Daniel Drake and Benjamin Drake spent their boyhood years in Kentucky, where the Drake family had moved from New Jersey in 1788; both had studied for their professions of medicine and law in Cincinnati; and both had a wide range of other scientific and historical interests, on which they lectured, wrote, and published. Daniel was the author of Notices of Cincinnati (1810), later enlarged to Natural and Statistical View or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country (1816). His brother prepared Cincinnati in 1826 (1827) as a publication to attract immigrants, was a frequent contributor of historical articles to newspapers and periodicals, and wrote biographies of Black Hawk (1838), William Henry Harrison (1840, coauthored with C. S. Todd), and Tecumseh (1841). Both brothers took active roles in civic life and events such as the Cincinnati anniversary celebration of December 1838. After Benjamin's death, Daniel acquired many of his brother's papers; after Daniel's death, Draper purchased the notes, correspondence, and manuscripts on historical topics for $320.00 when Daniel's son-in-law patriotically contributed them for auction at the Great Western Sanitary Fair in St. Louis in 1864.
