Indianapolis (IN) News, April 21, 1890, p. 2.
Mrs. Sarah Dewey, the mother of Mrs. W. H. Hay, of whose illness brief
mention was made in Saturday's News, died this morning at five o'clock and
will be buried beside her husband from the old homestead at Charlestown,
Ind., on Wednesday afternoon at two o'clock.
Mrs. Dewey was born August 31, 1808, at Chambersburg, Pa. She crossed the
Alleghenies twice on horseback; the first time to spend a year at school at
Pittsburg, and the next year, 1819, when the whole family came en route to
their new home at Corydon, Ind., coming down the Ohio River in a family boat
built for that purpose and landing at Mauckport. After a few years'
residence at Corydon, the family changed their residence to Paoli in Orange
County. Here in 1824 she was married to the late Judge Charles Dewey and
ever afterward during his lifetime and up to 1872 her home was at
Charlestown. She came here to reside with her daughter, Sarah in that year
and this has been her home since.
She was a woman of great dignity of presence and character, scrupulously
recognizing the rights and privileges of others and commanding respect from
all with whom she came in contact. In the family in which she has resided
for almost 20 years, she was venerated and loved by all. Her father, Robert
Leggitt, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and her uncle, Colonel
Samuel Russell, was an officer in the regular army during the period of the
1812 war. He was also of the court martial which tried Gen. Floyd for his
connection with the Burr conspiracy. Her young life was full of the
stirring incidents of the early period of the country's history, and later
on two sons and two grandsons succumbed to their services rendered in the
War of the Rebellion-Col. William Dewey and his two sons, Capt. Robert
Charles serving with Iowa troops and Capt. Ben Parke Dewey with the 28th
Indiana.
The surviving children are two: Mr. Hay (should this have been Mrs. Hay)
and Mrs. Sophy (sic) D. Boyer of Charlestown-both of whom gave her
unremitting attention during her last illness, saw her peacefully pass away
to the home she had long for.