Sarah Dyar

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Sarah Dyer was the daughter of John Dyar and Sarah Potter Dyar. She was born in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia in the Loyalist settlement that had grown rapidly there after the Revolution. John Dyar had been born in Boston, November 19, 1769; his wife had been born in Annapolis August 4, 1776, her family being wealthy merchants who had moved to Nova Scotia before the Revolution. They were married June 12, 1793. He accumulated some money, but during the Napoleonic Wars his ships were lost and he returned to Boston, very poor and with a large family of seven children. He was helped by his brother, Jeremiah, and in 1816 emigrated to Ohio. The journey was made in teams and took thirty days. The family settled in Muskingum township where three more children were born. Six members of the family are known to be buried in the Rainbow Cemetery in Muskingum.

Sarah Dyar, born on September 1, 1798 in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada. was 26 years old when she took on the eight motherless children of Stephen Otis, the youngest of whom was only 5 months of age. They were married on February 17, 1825. She would have eight more children and live to the age of 81 years, dying at her daughter Sarah Otis Lawrence's home in Tecumseh, Johnson County, Nebraska on November 24, 1879.

Sarah Babcock and I visited Tecumseh and the local cemetery in May of 1980 and discovered the grave of Sarah Dyar Otis surrounded by peony bushes. She is buried with her daughter and son-in-law, Sarah and Judge James Lawrence.

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Sarah (Dyar) Otis	Sarah's tombstone with descendant Sarah Babcock	Closeup of Sarah's tombstone