Sarah Perkins Hodgkins is probably one of the most well known women of the Revolutionary period in Essex County, Massachusetts. She was born at the end of April, 1750, although the exact date is mildly contested based on contemporary source material. She was the seventh of eight children to Jeremiah and Joanna Perkins. Jeremiah was a cooper and a deacon at the First Church in Ipswich and lived by the first parish meeting house.
On December 2, 1772, Sarah married Joseph Hodgkins, a recently widowed shoemaker from Ipswich who was nine years her senior. Sarah became step-mother to Joseph’s nine year old daughter, Joanna, the only surviving child of the five he had with his first wife, also named Joanna. Sarah and Joseph had six children, one born just a month before he left to join the war effort. Joseph marched off with the Ipswich Minutemen in April of 1775 and fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. 86 letters from Joseph and and 20 letters from Sarah survive, although there are estimated to be at least 22 more from her that were lost.
The letters from Joseph provide a riveting account of the war from a soldier’s perspective. The letters that Sarah wrote give a brief glimpse into the lives of women during the revolutionary period. Many of the letters touch upon family matters like how the children are doing and household chores but also about the emotions and struggles that the women and children left behind experienced. In January of 1776, she writes that she is greatly grieved that they can only write through letters and worries about the number of American troops against the British: “I am a good deal concerned about you on account of the army being so thin for the fear the enemy should take the advantage.”
In October of the same year, her letter shows her frustrations and struggles with him being away for over a year and a half at that point. She wishes for him to return home and voices that she doesn’t want him to reenlist. He fought for three more years.
“It greives me to think what you have to undergo but I hope it will be for our good. By what you write I think you are not so dificult a situation as when you wrote before… but I hope you will be carried through all you are to meet with in the way of your duty & in gods good time be returned home in safty. I want very much to see you. I hope we live to see this campaign out we shall have the happiness of living together again. I don’t know what you think about staying again but I think it cant be inconsistent with your duty to come home to your family. It will troble me very much if you should ingage again. I dont know but you may think I am too free in expressing my mind & that it would have been time enough when I was asked but I was afraid i should not have that oppertunity so I hope will excuse my freedom.”
Her letters are often signed off as “your most affectionate companion till death.”
Not much more is known about the rest of her life. She died on March 13, 1803. She is buried in Highland Cemetery in Ipswich. The inscription on her stone states:
“Pass on my friend, dry up your tears / I must lie here till Christ appears / Death is a debt to nature due / I’ve paid the debt and so must you.”
Sources
- Ancestry.com. "Sarah Perkins Hodgkins marriage record" from New England Historical Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vitals to 1850. Available at Ancestry.com.
- Ancestry.com. "The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts." North America Family Histories, 1500-2000. Available at Ancestry.com.
- Ancestry.com. "Sarah Perkins Hodgkins birth record" in Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988. Available at Ancestry.com.
- Ancestry.com. "Sarah Perkins Hodgkins death record" in Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988. Available at Ancestry.com.
- Find a Grave. "Sarah Hodgkins Memorial." Find a Grave. Available at Find a Grave.
- Find a Grave. "Joseph Hodgkins Memorial." Find a Grave. Available at Find a Grave.
- Historic Ipswich. "The Revolutionary War Letters of Joseph Hodgkins and Sarah Perkins." Available at Historic Ipswich.
- North, Louise V., Janet M. Wedge, and Landa M. Freeman. In the Words of Women. Lexington Books, 2011.
Additional Information
All letters have been transcribed and can be found on the Historic Ipswich website: https://historicipswich.net/2022/04/09/the-letters-of-joseph-hodgkins-and-sarah-perkins/
Edited by Alisa Grishin