Sarah Fryer Willett
by
Stefan Bielinski

Sarah Fryer was born in February 1752. She was the daughter of Albany residents John and Anna Van Zandt Fryer. She grew up on the Southside of Albany in the family of a sloop captain.

In January 1774, she married newcomer Edward S. Willett. By 1782, the marriage had produced seven children. Six years earlier, the sixteen-year-old became a pewholder in the Albany Dutch church where most of her children would be christened.

In November 1783, she was identified as an heir in the will filed by her father.

These Willetts were Albany mainliners who lived on what became South Pearl Street near other members of the Fryer and Van Zandt families.

Edward S. Willett died in 1810. Widow Sarah Fryer Willett continued to live in their home at 18 South Pearl Street. Later, she moved in with her daughter where she died at the end of December 1831. She had lived almost seventy-one years.

biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Sarah Fryer Willett is CAP biography number 8139. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.




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first posted 2/10/05; updated 11/21/17