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        MRS. SARAH ATWATER WARD
             Author-Georgia A. West
                      Oshkosh
   Sarah Atwater Ward was born in Genoa, Cayuga
County, New York, September 4, 1821. She was the
thirteenth of fifteen children, eleven boys and four girls.
Nine of them lived to be over seventy, Mrs. Ward being
eighty-nine when she died. Mrs. Ward's forefathers
came over in the Mayflower and she was a real daughter
of the Revolution. Her father, John Atwater, was a
student at Yale when the Revolutionary War broke out.
He left school and enlisted. He was in New York when
it was captured by the British and carried dispatches
from La Fayette to Washington the night before Gen-
eral Washington made his celebrated "crossing the Dela-
ware". John Atwater's father, Mrs. Ward's grandfather
also fought through the whole war.
    Mrs. Ward's father taught her to read when she was
four years old. She was always a serious-minded child
and when fifteen years old wrote a poem which was often
recited. She was in Newark, New Jersey when the first
steamship "British Queen" came from England to Ameri-
ca. In 1844 she was married to Alfred Ward at Genoa,
New York and the same year they came to Wisconsin.
In 1849 they settled in Oshkosh where in 1908 Mr. Ward
died. Mrs. Ward traded at the first general store in
Oshkosh, situated close to the river on Main Street.
    In 1850 she attended the first Episcopal service held
in Oshkosh, Bishop Kemper officiating. She assisted in
her home with the spinning and weaving of all the clothes
and baked in the large brick ovens of the early day.
    Mrs. Ward spent the last nine years of her life in
the Old Ladies' Home. She was a great favorite of the
D. A. R. and was always invited to attend their special
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