To offset reduced income from her father's business,[1] she began to contribute to journals at the age of 16, and at 17 she joined the Universalist Church, which her parents, manufacturer Joseph Edgarton and his second wife Mehitable Whitcomb, also belonged to.

[2] She edited The Rose of Sharon, an annual, from 1840 until 1848,[3] and was an associate editor of The Universalist and Ladies' Repository, a monthly magazine in Boston, from 1839 until 1842.

With her earnings, she was able to support her family through its financial troubles and also put her younger brother, John Marshall Edgarton, through Harvard University.

[2] He graduated in 1847, and began work on starting a magazine, but died that year.

[4] Sarah Edgarton married Amory Dwight Mayo in 1846,[3] and the couple moved to Gloucester.