Deborah Parry

A fine sampler, this was made in Belmont County, Ohio by Deborah Parry, who was from a documented Quaker family. She signed it, “Deborah Parry / was born the 7th / day of the 1st month / 1814 and made this / the 7th day of the 1st / month AD 1832,” – she must have enjoyed that she completed it on her birthday!

The fact that Deborah was 18 years old may indicate that she was teaching when she made this sampler and made it as a template for her students. On March 29, 1832, a few months after she completed it, she married Nathan Hall (1809-1880) at the Stillwater Monthly Meeting. 

Along with various alphabets and many family initials, there is an excellent register of pictorial motifs and below that, a delightful parade of birds worked in various colorations. 

Deborah was born on January 7, 1814, the daughter of John and Rachel (Gatchell) Parry who had been married in 1812 in Jefferson County, Ohio. Quaker records held at the Swarthmore Friends Historic Library indicate that the Parry family joined the Society of Friends in 1818 and by 1830 the family belonged to the Stillwater Monthly Meeting. The family initials on the sampler correspond to Deborah’s parents, siblings and family members – John, Rachel, Rheuanna, Hannah, Thomas, Job, David, etc. 

Information about Deborah and Nathan Hall is published in The Household Guide and Instructor with Biographies, History of Guernsey County, Ohio (T. F. Williams, Cleveland, Ohio, 1882). Nathan was born in North Carolina and removed to Ohio in 1825. Caroline and Nathan had three children who were born between 1833 and 1840. She died in 1844 and is buried in the Richland Meetinghouse Cemetery in Guernsey County, Ohio along with her parents, husband and other family members. 

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.