Papers of Helen Jackson Piper, 1901-1959 (inclusive), 1901-1903 (bulk)

Helen Jackson Piper, was born in Damariscotta, Maine, the eldest daughter of Charles and Carrie Hall Piper. She attended the local grammar school and completed her secondary education at Lincoln Academy, a private high school in Newcastle, Maine. In November of 1901, at the age of 18, Piper traveled from Maine to Vancouver, Canada where she boarded the Benjamin Sewall, a ship headed for Fremantle, Australia to deliver a cargo of Canadian lumber. She was accompanied by her aunt, May Hall and her aunt's husband, Jack Hoelstad, the captain of the ship.

Over the course of nearly two years, Piper documented her shipboard experience. The ship arrived in Freemantle in May 1902, and after unloading its cargo took on a shipment of teakwood for the Singapore market. On October 5, 1903, the Benjamin Sewall was shipwrecked by a typhoon in the Pescadores Islands, an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait. Approximately 23 passengers and crew were forced to escape in two lifeboats. Captain Hoelstad, his wife, Piper, and other crew members were in the first boat that landed at the southern tip of Taiwan. They were rescued and recuperated at the American Consulate in Yokohama. There were conflicting accounts of what happened to crew members in the second lifeboat, which reportedly landed on or near Botel Tobago, an island situated near the Formosa coastline. Surviving crew members described ill-treatment by islanders, which subsequently became an international incident.

After returning to Maine, Piper decided to pursue a career in education. She attended the Farmington Normal School, which provided formal training for school teachers. She then pursued a degree from Columbia University's Teachers' College where she served as president of her class (1921-1922), and eventually earned an MA in education. Following graduation, Piper served as principal of the Jewish Center in New York City for several years. She then relocated to Prescott, Arizona and taught at an elementary school for seven years. Piper later worked as an Elementary Supervisor in Lynn, Massachusetts for thirty years, overseeing 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes. She was credited with the concept and supervision of the History Stories of Lynn, written and illustrated by her classes, and eventually published by Nichols Press (Lynn, Massachusetts). Piper was also the founder of the Massachusetts Supervisors Club, and held memberships in the English Speaking Union and the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Prior to her retirement in 1950, Piper decided to publish her account of the ill-fated sea journey; a story based on her journal, correspondence, and memories. Despite impaired vision, she enrolled in a writing course and wrote the narrative forGirl in the Lifeboat, which went through many revisions. Before the manuscript could be fully completed, Helen Piper Jackson died of lung cancer in June of 1958. In 1959, her family donated a copy of her partially completed manuscript to Radcliffe College, currently known as Radcliffe Institute. An abbreviated version of the book was published posthumously in Down East: The Magazine of Maine, in October, 1960.