• Elizabeth (Arms) FIELD (b.1695), wife of Ebenezer FIELD was a teacher in Northfield, Massachusetts, according to The History of Deerfield, Massachusetts:

   

  •  "Elizabeth [Arms], 1695; married Ebenezer FIELD, blacksmith, who removed to Northfield, where, being mistaken for an Indian, he was shot by a sentinel; being brought to Deerfield, he died under the hands of the surgeon, September 12, 1723.  She married (2) January 27, 1726-7 Azariah Wright of Northfield; it is said of her in the History of Northfield that 'she was the first teacher in town of whom a record exists; in 1721 she taught a class of young children at her own house, for 22 weeks of the warm season, and charged four pence each per week; she educated her own child well, her oldest daughter, Joanna, was the noted schoolma'am of the next generation'. Mrs. Field was a woman of great energy and versatility; we get but two glimpses of her life; the first when she is keeping school, making shirts for the Indians at 8 pence each, making breeches for Ensign Field, her husband's brother, at one shilling, six pence per pair, besides managing her household with four young children; we next see her, ten years later, as Mrs. Azariah Wright, with 8 children, the youngest but a year old, and leisure to work at tailoring, as formerly; leisure to spin and weave tow cloth, to be exchanged with the traders for crockery and a few luxuries; to spin and weave a web of 26 yards of linen sheeting for Samuel Smith, for which she receives 24 shillings.  Taking these as samples of other years, her life was a use." (p.31)

• Sarah (Housel) SMITH (b.1792) was the subject of an article in the Akron Daily Beacon, January 14, 1888:

"Stony Hill--January 11

This neighborhood boasts of the oldest woman in Summit County  [Ohio], in the person of Sarah (Housel) SMITH, born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1792 and being therefore 96 years of age on this, the eleventh day of January, 1888.  She married James SMITH at the age of 20, and resided in Lancaster until 1815, and then started with her husband and one child, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Christy, with an ox cart, for the West, and having the cart heavily loaded down with the necessaries of life, Mrs. SMITH was obliged to walk and carry the child.  They started April the first, and on the fifteenth of May, landed at Canton, Stark County, Ohio, having traveled a distance of over 300 miles, Mrs. S. walking and carrying the child the entire distance..."

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