Manuscripts Collection
This collection comprises photostatic and typewritten copies of miscellaneous materials relating to fur trader Peter Pond, made from originals and photostats in several repositories. They consist of two versions or copies of Pond's narrative of his early life as a fur trader and a soldier in the "Northwest" and along the St. Peter's (Minnesota) River; fur trade accounts listing articles used at Grand Portage, 1773-1775, by Pond and his partner Felix Graham; and a list of supplies for Pond and Greves, Grand Portage (1775).
The narrative has been published in several places, including
Charles M. Gates, ed.,
The 2nd edition of
The business records are discussed in Harold I. Innis,
Reproduction rights are reserved on one of Pond's narratives.
Accession number: 3551; 3575A; 4007; 9936
Processed by: Lydia Lucas, February 1996
Catalog ID number: 09-00040329
The first copy (accession no. 4007, negative photostat, 34 pages)
was received in 1935, made from a photostatic copy held by the University of
Toronto (Ontario, Canada) Library. The original was at that time in private
hands; in 1947 it was donated to Yale University (New Haven, Conn.). This
version was published in Charles M. Gates, ed.,
The Minnesota Historical Society received the second copy
(accession no. 9936, Xerox copy, 32 pages) from Yale University in 1965 and
used it as the basis for a new transcription that was published in the second
edition of
The narrative has also been published, with an introduction by
Mrs. Nathan G. Pond and R. W. McLaughlan, as the "Journal of `Sir' Peter Pond,"
in the
A positive and a negative photostatic copy, with a typed transcript and an explanatory narrative and notes by R. Harvey Fleming (accession no. 3551). The originals are in the John R. Williams Papers in the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit (Michigan) Public Library. Some of the copies were given tot he Society by Fleming; they were his personal copies which he made from the Burton Collection originals. The accounts list quantities and value of trade goods articles received from Graham and others, and of peltries delivered to him.
Photocopy (4 pages) and typed transcript (1 page) of a list of supplies and trade goods, headed "Adventure to the N. W. per Messrs. Pond & Greeves, Grand Portage, 22d July, 1775." The original is in the Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, N.Y. (accession no. 3575A). Another typed transcript of this list is included among the fur trade accounts, above.