This outstanding sampler was made by Sarah Walter, a Quaker born on May 6, 1772, the oldest of eight children of Joseph and Elizabeth (Levis) Walter, members of the Kennett Monthly Meeting of Chester County, Pennsylvania. She was 26 years old when she made this sampler, and her advanced skill is evident throughout. The balanced format, the stylized baskets of flowers, pair of birds flanking a basket of fruit, rows of family initials and bands of patterns are all beautifully worked and contribute to the praiseworthy aesthetic appeal. 

The verse stitched in the center block, reads, “Let dress take up but / little time Aim not / in gaudy clothes to / shine Reflect how sh / ort must be thy stay / How vain to deck A / piece of clay,” and is appropriate for the Quaker origins of the sampler. This same verse has been documented on a sampler made earlier in the 18th century in the book, American Samplers by Bolton and Coe (Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames, 1921). 

Below that, Sarah signed her sampler, “Sarah Walter Dau / ghter of Joseph and Elizabeth Walter the latter deceased.” The family initials are precisely matched up to her siblings and grandparents. WW may be those of her instructress. Further family research accompanies the sampler.

Sarah remained single and in 1804 a complaint was brought against her at her Quaker meeting for "unchastity which is manifest by her bearing an illegitimate child." She produced a paper of acknowledgement for her transgression which was read and received at the Goshen Meeting; she was then allowed to remain a member. She died in 1863, age 91, in West Chester. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a fine reproduction frame and sanded liner.

This handsome sampler, worked almost entirely in a lovely teal blue, was made by Cornelia Wells Walter when she was 13 years old. Significantly, she went on to become one of America’s earliest female journalists, serving as the editor of the Boston Transcript in the 1840s. The paper was founded by her older brother, Lynde Minshull Walter, and she was offered the position of editor upon his death, having worked for him for some years prior. Notable American Women 1607-1950 A Biographical Dictionary (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971), along with much information about her professional accomplishments, describes her as, “A woman of unusual beauty, warmth, and dignity… endowed with a fine mind, a concise but flowing style, and a fearless pen, she improved the quality of the transcript, and won the praise of contemporaries who had been at first antagonistic towards the idea of a female editor. Her columns faithfully reflected the literary and social life of Boston.”

In 1847 she married William Boardman Richards, a Boston iron and steel dealer. At that point, she resigned her post, but continued to contribute and publish her writings. They had at least four children and Cornelia died in 1898.

Much has been published about the family and about Cornelia and her accomplishments.  The early history of her family goes back to the mid-17th century in Massachusetts. A substantial file accompanies the sampler. 

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

photo of reverse

Along the line of good things come in small packages, we are pleased to offer this beautifully made sampler made by a 6-year-old, signed, “Martha Wallis finished this work in the seventh Year of her age December 1812.” She featured a delightful, low-hipped house with a huge bird on the roof and a dog of similar scale on the lawn. Three trees and a flock of birds finish the scene. Martha worked her alphabets above and a verse – a very popular one of the period – below. An excellent border of strawberries on a stylized vine provides the perfect framework for the composition. Clearly, Martha was a highly skilled needleworker at a very early age. 

The sampler was worked in silk on wool and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a gold-leaf frame. 

This excellent sampler was made by Nancy Frost Strout of Limington, Maine in 1821; she was remarkably young at the time. Born on January 19, 1814, she was indeed 7 years old (“in the 8th year of her age”). Limington is west and a bit north of Portland; early industries included logging and gristmills along with farming. This small town is now recognized for its fine historic architecture. Nancy was the firstborn of nine children of Simeon and Esther (Frost) Strout. Both the Strout and Frost families had been in the area for generations and much information has been published. An extensive file of research accompanies the sampler.  

Nancy would have attended school and made her sampler under the instruction of a schoolmistress. The stitches used are varied and include the eyelet stitch for the largest letters and the upper-case letters of the inscription. Notably the horizontal line just above the inscription was also very carefully worked in eyelet stitches. Satin stitches form the splendid, embroidered garlands and diamond-shaped border. 

In 1832, Nancy married Enoch Billings Hobson (1810-1888), a lumberman and farmer of Buxton, Maine. They lived in Limerick, York County, Maine and had 8 children. Interestingly, much information about one of their sons, Simeon S. Hobson (1839-1922), is published in Montana, Its Story and Biography: A History of Aboriginal and Territorial Montana and Three Decades of Statehood Vol II by Tom Strout (The American Historical Society, 1921). In 1865, he headed west traveling by narrow-gauge railroad and then stagecoach. He ended up a very successful cattle man who also raised sheep, turning later to the agriculture of wheat. Nancy died in 1883 and is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Limington along with many family members.  

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

An excellent, large sampler worked in the classic vertical format of 18th century samplers, this is signed, “Eliza Shewcraft sampler made in the year of our Lord and in the 11th year of her age 1788.” 

The lengthy text that Eliza carefully stitched reads: 

Lord who’s the happy man / That may to thy best courts repair / Not stranger-like to visit them / But to inhabit there.

Tis he who’s every thought and deed by rules / Of virtue moves who’s generous tongue disdains / To speak the truth his heart disproves

Who never did a slander forge / His neighbors fame to wound / Nor harken to a false report by malice whispered round.

