Polly Otis
Scituate, Plymouth County,
Massachusetts, 1798
It’s always a pleasure to offer a sampler with so many attributes. Made by a member of one of America’s most illustrious families, this is signed, "Polly Otis' sampler wrought in the 15th year of her age 1798" and is in pristine condition, with strong, original color. Polly stitched a quotation with excellent advice, “Endeavor to be first in your profession & let no one go before you in doing well.”
Another Otis family piece is quite famous within the world of needlework. The View of Boston Common, made circa 1750 by Hannah Otis (1732-1801) is in the collection of the MFA Boston, which acquired it at Sotheby’s auction in 1996 (for a record price of $1,157,500). Hannah’s older sister, while not a needleworker, was the activist, poet and playwright Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814), often called "the conscience of the Revolution." Women in the Otis family were clearly very accomplished.
The Otis family is well-documented in A Genealogical and Historical Memoir of the Otis Family in America by William A. Otis (Chicago, 1924) and extensive photocopies accompany the sampler. The family was from England, arriving in the colonies by the 1630s and settling in Scituate, Plymouth County, Massachusetts very early on.
Polly’s grandparents were Joseph and Mercy (Little) Otis; Mercy's ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. Born on February 10, 1784, Polly was the second of ten children of John and Winnet (Atkins) Otis. The published genealogy indicates that she died young.
The quotation that Polly stitched had been published in the period but is not commonly found on samplers. It appeared in The American Preceptor: Being a New Selection of Lessons for Reading and Speaking Designed for the Use of Schools by Caleb Bingham, Boston, 1801, and earlier editions.
The provenance of Polly’s sampler is interesting as well. It was in the noted collection of Margaret S. Bedell who bequeathed her samplers to the Brooklyn Museum in 1932. Many years later the museum deaccessioned them.
Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a figured maple frame with a cherry bead.