Rebecca L. Titus

Samplermaker, Rebecca Louisa Titus, was born on October 25, 1816, one of the thirteen children born to Benjamin and Anna (Lee) Titus. Titus: A North American Family History by Leo J. Titus (Gateway Press, Inn, Baltimore, MD, 2004), traces the family history back to Robert Titus, who was born in 1600 in England and, with his wife, Hannah and their two sons, embarked on the ship, Hopewell in 1635, sailing for New England. The family lived in Massachusetts but removed to Long Island, New York in 1654 and two generations later, Rebecca’s great-grandfather was living in Mercer County, New Jersey. 

In 1837, Rebecca married Byard Drake (1816-1902) and they remained in Hopewell where they became the parents of at least six children. Census records indicate that Rebecca was a farmer, somewhat unusual as the vast majority of farming families would have listed the male as a farmer. Rebecca died at age 77 in 1894 and is buried in Blawenburg Cemetery in Somerset County. 

The sampler was worked in the horizontal format that was popular in the 1830s. Several alphabets fill much of the sampler with a good register of flowers and pairs of birds worked along with her name and date below. The motif of birds and bell-flowers has its origins in the fine Quaker schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Notable as well is the border which features small queen’s-stitch strawberries. 

Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition with slight darkening to the linen. It has been conservation mounted and is in its original frame.