Sarah Williams

Sarah Williams and her husband were part of the heroic, civic minded Republican Generation. Her parents were part of the nomadic, reactive Liberty Generation. Her five older children were part of the adaptive Compromise Generation. His two younger children were part of the idealistic Transcendental Generation.

When Sarah was not quite 20, she married Revolutionary War veteran John Edmands, who was not quite 25. She was 6 months pregnant at the time of the wedding.

Sarah and John raised their seven children in a farm homestead with 20 acres in Malden, Massachusetts, on the old Saugus and Lynn Road, bounded on the east by Long Pond in the part of Malden that in 1849 became Melrose. The homestead had originally been the Elnathan Breeden property. It included a sawmill on Long Pond that John operated. In the winter, everyone pitched in to cut the pond's ice, which was then hauled to Charlestown to be loaded on ships and shipped to the West Indies, where it was sold for 25 cents a pound [more than $4 a pound in 2002 dollars].

Sarah and John had a marriage of more than 64 years, during which time Sarah remembered her husband telling often about being in the Battle of Bunker Hill. In 1846 John, who had finally been able to obtain veteran's benefits for his Revolutionary War service, left her a widow. Then it was her turn to struggle with the government to obtain veteran's widow's benefits.(1)

for this information on Sarah's struggles to get what was due her as a widow of a Revolutionary War veteran.
To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close) She applied(2) Patricia Brown Mathews has supplied the text of Sarah's application in 1846 for pension benefits as a widow of a Revolutionary War veteran:
    Commonwealth of Massachusetts
    County of Middlesex

    On this 20th day of October in the year 1846 personally appeared before me the _____ Judge of Probate in and for the county aforesaid, Sarah Edmonds a resident of Malden in the County and Commonwealth aforesaid, age 84 ½ years- who being first dually sworn according to law doth on her oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of congress passed June 17, 1844

    That she is the widow of John Edmonds who was a corporal in the army of the Revolution and who was a pensioner under the law of June 7, 1832 at the rate of 88 dollars per annum.

    That she knew the said John before the Revolution and knew of him being in the service several years, used to see him when he came home for ___ had heard him tell of ___ times of the various incidents of his service, of his being in the battle of Bunker Hill and many others but details of the names of the officers under whom he served she does not well remember. ___ ___ refer to his own declaration of the evidence now in the war department for such details.

    She further declares that she was married to said John Edmonds on the 6th day of January in the year 1782 and that her husband died on the 15th day of May 1846 and that she was not married to him prior to his leaving the service but the marriage took place before the 18th of June 1784 and at the time above stated that she is still a widow

    Sarah Edmonds [in a very shaky hand]

    Sworn to and witnessed on the day and year above written by said Sarah Edmonds at her own residence in Malden, she being so aged and infirm as to be unable to attend court.
    L P Oday

Pat says the forms are from the National Archives. She says they are extremely hard to read and that she left blanks where she could not make out the words.
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five months after John's death, and she needed to provide proof(3) Patricia Brown Mathews has supplied the affidavit that would certify her marriage to John Edmands:
    I, Thomas Wait Jr. of Malden in the county of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts hereby certify that when the records of said town are read that John Edmons and Sarah Williams both of Malden were married by the Rev. Peter Neader [?] January sixth seventeen hundred eighty two, that this is a true copy of the record with exception of the date which is expressed in the record in familiar the ___ as follows "January 6th 1782"

    Thomas Wait Jr, Clerk of the town of Malden.

Pat says the forms are from the National Archives. She says they are extremely hard to read and that she left blanks where she could not make out the words.
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of her marriage.

On August 2, 1848, Sarah was finally awarded her widow's pension, a continuation of John's pension of $88 per year [$1,661 per year in 2003 dollars], but she lived less than three months afterward.

Year by year in the life of Sarah Williams

The childhood and prime adulthood years of Sarah Williams in their historical context
The mature years of Sarah Williams Edmands in their historical context
The later years of Sarah Williams Edmands in their historical context

Descent chart

Birth of Sarah Williams
Born: 5 April 1762
Birthplace: Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Parents(4)

Erma F. Mason, a distant cousin of ours, descended from Sarah and John through their second son, William Edmands, older brother of our ancestor Lott Edmands, 1791-1877, in her 22 August 1964 letter to Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970, stated that John married "Sarah Upham [not Williams] and they had eight children, John, Sally, Lot, Andrew, Artemus, Hester, Mary & William." Her "Sally" corresponds to daughter "Sarah" in other sources, and "Lot" is, of course, our "Lott." I have no idea where her "Andrew, Artemus, Hester" came from, and she did not mention our Nancy or Elizabeth in the other sources we have (ultimately the Malden [MA] vital records), which cite seven children for parents Sarah Williams Edmands and John Edmands. Erma Mason supplied the detailed list of her side of the family in Descendants of William Edmands (password-protected). In her later correspondence with Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, however, Ms. Mason acknowledged that Revolutionary John's wife was Sarah Williams (no longer Upham) and that they had the seven children cited in other sources.

