Sarah Slater's Second Husband

[Susan Higginbotham]

I looked at the 1872 marriage certificate for Sarah's younger sister Laura today. Sarah (who was calling herself Antoinette Long at the time) was one of the witnesses. The signature of the other witness is faint, but it appears to be that of Jacob M. Long, Sarah's second husband. So it appears that the couple was together despite Sarah's omission from Jacob's household in the 1870 census. (Maybe Sarah just didn't like being counted.)





I can't agree with the statement in the latest Courier that Jacob Long married Sarah for her nursing abilities. Long was only in his 40's when he married Sarah and was active as an alderman and at his job as superintendent of the Harlem Gas Light company throughout this period (except when he lost his office in a Tammany Hall shakeup at one point), and I don't see any indication that he needed a nurse. Even if he had, he had grown or almost-grown children living with him, as well as female servants, so there wouldn't have been anything disreputable about his hiring a live-in nurse as opposed to marrying her. I think he married Sarah for the usual reasons a man marries an attractive young woman.

I also checked the New York Index to Matrimonial Actions and couldn't find any indication of a divorce or separation between Sarah and Jacob. She lists herself as a widow on her marriage certificate to William W. Spencer (incidentally, the witnesses were George and Margaret Derr; the latter later served as Sarah's executrix).





A couple of useless but fun facts: Jacob's son Charles was the superintendent of the Statue of Liberty until his death in 1904. And for those of you who are fans of science fiction/fantasy/horror, the writer Frank Belknap Long is a descendant of Jacob.