The chief creator of this small group of albums and journals was Sarah Corkins Towslee (1833-1898), the second child of Joseph Corkins and Melitta Morley Corkins of Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont. With the death of Joseph Corkins in April 1843 the family household appears to have dissolved; Sarah spent her early adolescence under the care of the proprietors of a local tavern, performing domestic chores while attending school in the winter. In 1848, at the age of fifteen, Sarah left Vermont for the textile mills of Colrain, Franklin County, Massachusetts, where her older sister Mary (b. 1829) was already working. By mid-century the manufacture of cotton textiles was an important feature of the local economy, with mill settlements at Griswoldville and Shattuckville in Colrain's North River valley. Corkins worked in the Colrain mills, and subsequently at Samuel Williston's factories in Easthampton (down the Connecticut River, in Hampshire County) on and off for more than four years, earning money for room and board and for her continued schooling. By 1851 she had begun to fulfill her ambition of teaching school, though factory work continued. In February 1853, at the age of 20, Corkins married Frank C. Towslee (1831-1884), and left New England for her husband's farm in Chenango County, New York. A daughter, Ida, was born ca. 1856. Sarah Towslee died in 1898.