Louisa W. Halsey, Mary Ralston School

We rarely come across samplers that depict such a personal and whimsical scene as this one. The young lady is holding her cat and she and her male counterpart are both shown partially hidden in the branches of the leafy tree. The inscription, stitched in pale pink, reads, “Louisa W. Halsey Her Sampler,” and this was worked in the negative space between the pine tree and the roof of the house. 

The sampler shares distinct characteristics with others made at the Mary Ralston school in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1813 and 1814. These samplers present precisely the same building, diamond-leafed trees, stylized pine tree with the trunk extending into the foliage, and queen’s-stitched strawberries on vine as a four-sided border. The sampler made by Sarah Wagener in 1813, in the collection of the Northampton Historical Society in Easton (published as Figure 510 in Betty Ring’s Girlhood Embroidery, Vol. II (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1993), is quite similar, with the exception of the couple hiding in the tree.

Genealogical research indicates that the samplermaker was most likely Louisa Williams Halsey, born November 10, 1803, to Ichabod and Sarah (Smith) Halsey. The family moved around quite a bit and had ties to the New Jersey area just across the Delaware river from Easton. Louisa died in 1821, unmarried. The family traces its history back to Thomas Halsey (1592- 1678) who arrived in the colonies by 1637 and photocopies from the published family genealogy accompany 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.