Henry Rowe Schoolcraft Popular Books

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft Biography & Facts

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (March 28, 1793 – December 10, 1864) was an American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, noted for his early studies of Native American cultures, as well as for his 1832 expedition to the source of the Mississippi River. He is also noted for his major six-volume study of Native Americans commissioned by Congress and published in the 1850s. He served as United States Indian agent in Michigan for a period beginning in 1822. During this period, he named several newly organized counties, often creating neologisms that he claimed were derived from indigenous languages. There he married Jane Johnston, daughter of a prominent Scotch-Irish fur trader and an Ojibwe mother, who was the high-ranking daughter of Waubojeeg, a war chief. Johnston lived with her family in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Johnston was bilingual and educated, having grown up in a literate household. She taught Schoolcraft the Ojibwe language and much about her maternal culture. They had several children together, only two of whom survived past childhood. She is now recognized for her poetry and other writings as the first Native American literary writer in the United States. Schoolcraft continued to study Native American tribes and publish works about them. In 1833, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. By 1846 Jane had died. That year Schoolcraft was commissioned by Congress for a major study, known as Indian Tribes of the United States. It was published in six volumes from 1851 to 1857, and illustrated by Seth Eastman, a career Army officer with extensive experience as an artist of indigenous peoples. Schoolcraft married again in 1847, to Mary Howard, from a slaveholding family in South Carolina. In 1860 she published the bestselling novel The Black Gauntlet. It was part of the Anti-Tom literature that was written in Southern response to the bestselling Uncle Tom's Cabin by Northern abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. Early life and education Schoolcraft was born in 1793 in Guilderland, Albany County, New York, the son of Lawrence Schoolcraft and Margaret-Anne Barbara (née Rowe) Schoolcraft. He entered Union College at age 15 and later attended Middlebury College. He was especially interested in geology and mineralogy. His father was a glassmaker, and Schoolcraft initially studied and worked in the same industry. At age 24, he wrote his first paper on the topic, Vitreology (1817). After working in several glassworks in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, the young Schoolcraft left the family business at age 25 to explore the western frontier. Exploration and geologic survey From November 18 to February 1819, Schoolcraft and his companion Levi Pettibone made an expedition from Potosi, Missouri, to what is now Springfield. They traveled further down the White River into Arkansas, making a survey of the geography, geology, and mineralogy of the area. Schoolcraft published this study in A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri (1819). In this book he correctly identified the potential for lead deposits in the region. Missouri eventually became the number one lead-producing state. (French colonists had earlier developed a lead mine outside St. Louis in the 18th century.) He also published Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw (1821), the first written account of a European-American exploration of the Ozark Mountains. This expedition and his resulting publications brought Schoolcraft to the attention of John C. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, who considered him "a man of industry, ambition, and insatiable curiosity." Calhoun recommended Schoolcraft to the Michigan Territorial Governor, Lewis Cass, for a position on an expedition led by Cass to explore the wilderness region of Lake Superior and the lands west to the upper Mississippi River. Beginning in the spring of 1820, Schoolcraft served as a geologist on the Lewis Cass expedition. Beginning in Detroit, they traveled nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) along Lake Huron and Lake Superior, west to the Mississippi River, down the river to present-day Iowa, and then returning to Detroit after tracing the shores of Lake Michigan. The expedition was intended to establish the source of the Mississippi River. It was also intended to settle the question of the yet undetermined boundary between the United States and British Canada. The expedition traveled as far upstream as Upper Red Cedar Lake in present-day Minnesota. Since low water precluded navigating farther upstream, the expedition designated the lake as the river's headwaters, and renamed it in honor of Cass. (Schoolcraft noted, however, that locals informed the expedition that it was possible to navigate by canoe farther upstream earlier in the year when water levels were higher.) Schoolcraft's account of the expedition was published as A Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions...to the Sources of the Mississippi River (1821). In 1821 he was a member of another government expedition, which traveled through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. In 1832, he led a second expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Arriving a month earlier than had the 1820 expedition, he was able to take advantage of higher water to navigate to Lake Itasca. Marriages and family Schoolcraft met his first wife Jane Johnston soon after being assigned in 1822 to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, as the first US Indian agent in the region. Two years before, the government had built Fort Brady and wanted to establish an official presence to forestall any renewed British threat following the War of 1812. The government tried to ensure against British agitation of the Ojibwa. Jane was the eldest daughter of John Johnston, a prominent Scots-Irish fur trader, and his wife Ozhaguscodaywayquay (Susan Johnston), daughter of a leading Ojibwe chief, Waubojeeg, and his wife. Both of the Johnstons were of high status; they had eight children together, and their cultured, wealthy family was well known in the area. Jane was also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay (Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky). Her knowledge of the Ojibwe language and culture, which she shared with Schoolcraft, formed in part the source material for Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. Jane and Henry had four children together: William Henry (June 1824 – March 1827) died of croup at nearly three. Jane Schoolcraft wrote poems expressing her grief about his loss. stillborn daughter (November 1825). Jane Susan Ann (October 14, 1827 – November 25, 1892, Richmond, Virginia), called Janee. John Johnston (October 2, 1829 – April 24, 1864), served in the Civil War but was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and disabled. He died at the age of 34 in Elmira, New York. The Schoolcrafts sent Janee and John to a boarding school in Detroit for part of their education. Janee at 11 could handle the transition, but John at nine had a more difficult time and missed his par.... Discover the Henry Rowe Schoolcraft popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Henry Rowe Schoolcraft books.