Sarah Ann Whitney (maiden name: Treat) was born around 1842 in New York to Lewis and Mary Treat. Her father was a shoemaker. She grew up and attended school in Almond, New York. She married Albert Russell Whitney around 1860, and their son Lewis was born around 1861. Her husband enlisted in the Union army in August 1862 and died in a Confederate prison camp on November 5, 1864. She married Alexander McNett around 1866, and their daughter Emma was born around 1867. They moved to Saginaw, Michigan, in the late 1860s, and her husband worked as a farm laborer. By 1870, they owned $325 of personal property. They returned to Almond sometime in the 1870s, and she died sometime after 1880.