Background
Sarah Wister was born on July 20, 1761, in the house of her paternal grandfather in Philadelphia, the first child of Daniel Wister and Lowery Jones. Sarah was descended from pure German stock on her father's side and from pure Welsh on her mother's. The family name, originally Wüster, took the Anglicized forms of Wister and Wistar in the two branches of the family.
Education
She attended the school kept by the well-known Quaker, Anthony Benezet. There among her intimate friends were Deborah Norris, Anna and Peggy Rawle, Sally Burge, and other girls from the best families, who were later to be notable women of the city. After she completed her elementary studies she must have had some training in literature and the classics, for her writing shows acquaintance with Latin and French and a cultivated taste for reading. She frequently quotes poetry and was happy to receive a "charming collection" of books that included Fielding's Joseph Andrews. It is possible that she also learned needlework at school, for Capt. Alexander S. Dandridge complimented her on her skill in making a sampler.
Career
After the outbreak of the Revolution, when the British were threatening Philadelphia, Daniel Wister moved his family to the Foulke farm, on the Wissahickon, some fifteen miles away. There Sally kept up a correspondence with Deborah Norris until the British entered Germantown. On that day, September 25, 1777, she began "a sort of journal of the time, " as she says, a record of everyday events and experiences, intended as communications to her "saucy Debbie, " though they never reached the latter until many years later. After Sally's death her brother, Charles J. Wister, lent the manuscript to the distinguished mistress of Stenton. The journal is one of the most interesting of its kind. Its author was a girl of sixteen, with a sense of humor and an eye for the dramatic, who gives a naive yet faithful account of her impressions. It is thus valuable not only as a commentary on the history and the social conditions of the time but as a human document. The journal was continued until June 20, 1778, shortly before the family returned to Philadelphia. Occasionally she wrote verse, some of which was published in the Port Folio. After the death of her grandfather the family moved to Grumblethorpe, his country house in Germantown, where she spent the remainder of her life. Sarah "Sally" Wister died on April 21, 1804.