♀Sarah Spooner

Sarah Spooner (born 5 October 1653) was the wife of John Sherman (1644–1734) of Dartmouth, in Bristol County, Massachusetts, and, most likely, the mother of his seven known children. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Philip Sherman (1675–1740).

Birth and parents

Her father was William Spooner of Plymouth and later Dartmouth. The Plymouth register records “Sarah, the daughter of Wiliam Spooner, born the fift of October” in 1653, and his will of 8 March 1683/84 names “my Daughter Sarah Sherman” and “my son in law John Sherman”. William had married Hannah Pratt at Plymouth on 18 March 1651/52, and she is most likely Sarah’s mother, though the birth entry does not name her.

Marriage and children

Her marriage rests on compilations rather than on town or church records. A compilation of New England marriages before 1700 lists John Sherman and Sarah Spooner at Dartmouth, with her years as 1653–1720+ and the marriage placed about 1675, or perhaps about 1670. It prints her surname in square brackets, its way of marking a name that is not proven. A genealogical chart compiled in 1994 and several family-tree indexes give the marriage as 13 November 1674 at Dartmouth.

No record names the mother of the Sherman children. Philip was born in 1675, and Dartmouth’s town clerk recorded six more births to John Shearman between 1678 and 1691: Joshua, Abigail, Hannah, Isaac, Ephraim and Timothy. Sarah is the only wife John has on record, from her father’s will in 1684 to John’s own in 1720, so the children are most likely hers. John’s will names six of the seven as living in 1720; Joshua is the one it leaves out.

Notes

The 1994 chart dates her birth to 5 October 1653 at Dartmouth; the register confirms the day but places the birth at Plymouth. A Find a Grave memorial, under the married name Sarah Shearman, gives 5 October 1653 at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and a death in 1721, while a family-tree index gives 15 October 1653 at Portsmouth and a death on 25 March 1717 at Dartmouth; the register agrees with neither the place nor the 15th, and John’s will, which names her as living in June 1720, does not fit the 1717 death. The Find a Grave memorial places her burial at Dartmouth. An online family tree gives her death as 20 April 1736 at Dartmouth, which is the day the estate account was sworn; the account pays a legacy to her as the widow, and no record of her death has been found.

Another compilation gives a John Sherman a wife named Sarah Baker, but that couple married at Marshfield on 26 March 1712, long after Philip’s birth, so that John Sherman is a different man. An English baptism of 1654 at Warwick, of a Sarah Spooner whose father was William, is also a different child.

Later life

John made his will on 19 June 1720, and it names “Sarah my wife”, so she was living then. The “+” after 1720 in the marriage compilation means only that she was believed to be living in that year, and the will bears it out. John’s will was not proved until 1734. The estate account, sworn by his executor on 20 April 1736, pays a legacy in moveables to the widow, whom the probate register calls Sarah Shearman, so she outlived him. No record of her death has been found.