HELENA, ST (c. 247-c. 327) the wife of the emperor Constantius I. Chlorus, and mother of Constantine the Great. She was a woman of humble origin, born probably at Drepanum, a town on the Gulf of Nicomedia, which Constantine named Helenopolis in her honour. Very little is known of her history. It is certain that, at an advanced age, she undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine, visited the holy places, and founded several churches. She was still living at the time of the murder of Crispus (326). Constantine had coins struck with the effigy of his mother. The name of Helena is intimately connected with the commonly received story of the discovery of the Cross. But the accounts which connect her with the discovery are much later than the date of the event. The Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333), Eusebius and Cyril of Jerusalem were unaware of this important episode in the life of the empress. It was only at the end of the 4th century and in the West that the legend appeared. The principal centre of the cult of St Helena in the West seems to be the abbey of Hautvilliers, near Reims, where since the 9th century they have claimed to be in possession of her body. In England legends arose representing her as the daughter of a prince of Britain. Following these Geoffrey of Monmouth makes her the daughter of Coel, the king who is supposed to have given his name to the town of Colchester. These legends have doubtless not been without influence on the cult of the saint in England, where a great number of churches are dedicated either to St Helena alone, or to St Cross and St Helena. Her festival is celebrated in the Latin Church on the 18th of August. The Greeks make no distinction between her festival and that of Constantine, the 21st of May.
See Acta sanctorum, Augusti iii. 548-580; Tixeront, Les Origines de l’église d’Édesse (Paris, 1888); F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications or England’s Patron Saints, i. 181-189, iii. 16, 365-366 (1899).
(H. De.)
HELENA, a city and the county-seat of Phillips county, Arkansas, U.S.A., situated on and at the foot of Crowly’s Ridge, about 150 ft. above sea-level, in the alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi river, about 65 m. by rail S.W. of Memphis, Tennessee. Pop. (1890) 5189, (1900) 5550, of whom 3400 were negroes; (1910) 8772. It is served by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley (Illinois Central), the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (Missouri Pacific), the Arkansas Midland, and the Missouri & North Arkansas railways. Built in part upon “made land,” well protected by levees, and lying within the richest cotton-producing region of the south, the rich timber country of the St Francis river, and the Mississippi “bottom lands,” Helena concentrates its economic interests in cotton-compressing and shipping, the manufacture of cotton-seed products, lumbering and wood-working. The city was founded about 1821, but so late as 1860 the population was only 800. During the Civil War the place was of considerable strategic importance. It was occupied in July 1862 by the Union forces, who strongly fortified it to guard their communications with the lower Mississippi; on the 4th of July 1863, when occupied by General Benjamin M. Prentiss (1819-1901) with 4500 men, it was attacked by a force of 9000 Confederates under General Theophilus H. Holmes (1804-1880), who hoped to raise the siege of Vicksburg or close the river to the Union forces. The attack was repulsed, with a loss to the Confederates of one-fifth their numbers, the Union loss being slight.
HELENA, a city and the county-seat of Lewis and Clark county, Montana, U.S.A., and the capital of the state, at the E. base of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, 80 m. N.E. of Butte, at an altitude of about 4000 ft. Pop. (1880) 3624; (1890) 13,834; (1900) 10,770, of whom 2793 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,515. It is served by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railways. Helena is delightfully situated with Mt Helena as a background in the hollow of the Prickly Pear valley, a rich agricultural region surrounded by rolling hills and lofty mountains, and contains many fine buildings, including the state capitol, county court house, the Montana club house, high school, the cathedral of St Helena, a federal building, and the United States assay office. It is the seat of the Montana Wesleyan University (Methodist Episcopal), founded in 1890; St Aloysius College and St Vincent’s Academy (Roman Catholic); and has a public library with about 35,000 volumes, the Montana state library with about 40,000 volumes, and the state law library with about 24,000 volumes. The city is the commercial and financial centre of the state (Butte being the mining centre), and is one of the richest cities in the United States in proportion to its population. It has large railway car-shops, extensive smelters and quartz crushers (at East Helena), and various manufacturing establishments; the value of the factory product in 1905 was $1,309,746, an increase of 68.7% over that of 1900. The surrounding country abounds in gold- and silver-bearing quartz deposits, and it is estimated that from the famous Last Chance Gulch alone, which runs across the city, more than $40,000,000 in gold has been taken. The street railway and the lighting system of the city are run by power generated at a plant and 40 ft. dam at Canyon Ferry, on the Missouri river, 18 m. E. of Helena. There is another great power plant at Hauser Plant, 20 m. N. of Helena. Three miles W. of the city is the Broadwater Natatorium with swimming pool, 300 ft. long and 100 ft. wide, the water for which is furnished by hot springs with a temperature at the source of 160°. Fort Harrison, a United States army post, is situated 3 m. W. of the city. Helena was established as a placer mining camp in 1864 upon the discovery of gold in Last Chance Gulch. The town was laid out in the same year, and after the organization of Montana Territory it was designated as the capital. Helena was burned down in 1869 and in 1874. It was chartered as a city in 1881.
HELENSBURGH, a municipal and police burgh and watering-place of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, on the N. shore of the Firth of Clyde, opposite Greenock, 24 m. N.W. of Glasgow by the North British railway. Pop. (1901) 8554. There is a station at Upper Helensburgh on the West Highland railway, and from the railway pier at Craigendoran there is steamer communication with Garelochhead, Dunoon and other pleasure resorts on the western coast. In 1776 the site began to be built upon, and in 1802 the town, named after Lady Helen, wife of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, the ground landlord, was erected into a burgh of barony, under a provost and council. The public buildings include the burgh hall, municipal buildings, Hermitage schools and two hospitals. On the esplanade stands an obelisk to Henry Bell, the pioneer of steam navigation, who died at Helensburgh in 1830.