Maria Matilda Workizer

A highly developed, very large sampler, this was made by Maria Matilda Workizer in 1820 and features an excellent and very appealing composition. The central focus is a substantial house shown in three-quarter view with four chimneys, along with a wide assortment of classic needlework motifs – flowers in urns, pine trees, baskets of fruit and others - that fill the entire sampler. 

Beneath the lines of family information, Maria stitched four lines that have been documented on two other samplers, “O may the everlasting truth / My staff and standard be / The best companion for a youth / Join’d With humility” 

The extracts of poetry stitched on either side of the enclosure that contains the wonderful tall flower arrangement and date are from two different sources and are transcribed below.  

In keeping with the tradition of Chester County, Pennsylvania samplers, Maria included the names of her immediate family, very specifically naming her parents, stepmother, sisters and stepbrother and stepsister. The history of the Workizer family is interesting and has been well-documented in History of Chester County, Pennsylvania with Genealogical and Biographical Sketches by J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope (Lewis H. Everts, Philadelphia, 1881) and The Workizer Thropp & Cone Families Biographical Notes Concerning Their Relations to Historical Events in the Schuylkill Valley and at Valley Forge by Edward Payson Cone (New York, 1905).

Maria’s grandfather was Christian Workizer, the pioneer ancestor of the Workizer family in America. He was a highly educated German who entered the English army as lieutenant in 1743, when George II was fighting in Germany. He rose to the rank of colonel, and came to Canada in 1758. After the capture of Quebec, Colonel Workizer retired from the British Army, and married Margaretta Girardin (her surname was anglicized to Sheridan). In 1764, the family, together with some French and German reformers, left Canada for Chester County, Pennsylvania and settled there, seeking religious freedom. 

Maria’s grandmother, according to published accounts, was “a woman of great strength of character and resolution of purpose. During the Revolution, when the British occupied Philadelphia, she walked all the way to her brother's home in Philadelphia and returned with medicine, stationery, etc., in her pockets underneath her dress, having successfully eluded the British sentinels at their outposts.” She died February 4, 1805, and the outstanding inscription on her gravestone reads, “Verses on tombstones / are but idly spent / The living character / is the monument.” 

Maria Matilda was born in 1803, one of the 4 children of John Workizer (son of and Christian and Margaret) and Mary (Turner) Workizer. The family lived in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and their house later became the Valley Forge Inn. John was a musician and kept a singing school at his house for the benefit of the young people of the neighborhood and taught them all gratuitously. He gave the ground for the Baptist Church at Valley Forge and helped to build it. After the death of Maria’s mother in 1811, John married Sarah Rooke and they had 2 children, as listed on the sampler. 

Maria married William Lewis (1802-1860) and they had at least 7 children between 1824 and 1848. She died in 1862. An excellent file of research and photocopies from the two publications accompanies the sampler. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. A photo taken prior to conservation mounting confirms that the palette of the sampler is close to its original coloration. It has been conservation mounted and is in a figured maple frame.
 

Transcriptions: 
By Charles Lamb (1775-1834): I envy no one's birth or fame / There title train or dress / Nor has my pride e'er stretched its aim / Beyond what I possess
I ask not wish not to appear / More beauteous rich or gay / Lord make me wiser every year / And better every day

By Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Thus let me hold thee to my heart / and every care resign / And we shall never never part / O thou my all that's mine
No never from this hour to part / We'll live and love so true / The sigh that rends thy constant heart / Shall break thy lover's too

photo of reverse