Who vice though pomp and power / Can treat with just neglect and piety / Tho cloth’d in rags religiously respect 

Who to his plighted vows and trust has ever firmly stood / And tho he promised to his loss makes his promise good 

Who’s soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ / whom no reward can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy

The man who buy this steady course has happiness ensured / When earth's foundation shakes shall stand by Providence secured

Interestingly, while looking for the source of this text we found it in a letter written in 1825 by Thomas Jefferson in a letter offering words of wisdom to the son of dear friend, a namesake, Thomas Jefferson Smith, a year before his death: https://1776history.com/2019/02/14/advice-from-a-founding-father/  It was said to be a popular Christian hymn in the 18th century.

The last sentence, “To duty fear and love we owe God above,” was likely Eliza’s own addition to finish the sampler. 

Small pictorial motifs including lions, little men, deer, potted flowers and trees decorate the lower portion of the sampler. A wonderful row of little birds march along the bottom of the sampler with the date, 1788, interspersed.

The surname, Shewcraft, is an unusual one and seems to have been used interchangeably with Shawcraft, Shawcroft and Shawcross. Eliza may have been the daughter of John Shawcroft, of Alfreton, Derbyshire, England, baptized on October 29, 1781. 

Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a molded and black painted frame. 

photo of the reverse

English samplermakers often used elegant, balanced compositions for their samplers and Sarah Rayner’s sampler, worked when she was 10 years old, is a fine example. Additionally, her flower arrangements, little baskets of fruit, birds, deer and little willow trees were all worked in delicate stitches. The central image of flowers springing from a low, two-handled vessel, is a wonderful indication of Sarah’s skill. The border, with its flowers in alternating colors and shaded stylized vine, frames the sampler perfectly. 

“Order is Heav’n's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense,” was written by Alexander Pope and published as part of Essays on Man in 1733/34.

The sampler was worked in silk in wool and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in its original maple frame with a gilt liner.

Plushwork, also called “raised Berlin work” or “raised embroidery” is a form of needlework in which wool yarn is extremely densely worked and later sheared or sculpted to create wonderful three-dimensional pictures. In this case, some of the plushwork is raised about 1" from the black wool background!

This technique became popular in the middle of the 19th century. When skillfully worked, the result can be outstanding and we are pleased to offer one of the best examples we have owned in many years. The subject is a bouquet of flowers, berries and a bunch of grapes. Two fat birds are perched on leaves, one of them nibbling at a red berry. 

This was worked in wool on black wool and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in its fine original shadowbox frame with beautiful green painted inner walls. 

view from side

An endearing little sampler, this was made by Mary D. Plumer, aged 8 years. She worked alphabets and a scene of a basket of fruit, little trees and a large butterfly. Because she included her middle initial and because The Plumer Genealogy: Frances Plumer Who Settled at Newbury, Massachusetts & Some of His Descendants by Sidney Perley (Salem, Massachusetts, 1917) is quite thorough, we were able to identify her. 

Born on December 14, 1818, Mary Dole Plumer was the daughter of Silas and Hannah (Harmon) Plumer, the 6th of their 10 children. The family descended from Francis Plumer, an English linen weaver, who sailed along with his wife, Ruth, and their children, on the ship Hector, in the early spring of 1634. They landed at Ipswich and remained there for some months. By 1653, members of the next generation settled in Newbury and many branches of the family remained there. 

In 1845, Mary married William Hale, Jr. (1820-1910) and they had two daughters who were born 1847 and 1848. Mary died in 1849. 

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

An interesting and early Mennonite sampler, this was made by Elisabeth Meier in 1793 and is inscribed in German, “Elisabeth Meierin Bin Ich Genant Mein Namen Stet In Gotes Hand,” which translates to, “Elisabeth Meier am I called / My name stands in God’s hand.” 

Elisabeth worked her alphabets and various spot motifs in classic Pennsylvania German fashion; it is the largest motif that places the sampler in a small group of Mennonite works written about in Samplers of the Pennsylvania Germans by Tandy and Charles Hersh, (The Pennsylvania German Society, 1991). Specifically, it is the large OEHBDE element (O Edel Herz Bedenk Dein Ende / O Noble Heart Consider Your End), along the right that features a heart at the center and two hearts dropping down at the bottom. This unusual version is found on another sampler made by Feronica Gros in 1798 within the Franconia Mennonites of Bucks and Montgomery Counties and allowed for our knowledge of the origin of Elisabeth’s sampler. 

The Meier family (also spelled Meyer and Moyer) was a prominent one in that area and remains so today. The sampler was worked in silk on linen and in excellent condition, conservation mounted into a molded and black painted frame.

This handsome, little sampler, with its strong, graphic composition, is wonderfully signed (using the archaic form of the letter s), “This sampler was wrought by Marg.t Latham, Aged 7, in Levens’ School in the year of our Lord 1839, and in the 2nd year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” This appears below the oft-used, religious, sampler verse which offers a prayer specific to the making of the sampler. The needlework is contained on four sides by classic phrases, “Fear God / Love Thy Neighbor / Honour thy Father / And thy Mother,” each cleverly worked into a border format. Young Margaret stitched her delightful sampler with letter-perfect precision.

The Levens School was established in 1810 as a school for girls, in Westmorland, northern England; by 1819 a boys school was added. Margaret Latham was born there in 1832, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Anne (Yoell) Latham. Interestingly, many school records still exist and they indicate that her father was the schoolmaster / head of school at Levens beginning in 1841, for several years. The census of the same year confirms Thomas’s occupation as schoolmaster.

On August 11, 1859, Margaret married Edward Warriner, also from Westmorland. The 1871 census indicates that she was a widow and farmer, living with her widowed mother, her son and daughter.

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a period maple veneer frame.