Henry Solon Graves (May 3, 1871 – March 7, 1951) was a forest administrator

Forester

250px|thumb|right|Foresters of [[Southern University of Chile|UACh]] in the [[Valdivian forest]]s of San Pablo de Tregua, ChileA forester is a person who practices forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including timber...

 in the United States. He founded the Yale School of Forestry (now the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) in 1900, the oldest continuous forestry school in the United States. He served as the second Chief of the United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

 from 1910 to 1920.

Biography

Graves was born in Marietta, Ohio

Marietta, Ohio

Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Ohio, United States. During 1788, pioneers to the Ohio Country established Marietta as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory. Marietta is located in southeastern Ohio at the mouth...

. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

, graduating in 1888, and Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, graduating in 1892. He received a Master's degree

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 from Yale in 1900. At Yale Graves was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

.

Graves and his good friend Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...

 founded the Yale School of Forestry in 1900, the first graduate school dedicated to forestry in the United States. He served as its first Dean and as Professor of Forestry at Yale University for a total of twenty-seven years. The school later changed its name to become the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In 1900, he and Pinchot were also two of the seven founding members of the Society of American Foresters.

Graves served as the second Chief of the United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

, from 1910 until 1920. Pinchot had served as the first Chief from the foundation of the Forest Service in 1905, but he was fired by President Howard Taft in 1910 for speaking out against Taft's environmental policies. As the leader of the Forest Service, Graves was considered very strict. During his ten-year term, Graves was faced with a lot of work. He had to try to restore the power that the Forest Service had before Pinchot was fired, and he also had to prove that his agency was the most qualified and best suited to control and manage the national forest

United States National Forest

National Forest is a classification of federal lands in the United States.National Forests are largely forest and woodland areas owned by the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. Land management of these areas...

s, because many states wanted to manage their own forests.

He was commissioned as a major in the Corps of Engineers

United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 in 1917, during the First World War, and sent to France to prepare for the arrival of the 10th Engineers (Forestry) (later the 20th Engineers). He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and returned to the U.S. in 1918 and to the Forest Service. Later that year, he started a movement to help develop national forest policy for the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. His nerves frayed, he resigned in 1920 and returned to Yale two years later, where he served for another fifteen years as dean.

For his many years of dedication to the conservation and management of forests, Henry was the third person to receive the Schlich Memorial Award in 1944.