The following are the names of the children of John and Sally (Walley) Phillips, all of whom are now dead :—

1. Thomas Walley, born Jan. 16, 1797. 2. Sarah Hurd, born April 24, 1799. 3. Samuel born Feb. 8, 1801. 4. Margaret, born Nov. 29, 1802. 5. Miriam, born Nov. 20, 18-. 6. John Charles. born Nov. 16, 1807. 7. George William, born Jan. 3, 1810. 8. WENDELL, born Nov. 29. 1811. 9. Grenville Tudor, born Aug. 14, 1816.*

HUGH O'BRIEN.

BY CHARLES H. TAYLOR.

THERE are but few other men at the present moment in whom the citizens of Boston are more interested, for a variety of good reasons, than the HON. HUGH O'BRIEN. His name must be added to the roll of Bostonians, who have distinguished themselves by the services they have rendered to the city. Now placed at the head of this great municipality as Mayor, a glance at his life shows that he has won his way to that position by the exhibition of qualities, such as all selfeducated men possess. His private and public life fully illustrate that true merit is sooner or later appreciated and rewarded.

Born in Ireland, July 13, 1827, he was brought to America when five years old. Boston became the home of his childhood, and has always been his place of residence. Ever since he graduated from the old grammar school on Fort Hill, he has been swayed by Boston ideas and influences. The excellent ground-work of his education obtained in that school soon became enlarged and increased through the efforts of young O'Brien to add to his stock of information on all conceivable subjects. To accomplish this he haunted the Public Library, and eagerly read everything of a useful nature-history, biography and statistics having a peculiar fascination to him. During this time he had also entered the office of the Boston Courier to learn the printer's trade, at the age of twelve years. He made rapid progress in that important art. From the Courier he went to the book and job printing office of Messrs. Tuttle, Dennett & Chisholm, on School street, where he became foreman at the early age of fifteen. After several years service there, he started the publication of the Shipping and Commercial List, with which he still maintains a connection, and has always been its principal editor.

Any young man desiring to advance himself intellectually and socially in lite could not have had a better schooling than that afforded by the newspaper work which Mr. O'Brien has done. Added to all this labor, there was the ambition of this young man to succeed. He had a distinct aim in life, which was always to be an honored and respected member of his craft and of society. He is, therefore, found diligently at work absorbed in business and intellectual pursuits. Various literary societies and philanthropic projects have always found in him a sturdy supporter.

* See the "Life and Times of Wendell Phillips," by G. L. Austin, Boston, 1884.

What would be the future of such an energetic and ambitious young man was easily predicted by his friends and acquaintances, and the predictions have been verified. It was believed that he would succeed in life, become a very useful member of society, and "make his mark in the world," as the saying goes. These things have come to pass. And why? Because the young man equipped himself early with the weapons with which to fight the battle of life. And he never dropped those weapons; therein is the secret of his success. Many young men begin life aright; how sad that they do not continue in the right path!

Mr. O'Brien made the Shipping and Commercial List a strong paper and merchants quickly began to rely upon it for accurate information as regards mercantile and commercial affairs. He also issued the first annual reports of Boston's trade and commerce, and that volume has been adopted for years by the Merchants' Exchange. The work in connection with his newspaper naturally brought him into personal contact with the foremost merchants of Boston. These gentlemen who have known him intimately for forty years, have nothing but words of praise concerning his character, honesty, and business sagacity. He has witnessed the city grow from a population of 75,000 inhabitants to over 400,000, and all the changes in business methods, together with the multifarious enterprises in which Boston has engaged, are perfectly familiar to hin, and he has not been backward in helping to promote such changes and enterprises as would benefit all classes of citizens. Prominent business men have not only spoken well of Mr. O'Brien, but they have given a practical illustration of their faith in him by making him the custodian of trust funds for various purposes, and in no instance has their confidence been misplaced. His financial abilities have always been acknowledged to be first-class, and therefore it is not surprising to learn that for years he has been President of the Union Institution for Savings, Treasurer of the Franklin Typographical Union, and a director in various benevolent and charitable institutions.

