Sarah Winder

This praiseworthy sampler, made by Sarah Winder of Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1810, offers excellent visual appeal along with very good provenance. It was exhibited at Mercer Museum in 2012 in “Stitches in Time: Bucks County Samplers” curated by independent sampler scholar Kathryn Lesieur. 

Filled with pictorial elements that center on an excellent house and lawn scene, Sarah framed her composition with a beautifully worked and highly intricate border, one of the most interesting borders that we have come across. The windows in the house are filled with lustrous blue satin-stitches and two fat birds sit atop the chimneys. Other birds, with little branches in their beaks, perch on feathery trees. Contrasting nicely with these trees is the crisp, stepped lawn and pair of highly stylized diamond-leaf trees. A large heart tops off this handsome scene and a delicate trellis and four birds share space with Sarah’s inscription below the lawn. 

There is an interesting abbreviation that likely refers to the name of her teacher; it appears as “M..y M…..y”.  We have found this used on other samplers.

Please see below for comments on this sampler and the related group from Kathryn Lesieur.

Sarah Winder was born in February of 1794, the daughter of James Winder (1735-1804) and his second wife Mary (Booz) Winder (1760-1838) of Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County. 

In 1811, Sarah married Abraham Knight, and they lived in nearby Montgomery County. The Knight family has a long and illustrious history in Pennsylvania, beginning with Giles Knight (1653-1726), a Quaker, who arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682, sailing with William Penn’s fleet. Sarah and Abraham became the parents of four children and Sarah died in 1839.

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a beveled cherry frame with a maple outer bead.

Comments from Kathryn Lesieur, July 2025:

The unusual border on Sarah’s sampler appears on other samplers made in Montgomery and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania from the end of the eighteenth century to as late as 1826. The earlier samplers also share a similar house, often with a lawn or garden in front, and similar pairs of trees. Included in this group are samplers made by Hannah Jarretts, 1798, Horsham, Sarah Michener, 1792, possibly Abington, and Hannah Paul, 1795, Horsham. It is interesting to note that Hannah Paul’s sampler includes the initials S. S., possibly another teacher! Did S.S. teach the M….M… noted on Sarah Winder’s sampler?

Samplers made in the early decades of the nineteenth century except for Sarah Winder’s have much simpler borders but include the same house with satin stitch windows, pairs of trees and a gazebo below. These include Elizabeth Cooper, 1808, Buckingham (Bucks County Historical Society), Maria Cheston, 1810, Tullytown, Elizabeth Dickinson, 1813, and Antoinette Louisa Twining, 1821, Newtown (Historical Society of Bucks County).

Two other samplers, Ann Walton, 1817, and Mary Hubbell, 1826, use the same border as Sarah Winder’s but the interior motifs are unrelated.