There is no serious controversy over Sarah's maiden surname, Williams, then. But there is some question about who her parents were. Cousin Nancy B. Edmands Allen, b. 1925, states from her research that Sarah's parents were William Williams IV, 1739-1816 and Martha Comee Williams, 1737-1805, the set of parents I have identified with the code NBEA; Patricia Brown Mathews concurs in this. The research of Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970, however, identified Sarah's parents as Thomas Williams, b. 1736 and Abigail UNKNOWN Williams, the set of parents I have identified with the code MCFE. I believe that, in this case, Nancy Allen's and Pat Mathews's research is more reliable, but I have provided ancestry paths for both sets of parents.
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Father:
(NBEA)
William Williams IV, 1739-1816 (our ancestor)
Mother:
(NBEA)
Martha Comee, 1737-1805 (our ancestor)
Father:
(MCFE)
Thomas Williams, b. 1736 (our ancestor)
Mother:
(MCFE)
Abigail UNKNOWN (our ancestor)
Siblings
No information on any siblings
Spouse and children
Husband: John Edmands, 1757-1846 (our ancestor)
(son of
John S. Edmands, b. 1738 and Elizabeth Levenston Edmands(5) There is considerable mystery about the ancestry of Sarah's husband, John Edmands. Ultimately, the controversy centers around just who is the Edmands "progenitor"--the Edmands ancestor who emigrated from England to New England during the Great Migration of the late 1620s and the 1630s. Was it Walter Edmands, 1602-1667, who arrived in Charlestown, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, around 1628, or was it William Edmands, ca. 1610-1693, who arrived in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, in 1629 with the Winthrop fleet (or was it later, in 1634?). All of the research I have relied on favors William as our ancestor, but there is a weak link in the evidence, a link of one or two generations going back from John Edmands, Sarah's husband. We need first to investigate just who was John's father.

Cousin Theodore Wesley "Ted" Edmands, 1928-1999, the brother of Nancy B. Edmands Allen, after extensive searching of Middlesex County records, left many pages of confusing, nearly indecipherable notes. He does list from the Malden vital records a John Edmands "of Boston," who was born in "1721" (not 1738) and who married Elisabeth "Livingston" in Malden in "1756/7," and a John Edmands, presumably their son, who was born in 1757. But the very next line in his notes is "John son of David Edmunds," who was born 1738.

The sources used by Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970, however, have "John S. Edmands" who was baptized on "November 12, 1738" as the second child of "David S. Edmands" and his wife "Hannah," who were "residents of "Charlestown"; and it was this John S. Edmands who filed marriage intentions with "Elizabeth Levenston" on "July 11, 1756" and became parents of John Edmands in April 1757. (This source gives the other children of David S. and Hannah Edmands--that is, the siblings of John S. Edmands--as
Hannah D. Edmands, baptized April 3, 1736;
David S. Edmands, baptized January 3, 1741;
Barnabas L. Edmands, baptized December 14, 1746; and
Thomas S. Edmands, baptized April 25, 1751.)

Nancy Allen, whose findings I have largely relied upon (perhaps to the peril of accuracy), cited our Revolutionary John's father as John Edmands: "John the son of Robert and Abigail is not recorded at Lynn nor is he mentioned in his father's will. However in the family tree that Grandad [Edward Wesley Edmands, 1864-1956, son of our common ancestor Artemas Seymour Edmands, 1837-1920] drew up many years ago the next generation lists John marrying Elizabeth Levenston in 1756. They filed marriage intentions at Maldon July 11, 1756." who has done considerably research in our ancestry, wrote me on 8 September 2003:

