Jackson

active interest in the study of medicine and es-
pecially in homeopathy as related to the illnesses
of children. She and her husband practised in
a small way. In 1848 her interest in the study
of homeopathy became more active. Dr. Capen
of Plymouth, an old-school physician, stimulated
her ambition by furnishing her with books and
medicines. Her practice grew with years, and
some time after the death of her husband in 1852,
she was induced to enter the New England Fe-
male Medical College, from which she graduated
in 1860 at the age of fifty-eight. Immediately
after graduation she settled in Boston, Mass. On
the organization of the Boston University School
of Medicine in 1873, she was elected adjunct
professor of diseases of children, in association
with Dr. Nathan R. Morse. Shortly after en-
tering upon the practice of medicine in Boston,
she applied for membership in the American In-
stitute of Homeopathy. Her application met with
vigorous opposition and was rejected because
the by-laws did not contemplate the admission
of women. Annually for ten years she applied,
meeting with lively opposition, until in 1871, at
the session in Philadelphia, she and two other
women physicians were duly elected to member-
ship. She died six years later, at the age of
seventy-five. Energetic and enthusiastic to the
end, a few months before her death she had be-
gun the study of German. One of her sons, Dr.
Samuel H. Jackson, a homeopathic physician,
became a member of the faculty of the Boston
University School of Medicine.

[T. L. Bradford's "Biographies of Homeopathic
Physicians," in library of Hahnemann Medic. Coll.,
Phila.; Trans, of the Thirty-first Session of the Am.
Inst. of Homoeopathy . . . 1878 (1879); E. Cleaves,
Cleaves' Biog. Cyc. of Homoeopathic Physicians and
Surgeons (1873) 5 L* R. Paige, Hist, of Hardwick,
Mass. (1883), pp. 233, 486-87; H. S. Ruggles, The
Ruggles Family (n,d., 1917) ; New Eng. Medic. Gazette,
Jan. 1878; Mass, Homoeopathic Medic. Soc. Pubs,,
18^8-79 (1880) ; Homoeopathic Times (N. Y.), Jan.
1878; Boston Transcript, Dec. 14, 1877.] C.B.

JACKSON, MORTIMER MELVILLE

(Mar. 5, i8o9-0ct. 13, 1889), jurist, diplomat,
was born at Rensselaerville, Albany County, N.
Y., son of Jeremiah Jackson, a prominent farm-
er, and Martha Keyes, his wife. He was edu-
cated partly in the district schools, and partly in
Lindley Murray Moore's boarding school at
Flushing, L. I. He also had the advantage of
several years' instruction in Borland and For-
rest's collegiate school, New York City, where
he won a prize as the best English scholar. He
then entered a business house in New York but
soon began reading law which he completed un-
der the tutelage of David Graham. Becoming a
leader among the young men of the city, he was

Jackson

chairman of the lecture committee of the Mer-
cantile Library Association and inaugurated the
plan of a course of free lectures by distinguished
local men. He was also deeply interested in poli-
tics and in 1834 headed the delegation to the
Young Men's State Whig Convention in Syra-
cuse which first nominated Seward for governor.
He drafted the convention's address to the pub-
lic.

Shortly after his marriage in June 1838 to
Catherine Garr, daughter of Andrew S. Garr of
New York City, he removed to Wisconsin, re-
maining temporarily in Milwaukee but settling
the following year in Mineral Point where he
built up a lucrative practice. In 1841 Governor
Doty appointed Jackson attorney-general for the
Territory of Wisconsin which office he filled
worthily for four years. When Wisconsin be-
came a state in 1848, he was elected the first
circuit judge of the fifth judicial circuit, as such
becoming a member of the supreme court, till
June i, 1853, when the separate supreme court
was organized. He thereafter continued in pri-
vate practice at Madison, until 1861, when he
entered upon his notable career as American
consul to Halifax, to which office he was ap-
pointed through Seward's influence. On account
of the strategic position of the port of Halifax
during the Civil War, his position was of crucial
importance to the United States. A large pro-
portion of all the blockade runners either fitted
out at Halifax or made it a port of call; and it
was the duty of the American consul to transmit
to his government full information about them.
After the close of the war the renewal of the
American-British controversy over our fisheries
rights created a troublesome diplomatic situation
to the solution of which Jackson contributed both
facts and law. His report (House Executive
Document No. 1, pt. i, 41 Cong., 3 Sess., pp. 428-
31) upon the "fisheries and the fisheries laws of
Canada" is a model of concise statement and
fundamental reasoning. In 1880 Jackson was
advanced to the post of consul-general at Hali-
fax which enabled him to continue at a place
where he had become a prime favorite. How-
ever, on account of failing health he resigned in
1882 and returned to Madison, where, Mrs.
Jackson having died in 1875, he lived a solitary
life at the hotel. He wrote for the Madison
Literary Club a short paper in eulogy of Daniel
Webster, contributing several Webster anecdotes
out of his personal experience.

Jackson represented the best type of cultivated
Puritan gentleman. His refined manners and
social aplomb fitted him peculiarly for diplomatic
service. His disposition was urbane, just, and

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