Sarah Childress Polk (September 4, 1803 – August 14, 1891) was the wife of the 11th President of the United States, James Polk, and the 12th woman to serve as First Lady. Sarah was born in 1803 to Joel Childress, a prominent planter, merchant, and land speculator, and Elizabeth Whitsitt Childress—the third of their six children. Sarah was well educated for a woman of her time and place, attending the exclusive Moravian Female Academy at Salem, No...
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Sarah Childress Polk (September 4, 1803 – August 14, 1891) was the wife of the 11th President of the United States, James Polk, and the 12th woman to serve as First Lady. Sarah was born in 1803 to Joel Childress, a prominent planter, merchant, and land speculator, and Elizabeth Whitsitt Childress—the third of their six children. Sarah was well educated for a woman of her time and place, attending the exclusive Moravian Female Academy at Salem, North Carolina. She was then schooled at what is now Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the few institutions of higher learning available to women in the early 19th century.
She met Polk while both were receiving instruction from Samuel P. Black in Murfreesboro; he was 19, she was 12. Several years later Polk began courting her, and in 1823 the two became engaged. Sarah Childress, aged 20, married James Polk, aged 28, on January 1, 1824, at the plantation home of the bride's parents near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Polks had...
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