Sarah Smedley

The daughter of Joseph and Rebekah (Lewis) Smedley, Sarah Smedley was born on August 31, 1792, in Willistown, Chester County, Pennsylvania. The excellent sampler that Sarah made in 1812 is strongly influenced by the Quaker sampler design that proliferated in southeastern Pennsylvania in the first decades of the 19th century. Along with the classic Quaker style strong, block letter alphabets, many beautifully worked Quaker motifs fill the entire composition: pairs of birds, fruit baskets, half medallions and many flower and berry sprigs and branches. Sarah signed her work in a handsome center cartouche punctuated with little stars. The sampler also includes family names and many family initials. 

The Smedley family belonged to the Goshen Monthly Meeting of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Sarah’s father, Joseph (1757-1811), was deceased when she made her sampler and the black lettering that she used for his name reflects this loss. This was a samplermaking tradition from southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Sarah’s siblings were Lewis, Eli, Joseph, Lydia, Rebekah, Thomas and Joel; all of their initials appear directly under the names of her parents. Her grandparents were Thomas and Lydia Smedley and Samuel and Margaret Lewis, and their initials are to the left and right of this area.

The ancestry of the Smedley family in Chester County began with George Smedley who left Derbyshire, England in 1682-83 in the company of other Quakers and settled in Pennsylvania. Four generations later Sarah was born. Genealogy of the Smedley Family Descended from George and Sarah Smedley Settlers in Chester County, Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA, 1901) publishes much information about the family, including the fact that Sarah was a milliner who made bonnets for Friends. Additionally, it’s noted that she was interested in genealogy and “collected many dates of birth & etc.” We find this to be wonderfully reflected on her sampler, which includes so many family names and initials. 

Along with photocopies from the above Smedley genealogy book, the file that accompanies this sampler includes copies of many Friends meeting records. 

Sarah married James Meloney (1789-1863) on May 21, 1850, when she was 52. At that point she removed to a Friends meeting in Maryland. She died on August 14, 1878, and is buried at the Third Haven Monthly Meeting in Easton, Maryland. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a molded mahogany frame.