Editor, Author, and Poet

Youth. Born in the eighteenth century, Sarah Josepha Buell grew up in an era when girls were denied access to advanced formal education. Young Buell was instead tutored by her brothers and through them received the equivalent of a college education. As a young woman Buell taught boys and girls in a private school near her home in Newport, New Hampshire, until 1813, when she married the young lawyer David Hale. Hale furthered Sarah's private education; together the Hales studied world history, French, and botany.

Early Success. Hale's writing career began when her husband submitted some of her stories and poems to the Newport weekly newspaper. After David Hale's death in 1822 Sarah briefly went into a millinery business with her sister-in-law until the local Masonic organization (of which her husband had been a member) offered to publish a volume of...