Sarah D. Fish

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Sarah D. Fish
Born
Sarah Davids Bills

(1789-09-11)September 11, 1789
Union, New Jersey
DiedNovember 7, 1868(1868-11-07) (aged 79)
Rochester, New York
NationalityAmerican
Other namesSarah Fish
Sarah David Bills Fish
OccupationAbolitionist, Suffragist
Spouse(s)
Benjamin Fish
​
(m. 1822)​
ChildrenCatharine A. F. Stebbins, Mary Fish Curtis

Sarah Davids Bills Fish (1798–1868) was a 19th-century American suffragist and abolitionist. She has been variously known as Sarah Fish, Sarah D. Fish, Sarah David Bills, and Sarah David Bills Fish.

Life[]

Sarah Fish was born 11 September 1798 in Union, Union County, New Jersey, USA.[1]

In 1822, she married Benjamin Fish.[1] The couple were radical Quaker abolitionists.[2][3] "When the Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers split in 1828, primarily over the issue of how actively slavery ought to be opposed, the Fishes joined the Hicksites—the more zealously abolitionist sect—and moved to Rochester."[4] The couple had two daughters: Catherine Ann Fish (later Stebbins) and Mary Fish (later Curtis).[1] Letters suggest the couple were living in Rochester, NY circa 1848 and were involved also in the rise of spiritualism.[5]

Activism[]

Their family was "one of the most prominent early anti-slavery advocate groups."[1] Their home was one of Rochester, New York's first way-stations of the Underground Railroad.[6] They collaborated with Railroad conductors such as Fredrick Douglass, , , and Amy and Isaac Post.[3] The Fish family "helped organize everything from abolitionist conventions to antislavery craft fairs."[4] Some Quaker assemblies viewed slave ownership as a lawful form of property. In the case of the Fish family, they were ousted from their congregation for their abolitionist activities.[7]

Sarah herself was a member of the Rochester Female Anti-Slavery Society (RFASS), and for a period served as the group's secretary.[8] The RFASS "for a few years," "dominated women's antislavery activism," but was eventually replaced by a more radical group.[8] In 1842, Sarah joined the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and, at the urging of Quaker activist Abbey Kelley, served on the executive committee.[8] She was still serving on the executive committee in 1848, when her husband was president and her son-in-law corresponding secretary.[9] She also wrote for the abolitionist newspaper The North Star.[9]

Sarah Fish was also an early activist for women's rights.[10] She participated in the very first Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Sarah helped organize a second women's rights convention only weeks later in Rochester, a convention of which her daughter Catherine was a secretary, and on "August 2, 1848, Sarah D. Fish delivered an address to the Rochester Woman's Rights Convention".[4] Other important attendees included Frederick Douglass.[11] Sarah Fish, Amy Post, and Sarah Hallowell "made the historic recommendation that the Rochester Woman's Rights Convention elect a female president."[12] It is reported that "This was so radical a step that, amazingly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two organizers of the Seneca Falls convention, walked off the platform in protest when Bush took the chair!"[11]

The Fish family were also apparently involved in working for fairer treatment of Native Americans.[4]

Death and legacy[]

She died on 7 Nov 1868 at the age of 70 in Rochester, Monroe County, New York, USA.[1] She was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.[1] Her daughter, Catherine, was also active in women's rights and abolition.[13] Her husband is buried alongside her, and her daughter Catherine and son-in-law are in the adjacent plot.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Sarah Davids Bills Fish". Find a Grave. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  2. ^ "RBSCP Exhibits". rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  3. ^ a b Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2015-03-26). The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations. Routledge. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-317-45416-8.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Fish, Benjamin - Freethought Trail - New York". freethought-trail.org. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  5. ^ "Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers | RBSCP". rbscp.lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  6. ^ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2015). The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations. Routledge. ISBN 9781317454151.
  7. ^ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2015-03-26). The Civil War Era and Reconstruction: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural and Economic History. Routledge. p. 505. ISBN 978-1-317-45791-6.
  8. ^ a b c Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne, ed. (2018). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America. Cornell University Press. p. 27.
  9. ^ a b Nell, William Cooper (2002). William Cooper Nell, Nineteenth-century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist: Selected Writings from 1832-1874. Black Classic Press. pp. 211, 262.
  10. ^ "RBSCP Exhibits". rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  11. ^ a b "1848 Woman's Rights Convention - Freethought Trail - New York". freethought-trail.org. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  12. ^ Braude, Anne (2001). Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-century America. Indiana University Press. p. 59.
  13. ^ "Catherine Ann Fish Stebbins". Find a Grave. Retrieved 8 March 2019.

External links[]

Sarah D. Fish at Find a Grave

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