Sarah Wentworth Morton was described by her biographers in 1931 as "the most noteworthy American poetess ... between Mrs. Anne Bradstreet and Mrs. Sigourney." In her own time she was renowned for her poetry about the virtues of freedom. Like Anne Bradstreet, Sarah Wentworth Morton wrote about moral ideas and spiritual events. Like Lydia Huntly Sigourney, she wrote poems about and with emotion, but unlike "The Sweet Singer of Hartford," Mrs. Morton's romanticism was tempered by rationalism, and realism organized her sentimentality. In her own time she was heralded by her admirers as "The Sappho of America." A strikingly beautiful woman as well as an American luminary, she was the subject of three portraits painted by Gilbert Stuart.

The third daughter of the wealthy Boston merchant, James Apthorp, and his wife, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp, was baptized Sarah Apthorp at King's Chapel on 29 August 1759 (the exact date of her birth is...