SARAH WADLEIGH YOUNG Born about 1656

Grandma Sarah led a hard life.  She was born in New Hampshire, the daughter of Robert Wadleigh who was an assemblyman for a while and a judge, and she married John Young about 1672.  They had at least 6 children and lived in Exeter in southeast New Hampshire.

The King of England appointed a governor to New Hampshire who was unpopular, and because the Assembly wouldn't cooperate with him, he dissolved it in about 1692.  He had wanted to change the method of creating the Assembly from elections to appointment by the sheriff as was done in England.  One assemblyman, Ed Gove, organized a short-lived rebellion with a group of men that included three of Sarah's brothers.  One account says the brothers were not punished for participating in the rebellion, one says all three were imprisoned, and one says only one brother was sent to prison in England for a year.

Sarah's husband, John, had a tavern in Exeter, and at least three times, according to the town records, he was fined for trading liquor with the Indians which was illegal at that time.  His death was reported in the town history as follows:

"A remarkable coincidence which resulted in frustrating a plan formed by a party of savages for the destruction of the town, occurred on June 9, 1697 . . . a party of women and children went into the woods . . . for the purpose of picking strawberries.  To frighten them, someone, without the least suspicion that an enemy was near, fired an alarm . . . In point of fact, a party of Indians were at that very time lying in ambush in another part of town with the intention of making an assualt the next morning, but hearing the alarm, they supposed they were discovered, and hurriedly decamped killing on their way, John Young, wounding his son, a child, and taking captive a third."

Sarah was only in her early forties when this happened and perhaps remarried, but I haven't found a record of her remarriage nor when or where she died.




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