| Notes |
- Sarah's first husband, Stephen Rowe Bellows, died 7 months after they were married. She remained a widow for 4 years and returned to Keene, NH to live. There she met Harry Hibbard and they married in 1848.
Harry was a proficient attorney, and Sarah moved with him to his home in Bath, New Hampshire. Another untimely tragedy occurred, when their only child Alice died at a very early age. When Harry Hibbard became active in politics, she supported his efforts, and they spent several happy years together.
As a young attorney in 1844, before his marriage to Sarah, Harry Hibbard had been involved as a prosecuting attorney in the murder trial of William F. Comings, for killing his wife. The jury found Comings guilty of murder in the first degree, and he was sentenced to hang. In June 1853, after being in prison for nine years, William Comings was finally pardoned by the executive authority of the State of New Hampshire. Mr. Comings went on to marry a second time, and to move "out west."
While still a fairly young man, Harry developed a "painful and protracted illness," and eventually was admitted to the McLean Asylum For the Insane at Somerville MA. Harry died there in 1872 at the age of 56 years, of "brain disease."
Sarah grieved for her husband, but continued to live in their home in Bath NH where she collected a variety of historical documents. These papers, which she donated to the New Hampshire historical society, included the signatures or handwriting of many famous politicians and writers.
Seven years after her husband's death, in 1879, she died suddenly, and was buried next to Harry, under a red granite cross. During her funeral, it is recorded that Rev. William O. White, a twenty-five year pastor of the Unitarian Church in Keene repeated these lines at her grave:
"Here, in an inn a stranger dwelt,
Here joy and grief, by turns, she felt,
Poor dwelling! Now we close the door,
The sojourner returns no more.
Now of a lasting home possessed,
She goes to seek a deeper rest,
Then open to her, gates of peace!
And bid the pilgrim's journey cease."
The preachers words would be prophetic, in that Sarah's home would later become an inn (or at least a B&B) for a time. But is it Sarah who produces the smell of cigar smoke that is sometimes reported in her former house? It is said the house is haunted.
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1822 - 1879 (56 years)
