James Willard Schultz

Early life

Schultz was born August 26, 1859 in Boonville, New York 43°29′01″N 075°20′12″W to well-to-do parents, Frances and Philander Bushrod Schults [as it was spelled at the time]. The house where he was born is marked with a plaque as a New York State Historic Landmark. Young James enjoyed the outdoors and his father ensured he was mentored by experienced outdoorsmen and hunters in the Adirondacks during camping and hunting trips. He became an experienced shooter at an early age.

Early years in Montana

As a young adult, Schultz moved to Fort Conrad, Montana, on the Marias River. He stayed at Fort Conrad from 1877 to 1885, and established a trading post there in 1880. During that time period he traded with the Pikuni and the Blood and established another trading post at Carroll, Montana on the Missouri River, where he also traded with the Cree.

Glacier National Park

In the mid-1880s, Schultz began to spend more time in the Two Medicine and Saint Mary Lakes region of what is now Glacier National Park guiding and outfitting local hunters. In 1885 he sent an article on the St. Mary Lakes to Forest and Stream, one of his first literary efforts. At the time George Bird Grinnell was the magazine's editor, and he became intrigued with Schultz and the Glacier region. Grinnell solicited Schultz to outfit and guide him on a hunting trip in Glacier in September 1885. Although the trip was not a great success for Grinnell, he did kill a Bighorn ram on a mountain near the Upper Saint Mary Lake with a single shot.

Schultz promptly named the mountain Singleshot Mountain to honor Grinnell's feat. Thus began decades of Schultz naming features in the Glacier regions for clients and friends, and to honor traditional Indian names. Montana State University Library has a digital library of papers and photographs documenting Schultz's time in Montana and Glacier National Park.

Glacier features named by Schultz

Glacier features named for Schultz

Arizona

Schultz first visited Arizona in 1906–07, during which time he assisted J. Walter Fewkes in the excavation and restoration of the pueblo ruins at Casa Grande. Due to his success as a writer and explorer, in 1913 he became the first non-resident to build a cabin in the remote White Mountains, near Greer, Arizona. He would use the cabin as a seasonal retreat for decades.

Author

James Willard Schultz started writing at the age of 21, publishing articles and stories in Forest and Stream for 15 years. He did not write his first book until 1907 at age 48. The memoir: ''My Life as an Indian tells the story of his first year living with the Pikuni tribe of Blackfeet Indians east of Glacier. In 1911, he associated himself with publishers Houghton Mifflin; the firm published Schultz's subsequent books for the next 30 years. In 1918 he authored Bird Woman, a novel about Sacajawea. His son, Lone Wolf, provided the illustrations for the novel, and Schultz dedicated the book to him: "Born near the close of the buffalo days he was, and ever since with his baby hands he began to model statuettes of horses and buffalo and deer with clay from the river banks, his one object has been the world of art."

In all, Schultz wrote and published 37 fiction and non-fiction books dealing with the Blackfeet, Kootenai, and Flathead Indians. His works received critical literary acclaim from the general media as well as academia for his story telling and contributions to ethnology. Sometime after 1902, while living in Southern California, Schultz worked for a while as the literary editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Family

Schultz's first marriage in 1879 was to Natahki (meaning "Fine Shield Woman"), a Piegan Blackfeet. Natahki was a survivor of the Baker massacre in 1870. They had a son named Hart Merriam Schultz, or Lone Wolf (1882–1965). He was named after Schultz's boyhood friend Clinton Hart Merriam. Natahki died in 1903. Schultz married again, to Jessica 'Jessie' Schultz. (Jessica Louise Donaldson had been a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Grayling, Montana, and later earned an MA in Anthropology from the University of CA. In 1926-7, as a professor of English at Montana State College, now Montana State University-Bozeman, she helped write and produce a play/pageant entitled 'The Masque of the Absaroka'. It focused on Absaroka (Crow) culture, featuring numerous Native Americans from the Crow Nation. She was a lifelong advocate for Northern Plains Indian culture, and particularly for the welfare of women, assisting with the development of markets for the sale of bead and leather goods.) Jessie made arrangements to publish some of Schultz's works posthumously, such as Bear Chief's War Shirt. She married again after his death, to Henry Graham.

Death

James Schultz suffered from ill health for most of his last 30 years. Guiding in the rugged Glacier area took its toll physically. He suffered from incapacitating lung and heart infections. In 1931 he injured his spine. In 1942 he fell, breaking his left leg and right arm. In September 1944, a fall at his home in Denver broke his hip and required major surgery to repair. His deteriorating health severely reduced his ability to write and concentrate. After moving to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to be close to the Native American tribes he grew up with, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died on June 11, 1947. He wanted to be buried in Montana and was laid to rest on the Blackfeet Reservation 48°39′31″N 112°52′18″W near Browning, Montana in the old burial ground of the family of Natahki, his first wife.

Books by Schultz