To Thomas Jefferson from Albert Gallatin, 13 December 1804
From Albert Gallatin
Decer. 13th 1804
Dear Sir
The information contained in this letter is certainly important. It explains what I heard that General Hovey or Ovey of Genessee was connected with Phelps & went last summer to the westward with an intention of ascending the Mississippi as high as St. Anthony’s fall. He however went no farther than the falls of the Ohio, where he formed a plan to cut a cannal around the same.
Powers should be answered, & I presume in the following manner
1st. that we have no knowledge of Carver’s grant
2. that such grant if it existed was never recognized by the crown
3. that Congress never have recognized mere indian titles & that he may safely rely upon that such one as that he mentions never will be admitted—
4th—that it is presumable that he may have redress against the seller, but that it is a question of private right on which officers of Govt. cannot as such give any opinion—
Will you have the goodness to give me your opinion on the subject?
As a national subject, it evinces the necessity for Congress to be extremely cautious in admitting land claims not warranted by the general system adopted for granting lands. I am told that almost every settler at Detroit derives his claim from an indian title. It seems that it will be best to confirm their possession as settlers only & not as purchasers or grantees under the indians. The same remark will probably apply to many occupants at Kaskaskias & in upper Louisiana.
But exclusively of settlers, I am informed indirectly, though the information came from Hoffman that many millions of acres will be claimed between Lakes Huron & Michigan under indian grants; and I presume that you are acquainted with the pretended claims of the Wabash & Illinois Companies—Carver’s grant makes another, and there may be many more.
Respectfully Your obedt. Sert.
Albert Gallatin
RC (DLC); addressed: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 13 Dec. and “public lands” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure not found.
Benjamin Hovey communicated his ideas to Gallatin about cutting a canal around the falls of the Ohio River opposite Louisville and subsequently attempted to build support for the plan in Washington (New York Morning Chronicle, 14 Feb. 1805).
An individual named Aaron Powers had apparently inquired about the validity of a purchase of a portion of Carver’s grant, a broad extent of land east of the Mississippi River in present-day northwestern Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Jonathan Carver, a Massachusetts-born officer during the French and Indian War, had explored both sides of the upper Mississippi River in the 1760s and later published an account of his travels. Although there is no direct evidence that Carver ever petitioned the British government to legitimize a land grant, a text of the grant, which was said to have derived from two chiefs of the Dakota Sioux, appeared in a posthumous edition of his account. Carver’s heirs and other individuals appealed to the U.S. government to recognize the grant many times during the first half of the nineteenth century (Jonathan Carver, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768, 3d ed. [London, 1781], 12-14; Milo M. Quaife, “Jonathan Carver and the Carver Grant,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 7 [1920], 3-25; , s.v., “Carver, Jonathan”; , Public Lands, 3:484-5; 4:82-9; , 41:170; TJ to Gallatin, 15 Dec.; Samuel Harrison to TJ, 15 May and 13 June 1805; Samuel Peters to TJ, 27 Jan. 1806).
George Hoffman was the register of the land office at Detroit (Vol. 43:511; Vol. 44:689).
Wabash & Illinois: for the Illinois and Wabash Land Company, see Vol. 41:617-18.