Sarah (Ross) Wheatley (1788 - 1872)

Born 1788 in St. John, New Brunswick

Descendants

Died Jul 1872 at about age 84 in New York City, New York, United States

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Biography

Sarah Wheatley was born Sarah Ross in Saint John, New Brunswick. Her father, a Scottish officer, died when she was two years of age.

Sarah was an early American actress of great acclaim. She made her stage debut at the park Theater in New York City, on 12 November 1805, and went on to have a have a successful stage career lasting nearly 40 years, retiring in 1843. She was most noted for her representations of old women.

In 1806 she married the actor Frederick Wheatley and was the mother of the opera singer Julia Wheatley, the actress Emma Wheatley, and the noted actor and theatre manager William Wheatley.

Sarah was widowed in 1836, and it is very possible that she was the Sarah Wheatley who headed a household in New York City in 1840. This household was headed by a woman in her fifties (Sarah was 50), and consisted of three men in their twenties, a woman in her twenties, a teenage girl (age 15-19), and a younger girl (age 10-14). One of the men was likely son William and the older girls were likely daughters Julia and Emma. The younger girl may vey well have been an otherwise unknown daughter. The two other men could have been employees or borders, or perhaps other family members. Also residing in the household were three "colored" females, 1 age 36-54, 1 age 10-23, and 1 under 10 years old. These were likely free servants, as New York had outlawed slavery as of 1827.

Sarah was described as the matron of the Park Theater company. She was "a lady of marked presence, of portly, commanding figure, possessed of a pleasant, expressive face, an agreeable voice, always modulated to a nicety to the requirements of her assumed character, and ever perfectly at home in the varied roles she was called upon to assume. Confident of the appreciation by the audience she evinced that composure of manner o the stage which was one of her peculiar attractions in private life. Far above mediocrity in every part assigned her, the personation of the fussy, towering dame in old English comedy was her crowning effort; and in these delineations she was never outranked during her protracted career. Fresh, cheerful, active, she seemed to keep pace with all changes, was at her post seemingly without ache or pain, and gave every outward sign that she was a century plant; and she did bloom long after the last vestige of the Park had passed away."

In 1850. Sarah was a 61-year-old widow residing with her daughter Julia Miller's family in New York City. She died in July 1972, at the age of 85.

Sarah was born in 1789. She passed away in 1872. Buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/57228207/sarah-wheatley

Sources

• Ridgon, Walter. Notable Names in the American Theater (Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co., 1976). p. 482.

• Wilson, James Grant and Fiske, John. Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, Vol VI, Sarah Wheatley, (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1889) p.450.

• Obituary of Mrs. Frederick Wheatley, The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 26 Jul 1872, p. 2.