Mary Esther Ambler was born around 1842 in Connecticut to Alexander and Jane Ambler. Her father was a carpenter who owned $2,500 of real estate and $775 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Danbury, Connecticut. She married Edwin Benedict in the early 1860s, and their son Alfred was born around 1864. Her husband died on October 15, 1869.
She lived in Newtown, Connecticut, and by 1870, she owned $1,730 of real estate and $380 of personal property. She married Charles Sherwood around 1872, and the couple had no children. They lived in Danbury, and her husband worked as a peddler. Sherwood died in 1907, and she died in Danbury in 1919.