Chalcraft, Edwin L.

Edwin Chalcraft was an Indian agency teacher in Chehalis, Washington, Chemawa, Oregon, and other agencies in Wyoming, Oklahoma and Oregon.

Edwin L. Chalcraft was born near Albion, Illinois on November 11, 1855. He first came the Pacific Northwest in 1881 to visit with his the family of his wife, the former Alice Pickering. He decided to stay in the area and established an engineering company (Anderson and Chalcraft) in Seattle. In 1883 he joined the Indian Service as Superintendent of the Chehalis Indian School on the Chehalis Reservation. In 1889 he was transferred to the Puyallup Reservation as Superintendent of the Indian School there. In 1894 he was transferred to the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, but only stayed for four months. Returning to the Seattle area worked as a surveyor and, briefly, owned a grocery store at Mount Vernon. Returning to Indian Service in 1900, he was assigned to the Wind River School in Wyoming. After only a few months he was promoted to a position as Supervisor of Indian Schools. In this capacity he toured schools across the country making inspections and investigating complaints. In 1904 he accepted a position once again as Superintendent of the Chemawa Indian School. He stayed until 1911 when, as a result of some controversy, he was reassigned. His next assignment was to the Jones Male Academy near Hartshorne, Oklahoma. In 1914 he returned to the Northwest, assuming the position of Superintendent of the Siletz Indian Agency in Oregon. He stayed in that position until he retired from public service on his seventieth birthday on November 13, 1925. He returned to Seattle where he lived until his death on September 11, 1943.