Helen Hinsdale Rich  Helen Hinsdale Rich (June 18, 1827 - September 4, 1915), known as "The Poet of the Adirondacks", was a 19th-century American writer of poetry. She wrote and lectured in the causes of temperance and women's rights. She was the first woman of northern New York to embrace woman suffrage. Her poetry appeared in the Springfield "Republican," Boston "Transcript," the "Overland Monthly" and other prominent journals. Her volume of poems, "A Dream of the Adirondacks, and Other Poems" (New York City, 1884), was compiled by Charles G. Whiting. Her "Madame de Stael" had the endorsement of eminent scholars as a literary lecture. Her "Grand Armies" was considered a brilliant Memorial Day address. She excelled in poems of affection. Her "Justice in Leadville," in the style of Bret Harte, was pronounced by "The Spectator" to be worthy of that poet or of John Hay. Helen Hinsdale was born June 18, 1827, in Antwerp, New York. Her father, Ira Hinsdale, was a pioneer farmer who had migrated from Berkshire County, Massachusetts. On her father's side she was a relative of Emma Willard. She was born in a log cabin on the farm he cleared in 1821. Her mother died in 1879. She ran away to school at the age of four. At 12 years of age, she wrote verses. Though she attended only a single term, she led her classes in the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, and won prizes in composition. She became proficient in botany at the age of 13 in the woods on the farm. She was obliged to read all debates of the United States Congress aloud to her father, and the speeches of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster made her an ardent patriot and politician. She was a Universalist. She married Moses Rich, July 4, 1847. He was a manufacturer of Brasher Falls, New York. She found time to write several hundred poems and a vast amount of prose, including stories, lectures, and addresses. Most of her studying has been done in spite of engrossing home cares since marriage. She was with Professor J. S. Lee, of Canton, New York, for several months in her 37th year. Her poems had a wide circulation in the periodical press; but her chief productions, poems of great length, were never published.