Francis Samuel Drake | |
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Born |
Northwood, New Hampshire |
February 22, 1828
Died | February 22, 1885 Washington, D.C. |
(aged 57)
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Signature | ![]() |
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.
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.
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.