Sarah Edwards: a biography

Many of us know about Jonathan Edwards, the legendary evangelist who started the Great Revival, but how much do we know about his wife? Sarah Edwards was one of the biggest assets in Jonathan’s life and although he is described as a “difficult man”, Sarah supported and loved him faithfully. She was truly his helpmeet and helped him become the great man he was.

Sarah Pierrepont was born and grew up in the coastal city of New Haven, Connecticut, where she was very well known. She was the daughter of renowned Reverend James and Mrs. Mary Pierrepont, both of whom were very devout in their Puritan faith.

Sarah’s father had two previous marriages. They were devastating, however, as both of his first two wives died soon after they were married. After these deaths, James met striking young Mary Hooker, who would soon become his wife and Sarah’s mother.

Mary Hooker came from great lineage. One of her grandfathers had been the first mayor of New York City and the other one was the founder of Hartford, Connecticut.

Mary taught Sarah to sew, knit, do patchwork, and recite the catechism like all the other girls of that time. Sarah also learned how to play the lute. She was known to be very bright, cheerful, friendly, and very devoted in her faith, just like her parents. Sarah often walked with a book on her head so she would never slouch because good posture was very important to her. She grew to be a very beautiful young woman.

Sarah met Jonathan when she was thirteen. He had just finished college at Yale a year early. Jonathan was very smart, but unlike Sarah, he was not a very social person. He was very shy and had very few friends.

Jonathan would wait at the doorstep of the Pierrepont’s church every Sunday, hoping to catch a glimpse of the young girl that had captured his heart. He might have been discouraged if he had known that Sarah was trying to avoid him, for girls of high prestige did not associate with men they did not know. But once he saw her, he could not stop thinking of her.

He began walking past her house at night hoping to catch a glimpse of her or a flickering candle on her bedroom window sill. When a boat came to the wharf, Jonathan always managed to be there, because there usually was cargo from England for the Pierreponts, which meant there was a chance that James would bring Sarah down to pick it up. Jonathan even tried improving his social status. But it was his perseverance and loyalty that eventually won Sarah and her family over.

Sarah began shaping Jonathan in the way that made him great. She helped him become more self-confident, gentler, and she greatly improved his social skills. He also grew very close to Christ because of Sarah’s influence.

Though their courtship was sometimes rocky, they were eventually married on July 28, 1727. Sarah was seventeen and Jonathan was twenty-four. They moved to their new home in a new colony called Northampton. The colony was very small, but Jonathan helped arrange and build mills, homes, and a meeting house.

The colony asked Jonathan to be the pastor of their new church and he accepted their offer. The church, however, was a Reformed Baptist church which held to a Calvinistic doctrine. Their teachings contradicted many of the beliefs Sarah had been taught. James and Mary Pierrepont were very upset with their new son-in-law, and everyone held their breath wondering what Sarah would do. Would she remain a Puritan or would she convert to the Reformed faith like her husband?

Sarah loved her family, but she was now married and had to do what her husband thought best. It was only a short while later when Sarah accepted her husband’s new beliefs and converted to the Reformed Baptist faith.

Soon the Edward’s family began to grow. Sarah had not grown up in a big family – only having one brother – but she had eleven healthy children and later sixty seven grandchildren. She and Jonathan home schooled all their children except their oldest two boys. They were all brought up in the Reformed Baptist church. All of her children either married or became pastors, all of the Reformed Baptist faith.

Jonathan died on March 22, 1758. Sarah became even stronger in her faith through her sorrows. She helped those around her and raised her oldest daughter’s children when her widowed daughter died. Sarah became ill during an epidemic in September 1759 and died at the age of forty-nine. However, her grace mercy and servitude lived on in her children so that even years after her death, she still touched lives through her never ending love.

Lauren Stepp

Ninth Grade

Bibliography

Aldridge, Alfred Owen, Jonathan Edwards, New York, Washington Square Press, Inc., 1966

Davidson, Edward H., Jonathan Edwards, the Narrative of a Puritan Mind, Massachusetts, Harvard University, 1968

Dodds, Elisabeth D., Marriage to a Difficult Man, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1976

Carmody, John Tully and Denise Lardner, The Republic of Many Mansions, Foundations of American Religious Thought, New York, Paragon House, 1990

Conforti, Joseph A., Jonathan Edwards, Religious Tradition, and American Culture, Chapel Hill and London, The University of North Carolina Press