    The ancestry of John the soldier has baffled me for many years, and I think there are enough of us Edmands active in this search that the answer can be found. I did speak with Nancy Allen and she told me she no longer believes her work in The Essex Genealogist to be correct. The troubles are many;
    • Malden was smack dab between Walter's Charlestown and William's Lynn.
    • At the time of the Revolution, John lived in the Breeden house in Malden near Long Pond. Why? Was he an orphan? Were his parents loyalists who fled to Canada? Perhaps he was actually an immigrant? Was he illegitimate? Adopted?
    • I've found no obituaries. The only explanation I can imagine for an 89-year-old Revolutionary War soldier with such stories to not have an obituary in any nearby paper is that his family had been shamed.
    • The Malden Vital Records entry for what may be John's father is inconclusive. It talked of a John of Boston (another vote for the Charlestown clan) intending to marry an Elizabeth Leveston of Malden in 1756, the year before John the soldier is purported to have been born. The only Leveston records in the area were in Billerica, and I can find nothing about an Elizabeth of marrying age in 1756.
    Now the good side:
    • Lott, son of John, was very litigious. Perhaps some documents mention his grandfather, the father of John the soldier.
    • Perhaps a Middlesex County deed shows transfer from Breeden to some Edmands of the house John lived in when he was 18.
    • One of John's daughters married an Avery, a family of note in the region. Their references may have an answer.
    • The answer surely exists, perhaps somewhere in Melrose or Stoneham, towns that came out of Malden.
    • The same minister who married John and Sarah also married a David Edmands. That David came from the Charlestown family. Coincidence?
A couple of days later, cousin Nat wrote to a researcher at the Malden public library, copying me:
    I am making a concerted effort to solve a genealogy problem, and I am convinced the answer lies somewhere in your library. I seek information on the parents of John Edmands (1757(?)-1846), buried in Wyoming Cemetery in Melrose with his wife Sarah Williams (born Medford 1762, daughter of William Williams and Martha Comee). I have done extensive research on John, who is detailed in Goss' Melrose book and Corey's Malden book. Edmands had an ice business on long pond and owned the Elnathan Breeden place. His children (Polly, John, William, Lott, Sally, and Nancy) were all born in Malden.

    The Essex Genealogist has an article by Nancy Allen Edmands (that she now claims is incorrect) that makes a specious argument that John was originally from Dudley. However, the Dudley vital records adequately accounts for the deaths of all Johns ever born or married in Dudley. The real trouble lies in the fact that John Edmands lived smack dab between Lynn and Charlestown, the homes of two progentiors (supposed to be brothers) of the Edmands family, William of Lynn and Walter of Charlestown.

    Malden vital records has a marriage intention in 1756 of a John Edmands of Boston and an Elizabeth Leveston of Malden, but I have never been able to find more than that on either. Since John the soldier's birth year was 1757 (based on military records), this marriage intention seems promising.

    So, why would an 89-year-old veteran, documented in two books about the area, die without so much as an obituary in any local paper? Why did Goss or Corey claim that Edmands was 18 and lived in Breeden's house when the Lexington alarm rang out? Perhaps his parents were loyalists and were stricken from local records? Perhaps he was illegitimate or adopted? Or an immigrant? Another theory I have regards the marriage of John and Sarah in early 1782 with the birth of their first son, John, in Malden in May of the same year(I believe). Surely this could have been a serious problem in 1782.

    John and Sarah were married by the same minister who married a David Edmands in 1777 (I recall), and this Edmands was from the Charlestown line. A coincidence?

    Is there a deed in Malden of any land to any Edmands before 1782, particularly that of the Elnathan Breeden house? Is there any probate record or will that associates John the solider with a parent? A town meeting regarding John or his family? His own will from the archives in Cambridge was inconclusive. Perhaps an old map dating before 1757 that shows Edmands owning property in Malden? Anything at all connecting him with an ancestor would be invaluable.

    I am prepared to pay handsomely for your assistance. Since you are close to Malden's old records, I prefer to enlist your help versus the help of the NEHGS at this point. Please advise how I might proceed.

    Thanks,
    Nathaniel Melvin Edmands III
    son of Nathaniel Jr. of Saugus, son of Nathaniel Sr. of Saugus, son of Nelson Wilfred of Saugus, son of Artemas Seymour of Saugus, son of Artemas of Saugus, son of Lott (born Malden, lived Saugus), son of John the soldier and Sarah Williams.

