Francis Samuel Drake (historian)

Francis Samuel Drake
File:Appletons' Drake Samuel Gardner - Francis Samuel.jpg
Born	(1828-02-22)February 22, 1828 Northwood, New Hampshire
Died	Washington, D.C.
Signature	File:Appletons' Drake Samuel Gardner - Francis Samuel signature.png

Francis Samuel Drake (February 22, 1828, Northwood, New Hampshire - February 22, 1885, Washington, D.C.) was a United States historian. His Dictionary of American Biography was a precursor of, and incorporated into, Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.

Biography

He was the son of antiquarian and historian Samuel Gardner Drake. He was educated in the public schools of Boston. After aiding his father in his Boston book store, he entered a counting house in Boston. In 1862, he went to Leavenworth, Kansas, and engaged in bookselling there until 1867, when he returned to Boston. Drake inherited his father's taste for historical work, and was an eager collector long before he wrote anything for publication.

Writing

• Dictionary of American Biography (Boston, 1872) He spent 20 years collecting material for this work, and wrote it by himself. It contains 10,000 biographies.
• Memorial of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (1873)
• Life of Gen. Henry Knox (1873)
• The Town of Roxbury (1873)
• Tea-Leaves (1884)
• Indian History for Young Folks (1885)

He edited Henry Schoolcraft's History of the Indians, and contributed articles on Brighton, Watertown, and Roxbury to the Justin Winsor's Memorial History of Boston (1880–82). His Dictionary of American Biography, with his latest corrections and all the materials that he had gathered for a new edition, was incorporated in Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.

References

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•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

External links

• Works by Francis Samuel Drake at Project Gutenberg
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