Bookmark belonging to Sarah Sayward Barrell Keating Wood (1759-1855), 21.5 cm x 9 cm.
Brick Store Museum Collection, 90.53.4.1. Museum purchase, 1990.

Sarah "Sally" Sayward Barrell Keating Wood (1759-1855) was the author of four gothic novels under the name "A Lady of Massachusetts" and--after Maine's statehood in 1820--as "A Lady of Maine. She is widely considered to be Maine's first novelist. A popular and widely-known literary figure in early 19th-century American, "Madam Wood" was an important contributor to Maine's early cultural landscape. Her published works include Julia and the Illuminated Baron (1800); Dorval or The Speculator (1801); Amelia or The Influence of Virtue (1802); Ferdinand and Elmira: A Russian Story (1804); and Tales of the Night (1827). In honor of the 250th anniversary of Wood's birth, Udolpho Press republished Julia and the Illuminated Baron in 2009.

Sally was born in York, Maine, on October 1, 1759 in the Sayward House (now operated as an historic property by Historic New England). She married Richard Keating on November 23, 1778. He died five years later, and Sally was left to raise their three children. It was during this period of widowhood that she embarked upon her writing career. Sally remarried to General Abiel Wood in 1804. She lived in Wiscasset, Maine; Portland, Maine; and New York but ultimately resided for the last 22 years of her life at 33 Summer Street in Kennebunk, Maine, with a widowed granddaughter and her great grandson, Dr. Edward W. Morton, the town's leading physician. She died on January 6, 1855. A marble monument in Kennebunk's Hope Cemetery was erected by her grandchildren and is dedicated to Sally and her first husband. Her epitaph reads:

Kindness of all mankind based upon full confidence in God's everlasting perfection
enabled her to increase the happiness of all she approached,
and her best epitaph is her own love for God and man.

Artifacts pertaining to Sally Wood appear in collections throughout Maine, with perhaps the most extensive holdings being at the Maine Women Writers Collection housed on the Westbrook College Campus of the University of New England (Portland, Maine).

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