Susanna Fry

Signed, “Susannah Fry’s Work Germantown” this beautifully worked sampler exhibits the fine patterns and techniques employed by teachers and samplermakers in Philadelphia in the late 18th and very early 19th centuries.

These characteristics include the horizontal bands and the lower register of pine trees on a shaded green lawn. The stylized border of strawberries and flowers on vine on this sampler is extraordinary as it was formed entirely in the time-consuming and difficult queen’s-stitch. 

Susanna’s great-grandfather, Johannes Fry (1698-1765) was born in Germany and came to Pennsylvania, settling in Germantown, an area of Philadelphia populated with many prosperous German immigrants. Susanna was the daughter of Jacob and Margaret (Burkhart) Fry. The Fry family bible with notations regarding births and deaths is in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; it tells us that “Susanna Fry was Born August 19th 1803 at two O’Clock in the afternoon.” 

Susanna married Henry Frey (likely a cousin with a variant spelling of the surname) and they lived in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, where they had at least 2 children. She died in 1866 and is buried in Charles Evans Cemetery in Reading. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a molded cherry frame with a gold leaf liner.