Background

Sarah Carter Edgarton Mayo was the daughter of Joseph Edgarton and his second wife, Mehitable (Whitcomb), was born in Shirley, Massachussets, and spent there all but two of her brief twenty-nine years. She was a descendant of Dennis Edgarton who lived in Bridgewater, Massachussets, and died in 1734. Her grandfather, John Edgarton, had marched from Shirley on April 19, 1775, to serve his country, and had returned to become a prominent man in local politics. Her father played an important part in the industrial development of the village. She grew up in a pleasant home, one of a large family, assisting with domestic duties and reading eagerly whatever books the neighborhood afforded.

Education

Mayo's limited educational advantages were supplied by the district school and by fourteen weeks at the academy of Westford. With an intense desire for self-improvement, however, she taught herself several languages and read widely in history, fiction, and poetry. "I do believe, " she wrote in 1840, "that there is nothing in life so beautiful and elevating as the cultivation and improvement of the intellect in connection with moral sentiments".

Career

When Sarah was about seventeen she began to write for publication, moved by a desire to contribute to the family income, then much reduced by reverses in her father's business. An ardent Universalist, she sent her first offerings to a periodical which had been devoted to the improvement and instruction of the women of her denomination since 1833 The Universalist and Ladies' Repository of Boston. She promptly became identified with this paper, supplying it regularly with sketches, poems, and short tales. From 1839 to 1842 she acted as its associate editor, and continued to write for it after withdrawing from this connection. By 1842 she had published two little books for children The Palfreys and Ellen Clifford, and two volumes made up of her magazine articles Spring Flowers and The Poetry of Woman. The illness of her husband and the death of a talented younger brother with whom she had planned further literary ventures saddened these years, although the serenity of her religious faith enabled her to write of life even at this time, "I see no mysteries, and hear no discords". After the birth of a daughter in September 1847, her health failed rapidly, and she died the following July.

Achievements

• Sarah's best work, both in prose and verse, appeared in the ten volumes of a Universalist annual called The Rose of Sharon: A Religious Souvenir, which she edited from 1840 until her death. In addition to this she published Poems, by Mrs. Julia H. Scott, Together with a Brief Memoir (1843), The Flower Vase (1843), Fables of Flora (1844), and The Floral Fortune Teller (1846).

Works

More photos

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  • Poems

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Rose of Sharon: A Religious Souvenir, for 1845 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Rose of Sharon: A Religious Souvenir, fo...)

  • The Poetry of Woman (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Poetry of Woman They contain some good ...)

  • Ellen Clifford: Or the Genius of Reform

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Selections From The Writings Of Mrs. Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo: With A Memoir By Her Husband (1849)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Connections

On July 28, 1846, Sarah married the Rev. Amory Dwight Mayo and accompanied him to his parish in Gloucester, Massachussets, where she spent the last two years of her life.

Father:

Joseph Edgarton Mayo

Mother:

Mehitable (Whitcomb) Mayo

husband:

Rev. Amory Dwight Mayo

References

• Our Woman Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church for Literary, Philanthropic and Christian Work (Classic Reprint)
• Shirley Uplands and Intervales: Annals of a Border Town of Old Middlesex, with Some Genealogical Sketches (Classic Reprint)
• The Female Poets of America
• History of the Town of Shirley, Massachusetts: From Its Early Settlement to A. D. 1882 (Classic Reprint)