
and England, in 1763, he conceived the project of making an exploration
of the Northwest.

It should be remembered that the French sovereignty over the Northwest
ceased in 1763, when, by a treaty made in Versailles, between the French
and the English, all the lands embraced in what is now Minnesota were
ceded by the French to England, so Carver came as an Englishman into
English territory.

Carver left Boston in the month of June, 1766, and proceeded to
Mackinaw, then the most distant British post, where he arrived in the
month of August. He then took the usual route to Green Bay. He proceeded
by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi. He found
a considerable town on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Wisconsin,
called by the French "La Prairie les Chiens," which is now Prairie du
Chien, or the Dog Prairie, named after an Indian chief who went by the
dignified name of "The Dog." He speaks of this town as one where a great
central fur trade was carried on by the Indians. From this point he
commenced his voyage up the Mississippi in a canoe, and when he reached
Lake Pepin he claims to have discovered a system of earthworks, which he
describes as of the most scientific military construction, and inferred
that they had been at some time the intrenchments of a people well
versed in the arts of war. It takes very little to excite an
enthusiastic imagination into the belief that it has found what it has
been looking for.

He found a cave in what is now known as Dayton's Bluff in St. Paul, and
describes it as immense in extent, and covered with Indian
hieroglyphics, and speaks of a burying place at a little distance from
the cavern,--Indian Mound park evidently,--and made a short voyage up
the Minnesota river, which he says the Indians called "Wadapaw
Mennesotor." This probably is as near as he could catch the name by
sound; it should be, Wak-pa Minnesota.

After his voyage to the falls and up the Minnesota, he returned to his
cave, where he says there were assembled a great council of Indians, to
which he was admitted, and witnessed the burial ceremonies, which he
describes as follows:

"After the breath is departed, the body is dressed in the same
attire it usually wore, his face is painted, and he is seate