He operated a wholesale grocery business and was active in the Albany and Cohoes and New York Central Railroads, and several other enterprises.

He was a member of the New York Whig Central Committee and was a delegate to several local and state party conventions.

[7][8] Schoolcraft was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first Congress, succeeding John I. Slingerland by defeating candidates of the Democratic and Free Soil parties.

[16] Schoolcraft became ill and died in St. Catharines in the Province of Canada (in what is now modern-day Ontario) on June 7, 1860, while returning from the Republican convention in Chicago.

[20] His home in Guilderland, the John Schoolcraft House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.