Sarah Hicks Williams
Sarah Hick Williams was born to Samuel and Sarah Hicks on March 7, 1827, in New Hartford, New York. Born to a middle-class family in upstate New York, Williams attended Albany Academy in the mid-1840s, an all-girls school in Albany, New York. She took her studies seriously and met Benjamin Franklin Williams through an acquaintance at the Academy. While Williams does not write much about her courtship in letters to her parents, it is apparent that Benjamin first proposed sometime in the 1840s. She did not accept his initial proposal. Instead, Williams finished school and opted to travel with family, often to visit her sisters, Mary in Ashtabula, Ohio, and Lucinda in Brooklyn, New York. Sarah fulfilled sisterly and womanly duties by supporting her sisters in the birth of several nieces and nephews, in addition to helping around the house.
In March 1853, Williams accepted a second proposal from Benjamin and they married, honeymooning in Canada. Sarah found herself an oddity upon reaching the South, feeling out of place and wrote she felt a "stranger in a strange land," to her parents upon her arrival South (date). She feels pressure and resentment from her mother-in-law, Avery, referred to as Mother Williams. One source of stress stemmed from the fact that Williams did not bring a dowry of slaves into the marriage. Additionally, while Williams possessed a strong academic education, she initially lacked the basic cooking, cleaning, and household management skills required of a housewife. Williams felt unsure of herself as a slave manager when she first married, her mother-in-law still controlled a great deal of the domestic management of the plantation, giving Sarah little control. Sarah and Benjamin's close proximity to her mother-in-law only heightened the initial tension.. Eventually, Williams becomes comfortable in her role, and embraces the paternalistic nature of her adopted home. The Williams’s go on to have seven children and move from North Carolina to Georgia shortly before the Civil War. Sarah and her family survived the war. She died in 1917.
Throughout her life, Williams was heavily influenced by those around her. She read many works popular with middle-class Northern woman of the time, including Godey's Lady's Book. A keen observer of politics, Williams frequently commented on life, school, and current readings in letters to her parents. Growing up, Williams was extremely close to her sister, Mary. That intimacy continued even after Mary married, and discussed her growing fondness for abolitionists ideals. While Williams respects her sister's views initially, their relationship becomes strained after moves to North Carolina and adopts a paternalistic view of slaves typical of most white southerners. Williams preferred reading Northern papers in spite of their growing antislavery sentiment. She believed that abolitionists painted an inaccurate view of slavery, she saw nothing but kindness from her husband to their slaves. Williams increasingly believed slavery a good for society, convinced that slaves could not look after themselves without help from plantation owners. Williams used letters as a way to stay connected to her family in New Hartford, Ohio, and New York City. She attempted to stay close to her parents and sisters but as time progressed her relationship with sisters weakened, leaving her parents her only connection to home. In total the Williams had seven children between 1854 and 1867. She was insightful about life and politics between the North and South, motherhood, and domestic expectations of the nineteenth century.
