Steel, Sarah

Born: 1829-03-16 Tennessee

Died: 1899-05-24 Normal, Illinois

Alternate name: Field, Sconce

Sarah Field was born at a plantation outside of Memphis, Tennessee and came to Illinois as a child with her family. In 1845, she married druggist James A. D. Sconce and the pair lived in Danville. James A. D. Sconce died in 1854 and Sarah married Episcopal minster William M. Steel the following year. After their marriage, they lived in Greeneville, Tennessee, then moved to Barbour County, Alabama, where they were living by 1860. With her second husband she raised two daughters and a stepson.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Scott County, 13 August 1845; Mason County, 29 August 1855, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Danville, Vermilion County, IL, 304; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 5 September 1855, 2:4; Richard Harrison Doughty, Greeneville: One Hundred Year Portrait (1775-1875) (Greenville, TN: Kingsport Press, 1975), 149; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Barbour County, AL, 49; The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 25 May 1899, 6:4; Gravestone, Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, IL.