It is very natural, in view of the business training and abilities of Hugh O'Brien, that he should be heard from in public life. Such vigorous and brainy men do not escape the attention of the people. In 1875 he took a seat in the Board of Aldermen, when the Boston Advertiser referred to him as "wellknown in the community and has the respect and confidence of every one." It is well known in political circles that Mr. O'Brien did not seek this office and has never been an applicant for any office. He also served as Alderman in the years 1875, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1883, and was chairman of the Board four years.

His public career as Alderman was closely watched by the people and is well known. During his service in that capacity he gave to municipal affairs the same careful study that he had devoted to business matters when in private life. He served upon important committees, and all the great questions of vital interest to the welfare of Boston which have come up of late years, in which he had also been interested while in private life. received his official attention and prompt action. Notable among these were good pay for laborers, purification and improvement of the water supply, a useful system of parks, sanitary reforms, schools,

abolition of the poll tax, and last but not least, low taxation. He has always been found on the right side of these and other important questions and has labored long and diligently, in the face of opposition, to carry out the ideas of the taxpayers in relation to them. Bostonians well know the signal success which has crowned his efforts.

In December, 1884, Alderman O'Brien was elected Mayor for the year 1885. During the first half of his term, the old charter being in force, he did. many meritorious things which no other Mayor has done under that instrument. And now under the new city charter, which makes him directly responsible for the honest and efficient management of the city's affairs, his actions are speaking loud enough to be heard even outside the city, and they challenge the admiration of all readers of the daily press of Boston.

In appearance, Mayor O'Brien is a little over the average height, of robust build, weighing over two hundred pounds; has a florid complexion, with keen blue eyes. He has what physiologists would call a well-balanced temperament, knows how to govern himself, has an indomitable will and pluck, and is a man for emergencies. He is an indefatigable worker, and the details of a large business do not prevent him from despatching work promptly. Above all, he possesses that rare virtue, tact. He is courteous and affable to all visitors, and makes new friends constantly because of his sterling qualities. As a public speaker, he is earnest, forcible and argumentative without being captious. If his opponent thinks he has a man to deal with who is not fully posted upon the subject under discussion, he quickly learns his error. While not an orator, Mayor O' Brien carries conviction to hearers by the force of his honest utterances and sound reasoning. At the same time he has risen to the heights of eloquence upon the floor of the Board of Aldermen when defending the cause of the laboring man. Himself a workingman all his life, he never allows those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow to ask him twice for a favor which it is in his power to grant. He has been their unsolicited champion when they badly needed one, and his record will bear the minutest inspection.

Such then is a brief sketch of a remarkable Bostonian. The poor boy who landed in Boston a little over a half century ago has become its Chief Magistrate. Boston has honored him. He has shown, and is still showing, his appreciation of the high honor. Slowly, but surely, this modest gentleman has won his way to the front in the popular estimation of his fellow-citizens. A man who tries constantly to do right for the love of doing right, he has become more distinguished than many so-called brilliant men who, meteor-like, flash before people's eyes once, and are heard of no more. There is a solidity about all his public acts which command attention and elicit approbation. It is too early to write the full history of Mayor O'Brien, because he is rapidly making history; but Boston's history thus far does not record when the city has had a more efficient or more honest Mayor than the present Chief Magistrate.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

THE news of the death of Mrs. Helen Jackson- better known as " H. H." - will probably carry a pang of regret into more American homes than similar intelligence in regard to any other woman, with the possible exception of Mrs. H. B. Stowe, who belongs to an earlier literary generation.

Helen Maria (Fiske) Jackson was the daughter of Prof. Nathan W. Fiske, of Amherst College, whose "Manual of Classical Literature," based on that of Eschenberg, was long in use in our colleges, and who wrote several other books. She was born in Amherst, Mass., October 18, 1831; her mother's maiden name being Vinal. The daughter was educated in part at Ipswich (Mass.) Female Seminary, and in part at the school of the Rev. J. S. C. Abbott in New York city. She was married to Captain (afterward Major) Edward B. Hunt, an eminent engineer officer of the United States Army. Major Hunt was a man of scientific attainments quite unusual in his profession, was a member of various learned societies, and for some time an assistant professor at West Point. He contributed to one of the early volumes of the Atlantic Monthly (xii, 794) a paper on "Military Bridges." His wife resided with him at various military stations West Point, Washington, Newport, R. I., etc.- and they had several children, all of whom died very young except one boy, Rennie, who lived to the age of eight or ten, showing extraordinary promise. His death and that of Major Hunt — who was killed in 1863 by the discharge of suffocating vapors from a submarine battery of his own invention-left Mrs. Hunt alone in the world, and she removed her residence a year or two after to Newport, R. I., where the second period of her life began.

