Francis Samuel Drake (1828–1885)

American author, born at Northwood, NH, on the 22nd of February 1828. He was educated at the public schools and became a bookseller, and, following the steps of his father, Samuel Gardner Drake, devoted himself at the same time to antiquarian and historical researches. In 1872 he published a Dictionary of American Biography, Including Men of the Times, which gave, also, a key to assumed names. This work, with materials collected by the compiler for a new edition, was incorporated into Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography. He published some other biographies and town histories, and, also, Tea Leaves (1884) and Indian History for Young Folks (1884). He died at Washington, DC, on the 22nd of February 1885.