Fiske, Jane Briggs Smith, 1834-1925.

Jane Briggs Smith (1834-1925), daughter of Capt. Joshua and Saba (Drew) Smith, was born in Hanson, Mass. During, and for a period after, the Civil War she taught former slaves at freedman's schools in Hilton Head, Port Royal, and Sumter, S.C., and in Washington, D.C. While in the South she met Friend Fuller ("Fuller") Fiske (1828-1906), of Webster, N.H., who was working as a volunteer civilian nurse during the Civil War. They married on 8 October 1872, settled in Webster, N.H., and had two children, one born 29 June 1873, who died soon afterwards, and William Fuller Fiske (1876- ).

The Fiskes engaged in extensive farming in Webster, with the help of Fuller's brother, William Taylor Fiske (1830- ), for the latter half of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. After Fuller's death, Jane remained in Webster for a few years, but the loss of her eyesight required her to return to Hanson to live with her niece, Caroline Moore Smith Thomas (1858-1926). Jane died in Hanson on 5 January 1925 and is buried in the Fern Hill Cemetery.

William Fuller Fiske studied at the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (later University of New Hampshire), during the 1890's, and becam an entomologist. He was the assistant entomologist for the New Hampshire Experimental Station, 1897-1901; assistant entomologist for the state of Georgia, 1901-1903; assistant in foret investigations, 1903-1906; in chare of the Gypsy Moth Laboratory (Melrose Highlands, Mass.), 1906 May-1913 January; and United States Department of Agriculture, special investigator of sleeping sickness in Africa for joint commission of Royal Society and British Colonial Ofice, 1913- . He was also a member of many societies and clubs. According to family lore, he supposedly disappeared while on his investigation in Africa.