I haven't yet heard the results of cousin Nat's query (and I'll be happy to contribute to the handsome payment he is prepared to make). Nat has suggested that there might have been some scandal around Sarah Williams's marriage to John Edmands, since her first child, John Jr., was born just 3 months after the marriage on 6 January 1782 (this date from both Mary Caroline Findley Edmands and Nancy B. Edmands Allen, presumably both ultimately from the Malden vital records): In his 8 September 2003 note to me, Nat stated:
    The marriage date I have is 24 DEC 1781, but that may have been just the intention. In any event, you DEFINITELY should compare their marriage date with their son John's birthdate; 6 APR 1782. You do the math. Perhaps that was a source of shame for John and maybe why he's hard to track.
Incidentally, I see in his letter to the Malden librarian (cited above), cousin Nat mentions only six children of Sarah and John Edmands, omitting the youngest child, Elizabeth, but that is obviously just an oversight, since he referred to this child in his note to me as "one of John's daughters" who "married an Avery."
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[our ancestors]),
from Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts and Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts
.
Married 6 January 1782
in Malden
Son: John Edmands
Born 6 April 1782
Married (first) 1807?
---- to Mary (Marcy?) White
---- of Dresden, Lincoln Co., Maine District
    Daughter:
    Sarah Edmands, b. <1810
    --- schoolteacher in Saugus in 1827
Married (second)?
---- to Eliza UNKNOWN (Coffin)
---- (widow of UNKNOWN Coffin)
Daughter: Sarah "Sally" Edmands
Born 15 September 1784
Never married
Resided with Artemas and Margaret Edmands in old age
Died 1865 or later
Buried Main Cmtry (Edmands monument), Saugus, MA
Daughter: Nancy "Anna" Edmands(6) According to Theodore Wesley "Ted" Edmands, 1928-1999, citing the Malden vital records, the name of Sarah and John Edmands's third child was Ann (or Anna) Edmands, b. 1786, not Nancy Edmands.
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Born 10 September 1786
Posted marriage intentions 24 July 1819
Married 25 August 1819 in Malden, MA
to Stephen Coats
---- of Malden, MA
---- (son of Stephen and Mary Coats)
Son: William Edmands
Born 8 August 1789
Married 30 January 1814(7) Patricia Brown Mathews has the marriage date as 2 March 1814/5 (probably 1815), not 30 January 1814 (as our other sources have). She also has the marriage place as Lexington, not South Reading (Wakefield), Massachusetts. She also has Ruth's birthyear as 1792, rather than February 1796.
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------ in South Reading (Wakefield), MA
------ to Ruth Wiley
------ of South Reading (Wakefield), MA
------ (b. February 1796
------ d. >1870)
    Children:
    Clara Edmands
    Rodney Edmands, 1817-1909
    Mary Edmands
    Willard Edmands, b. 1823
    Lydia Edmands
    Lucellia Edmands, b. 1828
    Theodora "Fedora" Edmands, b. 1830
    Luella Edmands
    Harriet L. Edmands

    For more information on his descendants,
    including the surnames Barnes, Bishop, Bragg, Brown, Bryant, Cameron, Cummings, Davis, Dick, Dobbyn, Doe, Donnally, Dougherty, Edwards, Ferris, Ficarra, Flood, Foote, Foster, Fowler, Freeley, Geissler, Gibbons, Goodnow, Gorman, Hansen, Hemingway, Hill, Hubbard, Jones, Kaye, La Spina (di Savuto), Ledoux, Lovett, Marlow, Mason, McGettigan, McKenna, Meyer, Miller, Newman, Nichols, Pallace, Pano, Parsons, Paton, Perkins, Perrillo, Reel, Rice, Russell, Ryan, Seaverus, Slocumb, Smith, Stoddard, Sykes, Wade, and Wilson,
    see Descendants of William Edmands (password-protected)

Resided (in 1866) upper end of Forest Street
------ in Saugus, Essex Co., MA
Died >1870
Son: Lott Edmands, 1791-1877 (our ancestor)
Daughter: Mary "Polly" Edmands
Born 16 February 1796(8) Patricia Brown Mathews has 1792 or 1796 as the birthyear for Polly.
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Married 20 August 1812
------ to George Suester (Sweetser?)
Resided South Reading (Wakefield), MA
Daughter: Elizabeth "Eliza" Edmands
Born 5 September 1799
Posted marriage intentions 4 September 1819
Married 15 December 1819(9) Patricia Brown Mathews has Eliza's marriage date as 4 September (rather than 15 December, as stated by our other sources) in 1819.
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------ in Malden, Middlesex Co., MA,
------ to Ephraim Avery I
------ (d. 1832)
    Children:
    Ephraim Avery II, b. 1820
    Kittridge Avery, b. ca. 1822
    Melzar Avery ?, b. 1824
    John Quincy Adams Avery, b. 1827?

    For more information on her descendants,
    including the surnames Avery and Upham,
    see Descendants of Eliza Edmands

Died 1879
Other information
Occupation: Housewife
Religion: No information available
Death of Sarah Williams Edmands
Died: 28 October 1848
(age 86 years 6 months 23 days)
Deathplace: Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Burial place: Wyoming Cmtry, Melrose, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
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Sources on Sarah Williams Edmands:

  • Nancy B. Edmands Allen, b. 1925. Much of the vital statistic information is from her. She stated that she was citing the vital records of Malden.
  • Theodore Wesley "Ted" Edmands, 1928-1999, Nancy Allen's brother, citing various Massachusetts towns' vital records. Unfortunately, his handwritten notes are often impossible to decipher, so--eventually--I will need to go to these records myself.
  • (cousin Nat Edmands), descendant of Nelson Wilfred Edmands, for considerable probing research.
  • b. 1951, great-granddaughter of Arthur Seymour Edmands, for considerable information, including (among many other things) especially the story of the struggles Sarah went through to get her Revolutionar War widow's pension.
  • Ethel Jean Edmands Weeks, b. 1909, in her 29 August 1947 application to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.
  • Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970

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