not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory. Surveyor General Ring The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory." Indian Ring In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more