Sarah was born in Colchester, Connecticut. She married Peter Jackson and they had three children- Richard Henry, born about 1796; Catherine (Kafie), born about 1798; and Polly, born circa 1800.
Peter is listed as head of household in the 1800 Shutesbury, Massachusetts census, with 5 people in the "all other free persons" column. He next appears in the 1820 census for that town with three other people besides himself and Sarah. These might be Polly, her husband David Freeman, and their son Henry. The 1830 census lists the family in nearby Amherst with eight people in the household. It is possible that this includes Catherine, and Polly and her husband with three children. In 1840 the family was still in Amherst and numbered six. Catherine or Polly could have been living with Peter and Sarah, along with three young people under the age of 24. These might have been Polly's children. Peter died in 1849, and the 1850 Amherst census lists Sarah and Catherine living together with two children with a different surname. As Sarah was now blind, it might be that she and Catherine, who had never married, were living in a poorhouse. By 1832, the family had been declared paupers in Shutesbury, and sometime after that in Amherst. Sarah died of old age on April 28, 1851.
Sources Consulted
History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, James Avery Smith, 1999, p. 81