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Eliza Sanger, Newton Academy, Massachusetts, 1805
Eliza Sanger was 8 years old and a student at Newton Academy when she worked this large and handsome sampler in 1805. She was born in 1797, the 12th of 15 children of Rev. Zedekiah and Irene (Freeman) Sanger. Rev. Sanger (1748-1819) was a highly educated (Harvard, class of 1771) and much revered minister in Duxbury, Mass. and then South Bridgewater, Mass. It seems likely that Eliza was a boarding student at the Newton Academy which was initially established in 1797 in Boston and called the Academy for Young Ladies. Founded by the noted educator, Susanna Rowson, it was then relocated to Newton, just west of Boston in 1803. While the school has been known to scholars and historians, this is the only sampler known to have been made at the Newton Academy. Interesting to note is the Sanger family's involvement with another early school, the Bridgewater Academy. From 1799 to 1802, Rev. Sanger was preceptor of this school and Eliza's older sister, Olive Sanger (born in 1790) worked very fine and important silk embroidered memorial at Bridgewater Academy in 1804; this embroidery, which was worked in the memory of three Sanger siblings, was in the Joan Stephens Collection and was sold at the Sotheby's auction in January, 1997, when the Stephens collection was dispersed. Eliza's sampler is notable on its own merits. The alphabets and lovely verse are well placed and surrounded by a wide and fine border of unusual design which also features drawn work on the top and bottom edges. The four corner details were executed in a subtle but interesting openwork technique as well. Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition and has been conservation mounted into a molded frame. |
