Sarah R. Clark, Tewksbury, Massachusetts, circa 1812
Price: $6800, Sampler size: 13¼" x 10½"

We are pleased to offer this splendid sampler, beautifully worked by Sarah R. Clark of Tewksbury, an early town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The skill of the needleworker is very much apparent throughout, but most evident in the outstanding border that frames the sampler so elegantly. Long, lustrous satin-stitches, one of the hallmarks of fine Massachusetts samplers, were used to form the large blossoms, leaves and vine; a white bow punctuates the bottom with well-placed four red buds allowing for further embellishment. Sarah worked a numerical progression on a fully worked background panel (this appears just under her birth date), a technique found on other Massachusetts samplers. A couplet praising virtue and mental beauty was carefully worked in very small letters underneath the alphabets.

This sampler is accompanied by an impressive amount of genealogy and research, including original family wills and inventories from the early 19th century. Sarah's ancestors had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa 1630, at the time of the Great Migration; her great-great-great-great-grandfather was Jonas Clark (1619-1700) a ship builder and navigator who lived in Cambridge where he was a highly respected town leader, selectman and ruling elder of the Church of Christ. His son, Thomas Clark (1652-1704), Sarah's great-great-great-grandfather, was a graduate of Harvard in 1670 and continued in the family tradition of leadership and service as a long term minister in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. (He was a great-grandfather to John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, by his daughter Elizabeth's marriage into the Hancock family.)

Sarah's parents were Thomas Clark (1766-1827), a farmer, and his wife, Mary Rogers Clark. They lived on land that had been in the family for many generations, where they raised 8 children. Sarah notes in her stitching that she was born "Sept 26 AD 1798" and included a 14 at the end of her scripted alphabet; we feel certain that this indicates her age at the time she worked this piece. Interesting to note is the family record sampler made by Sarah's sister Nancy Clark in 1818 which is also available on our site.

In 1822 at age 24, Sarah married a carpenter, Bartholomew Richardson of Woburn, Massachusetts. They became the parents of five children and remained in Woburn, where Sarah died after 1870. The sampler descended in the family for generations along with the family papers.

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted in a black molded and painted frame.