Sarah C. Edgarton Mayo (1819–1848)

Sarah Carter Edgarton Mayo was born in Shirley, Massachusetts, to the large family of an affluent businessman. She went to the local school, and also attended Westford Academy for one semester. She taught herself French and Latin. She joined the Universalist Church, to which her parents also belonged. At about age 16, she began to submit articles for publication in The Ladies’ Repository, a Universalist monthly published in Boston. She later served as the magazine's associate editor. In 1840, she was named editor of The Rose of Sharon, an annual publication of Universalist literary and religious writings, a position she held until her death. Between 1836 and 1844, she published her own poems and novels for children, including The Palfreys, Ellen Clifford, and Memoirs of Mrs. Julia W. Scott. She also compiled volumes such as The Poetry of Women, The Flower Vase, Spring Flowers, The Floral Fortune Teller, and Language and Poetry of Flowers. She was a well-known author and editor when she married the Unitarian clergyman and educator Amory Dwight Mayo, pastor of a church in Gloucester, with whom she had a daughter. She died suddenly two years later in 1848, at age 29.