Ethnologist; born in
Watervliet, N. Y., March 28, 1793.
His ancestor who first settled in
America was a school-teacher named Calcraft, and he was popularly named
Schoolcraft.
Henry studied chemistry and mineralogy in Union College in 1807-8.
In 1817-18 he took a scientific tour in the
West, and made a fine mineralogical and geological collection, publishing, in 1819,
A view of the lead mines of Missouri, which was enlarged and published (1853) under the title of
Scenes and adventures in the semi-alpine regions of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas.
In 1820 he was geologist of an exploring expedition under
General Cass to the
Lake Superior copper region.
He was also on a commission to treat with the Indians at
Chicago.
In 1823 he was made Indian agent at the
Falls of St. Mary, and afterwards at
Mackinaw, where he married a granddaughter of an Indian chief.
He founded the Historical Society of
Michigan in 1828; the Algic Society, at
Detroit, in 1831, before which he delivered two lectures on the grammatical construction of the
Indian languages.
These, translated into French by
Duponceau and presented to the French Institute, procured for
Schoolcraft a gold medal from that institution.
He published several works on Indian literature, as well as fiction, and in 1832 led a second government expedition to discover the real chief source of the
Mississippi River, which was found to be
Lake Itasca.
In a treaty with the Indians on the
Upper Lakes in 1836 he procured the cession of 16,000,000 acres of land to the
United States, and he was appointed chief disbursing agent for the Northern Department.
After visiting
Europe he was employed by the
State of New York in making a census and collecting statistics of the
six Nations (q. v.), and in 1847 he was employed by authority of Congress in the preparation of a work entitled
Historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition, and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States.
He wrote
Personal memoirs of a residence of thirty years with the Indian tribes on the American frontiers (1863), and several other works on the red race.
The Indian fairy book, compiled from his manuscripts, was published in 1868.
He died in
Washington, D. C., Dec. 10, 1864.
