Ina Coolbrith (1842-1928) was a niece of Joseph Smith, the daughter of Don Carlos Smith. Brought by covered wagon to California as a child, she lived, after 1865, in the San Francisco Bay region. Disassociated with the Church, she became an important literary figure in California, assisting Bret Harte in editing the Overland Monthly, and associating with the literary circle which included Mark Twain, C. W. Stoddard, and Joaquin Miller. Her simple lyric poems, such as "Millennium," were collected in A Perfect Day (1881), The Singer of the Sea (1894), and Songs from the Golden Gate (1895). She was named by the California legislature as the state's first Poet Laureate.