Jamison

Longfellow met her, read the manuscript of
her first book, Woven of Many Threads, com-
mended it highly, and became enough interested
in the novel to arrange for its publication, which
was not until 1872. It was favorably received
by the reading public. The manuscript, correct-
ed in Longfellow's hand, is now in the rooms of
the Massachusetts Historical Society with sev-
eral of his letters to her.

Upon her return she devoted herself for sev-
eral years to painting and literature, maintain-
ing studios in both New York and Boston. She
published successively Something to Do: A
Novel (1871), A Crown from the Spear (1872),
Ropes of Sand, and Other Stories (1873), and
My Bonnie Lass (1877), and began writing
short stories and articles for popular magazines.
Perhaps the two best-known portraits which she
painted are those of Agassiz, which now hangs
in the rooms of the Boston Society of Natural
History, and of Longfellow, which was present-
ed by the artist to Tulane University, New Or-
leans. On Oct. 28, 1878, she married Samuel
Jamison (1848-1902), a graduate of the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh and a prominent lawyer
of New Orleans, then maintaining an office in
New York. Immediately following the mar-
riage, the Jamisons went to live on the Live
Oak Plantation near Thibodeaux, La., where
they resided until 1887, when they moved to
New Orleans. Here Mrs. Jamison's most suc-
cessful books were written: The Story of an
Enthusiast (1888), Lady Jane (1891), Toin-
ette's Philip (1894), Seraph, the Little Vio-
liniste (1896), Thistledown (1903), and The
Penhallow Family (1905). The first-named was
her professed favorite among her works for
older readers. Although she had no children of
her own, it was her charming stories of child
life, in which she drew extensively from pictur-
esque local backgrounds for their settings, that
made her most noted. Lady Jcme (1891) has
been translated into French, German, and Nor-
wegian, and put into the Braille type for the
blind. Mrs. Jamison received letters from chil-
dren in all parts of the world who had read her
stories. She also contributed to Harper's, Scrib-
ner's, Appleton's Journal, and St. Nicholas.
Along with such writers as Lafcadio Hearn,
Grace King, George W. Cable, Eugene Field
[qq.v.], and Madam Blanc of France, she at-
tended the last famous salon in America, that of
Mollie Moore Davis in New Orleans. She was
also much interested in the social welfare work
of the city. During the latter part of her life,
she spent her summers at the summer home of
her sister in Nahant, Mass., and upon the death

Jamison

of her husband on July 13, 1902, she returned to
Massachusetts. A great sufferer during these
last years from a disease of the heart, she died
on Easter Sunday at midnight, Apr. n, 1909, in
Roxbury, Mass.

[F. H. Viets, A Geneal. of the Viets Family (1902) ;
Olive Otis, in Lib. of Southern Lit., vol. XV (1910) ;
St. Nicholas f Apr. 1894; Henry Rightor, Standard
Hist, of New Orleans, La. (1900); Who's Who in
America, 1908-09; Boston Transcript, Apr. 13, 1909;
Daily Picayune, New Orleans, Apr. 13, 1909; Harper
Brown, "Mrs. Cecilia Viets Jamison: A Critical and
Biographical Study" (1931), thesis (MS.), in Tilton
Lib., Tulane Univ.; information from Miss Grace
King, Miss A. R. Jamison, Dr. W. W. Butterworth,
Mrs. Reuben Bush, Mrs. R. S. Woods, and Miss Anne
C. Dakin.]

JAMISON, DAVID (i66o-July 26, 1739),
colonial lawyer, was born in Scotland, received
a collegiate education, and while young com-
pelled attention by association with a company
of religious iconoclasts known as the "Sweet
Singers," from their manner of reciting the
Psalms. This group rejected the received trans-
lations of the Bible, the Psalms in metre, the
catechisms, and the Confession of Faith. Their
crusade apparently embraced the entire frame-
work of religious and civil society, and was con-
ducted with astonishing virulence. Under the
Stuart regime the leaders were cast into the Tol-
booth, Edinburgh, Jamison sharing their afflic-
tion, and, when in 1685 they were shipped to
New Jersey and sold to service for their passage
money, he was their companion in exile. He
was bound to the Rev. Mr. Clarke, chaplain of
the fort in New York City, but patrons of edu-
cation purchased his time and placed him at the
head of a Latin school.

In a new atmosphere the young man's mind
was cleared of fanaticism, and a large field of
public usefulness opened before him. The con-
test between the friends and the foes of Jacob
Leisler [g.#.] still disturbed the political air,
and David Jamison's combative nature did not
permit him to remain aloof from the struggle.
Six years after his arrival in America he was a
deputy secretary and clerk of the council, study-
ing law in spare hours. As an adherent of Gov-
ernor Fletcher, he gained the unfavorable no-
tice of Fletcher's successor, Governor Bello-
mont, who gave currency to a report that when
in Scotland Jamison "was condemned to be
hanged ... for blasphemy and burning the
bible" (Documents, post, IV, 400).

Jamison won distinction when Lord Corn-
bury's regard for devotional regularity led to
the prosecution, in 1707, of the Rev. Francis
Makemie [g.z/.], a Presbyterian, for preaching
without a license in a private house. Jamison,
as one of the attorneys for the defense, urged

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