Her grandfather, Ashbel Stoddard, was among the first settlers of Hudson, who went from Nantucket and Providence, Rhode Island, and were mostly of Quaker descent.

He established a printing office, bookstore and bindery in the central part of the new city and on April 7, 1785, issued the first number of the Hudson Weekly Gazette.

In 1824, he sold that political newspaper and published the Rural Repository, a literary weekly which had a wide circulation.

To the editing of that paper and to the printing establishment the father of Sarah, William Bowles Stoddard, an only son, succeeded.

[1] Sarah's siblings included Eliza, Ashbel, Catharine, William, John, Samuel, George, Martha, and Evelyn.

She assisted in forming the aid associations in Baltimore and spent her days in the camps and the hospitals near the city.

She represented the latter as a delegate to Washington, D.C.[5] Eddy organized several clubs in towns where she lived, and presided over them for a time.