A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Haight, Sarah Rogers
HAIGHT, SARAH ROGERS,
Is descended from ancestors distinguished for their piety and learning. The Rev. John Elliott, in his "Biographical Dictionary," containing a brief account of the first settlers, eminent characters, of who went to New England, gives the following notice:—
"The church of Ipswich was supplied with a pastor by the name of Rogers, above one hundred years. The family descended from Mr. John Rogers, who was the first English martyr to the cause of the Reformation; he was burnt at Smithfield, 1553. Mr. Rogers, of Dedham, was his grandson; whose son Nathaniel went to New England, and was in the church at Ipswich between forty and fifty years.
Mr. Rogers, of Littleton, who was graduated in 1725, with whom the compiler of this work once served as an assistant, possessed very superior talents; was a very rational and learned divine, a man of scientific research, and a complete gentleman in his manners.
The branches of the family are numerous; no one name has been more conspicuous among the divines of Massachusetts."
The maternal ancestors of the subject of this memoir descended from Richard Smith, who was an officer under Cromwell, and who emigrated from England in the beginning of the eighteenth century. He purchased of the natives, the territory now constituting the town of Smithtown, in Suffolk County, New York. The estate occupied by the original patentee, has continued in the possession of his direct descendants to the present time; and the gentleman who may now be considered as the head of the family, worthily sustains its characteristic reputation for energy, urbanity, and hospitality.
Sarah Rogers was born in the city of New York, and educated in its best schools. She was married at a very early age, to Richard K. Haight, Esq., a native and resident of the same city. A natural fondness for travel, and love of adventure, stimulated doubtless by the glowing descriptions given her by her husband of those far-off lands, and classic shores, over which he had already travelled extensively, inspired her with an ardent desire to visit them in person.
A few years elapsed, during which she cultivated studies with reference to her favourite design; when she was gratified to the full extent of her most sanguine anticipations, in being conducted over almost every country of Europe, as well as portions of Asia and Africa.
The extent of her peregrinations may be inferred from the following lines borrowed from her "Letters from the Old World:"—
"To Tartary'8 desert plains, from fertile Gallic lands,
From Norway's rocky coasts, to Nubia's burning sands,
We've wander'd.
On Briton's Druid stones, Scythia's mounds on eastern plains,
Odin's temples in the North, o'er Memnon's cavern'd fanes.
We've ponder'd.
The Ganl, Goth, and Saxon, Scandinavian and Hun,
Greek, Turcoman, Arub and Nubia's swarthy son.
We've confronted," etc.
To a residence of several years in various foreign capitals, affording the usual concomitants of society suited to every taste; with galleries and libraries, wherein the amateur and student might revel at pleasure, was superadded the advantages of being made acquainted with men of letters and science of every nation; the friends, associates, and colleagues of the conductor of her wanderings.
"The extent to which she improved her rare opportunities, can be appreciated by those only, who have the happiness to be intimately acquainted with the estimable qualities of her mind and heart," says a writer; "while those who are acquainted only with the beautiful emanations of her pen will join us in regretting that Mrs. Haight has not continued her reminiscences and observations." Her only published work—"Letters from the Old World: by a Lady of New York," was received with much favour when it appeared, in 1840. It is in two volumes, containing a great variety of interesting information, and at the time was considered one of the best descriptive books of travel modern tourists had famished: it was highly creditable to the talents and acquirements of Mrs. Haight.