Up to this time she had given absolutely no signs of literary talent. She had been absorbed in her duties as wife and mother, and had been fond of society, in which she was always welcome because of her vivacity, wit, and ready sympathy. In Newport she found herself, from various causes, under strong literary influences, appealing to tastes that developed rapidly in herself. She soon began to publish poems, one of the first of which, if not the first-a translation from Victor Hugo - appeared in the Nation. Others of her poems, perhaps her best — including the sonnets "Burnt Ships" and "Ariadne's Farewell "— appeared also in the Nation. Not long after, she began to print short papers on domestic subjects in the Independent and elsewhere, and soon found herself thoroughly embarked in a literary career. Her first poem in the Atlantic Monthly appeared in Feb ruary, 1869; and her volume of "Verses" was printed at her own expense in 1870, being reprinted with some enlargement in 1871. and again, almost doubled in size, in 1874. Her "Bits of Travel" (1872) was made up of sketches of a tour in Europe in 1868-9; a portion of these, called "Encyclicals of a Traveller," having been originally written as circular letters to her many friends and then printed rather against her judgment, but at the urgent request of Mr. J. T.

Fields almost precisely as they were written. Upon this followed "Bits of Talk About Home Matters" (1873), "Bits of Talk for Young Folks" 1876), and “Bits of Travel at Home" (1878). These, with a little poem called "The Story of Boon," constituted, for some time, all her acknowledged volumes; but it is now no secret that she wrote two of the most successful novels of the No Name series" Mercy Philbrick's Choice" (1876) and "Hetty's Strange History (1877). We do not propose here to enter into the vexed question of the authorship of the "Saxe Holme" stories, which appeared in the early volumes of Scribner's Monthly, and were published in two volumes (1873, 1878). The secret was certainly very well kept, and in spite of her denials, they were very often attributed to her by readers and critics.

Her residence in Newport as a busy and successful literary woman thus formed a distinct period of her life, quite apart from the epoch which preceded it and from the later one which followed. A change soon came. Her health was never very strong, and she was liable to severe attacks of diphtheria, to relieve which she tried the climate of Colorado. She finally took up her residence there, and was married about 1876, to William S. Jackson, a merchant of Colorado Springs. She had always had the greatest love for travel and exploration, and found unbounded field for this in her new life, driving many miles a day over precipitous roads, and thinking little of crossing the continent by rail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the course of these journeys she became profoundly interested in the wrongs of the Indians, and for the rest of her life all literary interests and ambitions were utterly subordinated to this. During a winter of hard work at the Astor Library in New York she prepared her "Century of Dishonor" (1881). As one result of this book she was appointed by the United States Government as one of two commissioners (Abbot Kinney being the other) to examine and report upon "the condition and needs of the Mission Indians of California." Their report, to which Mrs. Jackson's name is first signed, is dated at Colorado Springs, July 13, 1883, and is a thoroughly business-like document of thirty-five pages. A new edition of "A Century of Dishonor " containing this report is just ready by her publishers, Messrs Roberts Brothers.

As another fruit of this philanthropic interest, she wrote, during another winter in this city, her novel, “Ramona," a book composed with the greatest rapidity, and printed first in the Christian Union, afterward appearing in a volume in 1884. Its sole object was further to delineate the wrongs of the aborigines. Besides these two books, she wrote, during this later period, some children's stories, "Nelly's Silver Mine, a Story of Colorado Life" (1878), and three little volumes of tales about cats. But her life-work, as she viewed it at the end, was in her two books in behalf of the Indians.