Sarah A. Jones was born around 1846 in Greene County, New York, to Benjamin and Catherine Jones. Her father was a farmer who owned $4,000 of real estate and $1,100 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Hunter, New York, until the 1850s, when they moved to Jewett, New York. By 1865, he was working as a “domestic.” She died sometime after 1870.