The New Student's Reference Work/Jackson, Helen Hunt

Jackson, Helen Hunt (maiden name, Helen Maria Fiske), was born at Amherst, Mass., Oct. 18, 1831. She studied at Ipswich Female Seminary, and in 1852 married Major E. B. Hunt (d. 1863) of the United States engineers. She afterward married William S. Jackson, and lived most of the latter part of her life at Colorado Springs, Colorado. She began to write verses about 1870 over the signature "H. H.," which soon became familiar to magazine readers. She had always been interested in the welfare of the Indians, and her book, A Century of Dishonor, made her their champion. In 1883 Mrs. Jackson was made a commissioner by the government to look into the condition of the mission Indians of California. Her last book, Ramona, which deals with Indian life, leaped at once into great popularity. She died at San Francisco on Aug. 12, 1885.