Sarah D. Fish
{{Short description|American suffragist, abolitionist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Sarah D. Fish
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Sarah Davids Bills
| birth_date = {{birth date|1798|9|11|df=y}}
| birth_place = Union, New Jersey, US
| death_date = {{death date and age|1868|11|7|1789|9|11|df=y}}
| death_place = Rochester, New York, US
| alma_mater =
| occupation = Abolitionist, suffragist
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse = {{marriage|Benjamin Fish|1822}}
| children = Catharine 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, US.
In 1822, she married Benjamin Fish. The couple were radical Quaker abolitionists.{{Cite web|url=https://rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu/viewer/3384|title=RBSCP Exhibits|website=rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu|date=6 November 1855 |access-date=2019-03-08}}{{Cite book|last=Snodgrass|first=Mary Ellen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWusBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|title=The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations|date=2015-03-26|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-45416-8|pages=192|language=en}} "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."{{Cite web|url=https://freethought-trail.org/profiles/profile:fish-benjamin/|title=Fish, Benjamin - Freethought Trail - New York|website=freethought-trail.org|access-date=2019-03-08}} The couple had two daughters: Catherine Ann Fish (later Stebbins) and Mary Fish (later Curtis). Letters suggest the couple were living in Rochester, New York, circa 1848 and were involved also in the rise of spiritualism.{{Cite web|url=https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/finding-aids/D93|title=Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers {{!}} RBSCP|website=rbscp.lib.rochester.edu|access-date=2019-03-08}}
Activism
Their family was "one of the most prominent early anti-slavery advocate groups." Their home was one of Rochester, New York's first way-stations of the Underground Railroad.{{cite book |last1=Snodgrass |first1=Mary Ellen |title=The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317454151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RmqsBwAAQBAJ&q=Sarah+Davids+Bills+Fish&pg=PT665 |language=en}} They collaborated with Railroad conductors such as Frederick Douglass, Mary H. Post Hallowell, William R. Hallowell, and Amy and Isaac Post. The Fish family "helped organize everything from abolitionist conventions to antislavery craft fairs." 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.{{Cite book|last=Snodgrass|first=Mary Ellen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cWysBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA505|title=The Civil War Era and Reconstruction: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural and Economic History|date=2015-03-26|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-45791-6|pages=505|language=en}}
Sarah herself was a member of the Rochester Female Anti-Slavery Society (RFASS), and for a period served as the group's secretary.{{Cite book|title=The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America|last=|first=|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2018|isbn=|editor-last=Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne|editor-first=|location=|pages=27}} The RFASS "for a few years" "dominated women's antislavery activism," but was eventually replaced by a more radical group. In 1842, Sarah joined the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and, at the urging of Quaker activist Abby Kelley, served on the executive committee. She was still serving on the executive committee in 1848, when her husband was president and her son-in-law corresponding secretary.{{Cite book|title=William Cooper Nell, Nineteenth-century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist: Selected Writings from 1832-1874|last=Nell|first=William Cooper|publisher=Black Classic Press|year=2002|isbn=|location=|pages=211, 262}} She also wrote for the abolitionist newspaper The North Star.
Sarah Fish was also an early activist for women's rights.{{Cite web|url=https://rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu/viewer/3990|title=RBSCP Exhibits|website=rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu|date=10 May 1868 |access-date=2019-03-08}} She participated in the very first Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Only weeks later, Sarah helped organize a second women's rights convention 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". Other important attendees included Frederick Douglass.{{Cite web|url=https://freethought-trail.org/trail-map/location:1848-womans-rights-convention/|title=1848 Woman's Rights Convention - Freethought Trail - New York|website=freethought-trail.org|access-date=2019-03-08}} Sarah Fish, Amy Post, and Sarah Hallowell "made the historic recommendation that the Rochester Woman's Rights Convention elect a female president."{{Cite book|title=Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-century America|last=Braude|first=Anne|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2001|isbn=|location=|pages=59}} 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!"
The Fish family were also apparently involved in working for fairer treatment of Native Americans.
Death
She died on 7 Nov 1868 at the age of 70 in Rochester, Monroe County, New York, US.
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Find a Grave|11487453}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fish, Sarah D}}
Category:Suffragists from New York (state)
Category:19th-century American women
Category:People from Union Township, Union County, New Jersey