Description
Jane Johnston was the daughter of the Belfast-born North West Company fur trader John Johnston and Ozhaguscodaywayquay, daughter of Ojibwe chief Waubojeeg. She was born in Sault Ste. Marie, (in what is now Michigan, but right on the border with Ontario) on January 31, 1800. Jane was educated by both parents–in Ojibwe language and customs by her mother and in European literaure by her father. It is known that she was brought by her father back to visit family in Ireland and England, around 1809-10. We have as yet found little documented record of where they went and who they saw, however. We have placed the flag on Coleraine, where John owned the Craige estate. Jane would go on to marry the government agent, proto-anthropologist, and historian Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who was the first publisher of her poetry.
Bibliographic sources
See Parker, Robert Dale. The Sound the Stars Make Rushing through the Sky: the Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)