With Needle and Brush

With Needle and BrushSchoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley, 1740–1840

c a r o l a n d s t e p h e n h u b e r s u s a n p . s c h o e l w e r a m y k u r t z l a n s i n g

f l o r e n c e g r i s w o l d m u s e u mOld Lyme, Connecticut

p u b l i s h e d i n a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h w e s l e y a n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Published by the Florence Griswold Museum

96 Lyme Street

Old Lyme, CT 06371

www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org

In association with

Wesleyan University Press

Middletown CT 06459

www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

Copyright © 2011 by the Board of Trustees of the Florence Griswold

Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut. All rights reserved.

Manufactured in China

Designed by Katherine B. Kimball

Typeset in Filosofia and Scala Sans by Passumpsic Publishing

With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River

Valley, 1740–1840 has been made possible through the generous

support of the Coby Foundation, Ltd., the Connecticut Humanities

Council, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism,

Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and several private

donors.

Unless otherwise specified, all images are courtesy of Stephen and

Carol Huber. Other images courtesy of Paul Mutino (plates 9, 10,

11, 15, 22, 24, 26, 33, 35, 39, 43, 51, 54, 56, 57, 59, 67, 68); Historic

Deerfield (photo by Penny Leveritt, plates 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 38, 41,

61, 64; photo by Amanda Merullo, plates 52, 53, 65); and private

collections (plates 23, 25, 70, 71).

Frontispiece: Eliza Maria Ely, Memorial, 1807 (detail). Plate 61. Title page:

Mary Lockwood, Canvaswork with house, ca. 1745 (detail). Plate 28.

Page vi: Polly Jennings, Pastoral scene, 1793. Plate 33 (detail). Page viii:

Harriet Wells, “Jepthah Laments His Rash Vow,” ca. 1812. Plate 47. Page x:

Mary Ann Newell, “Maria at Moulines,” ca. 1809. Plate 35.

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

With needle and brush : schoolgirl embroidery from the Connecticut

River Valley, 1740–1840 / Carol and Stephen Huber, Susan P. Schoelwer,

and Amy Kurtz Lansing.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-0-9830532-0-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-9830532-1-7

(pbk. : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-8195-7229-5 (e-book)

1. Embroidery—Connecticut River Valley—History—18th century. 2.

Embroidery—Connecticut River Valley—History—19th century. 3. Girls—

Education—Connecticut River Valley—History—18th century. 4. Girls—Ed-

ucation—Connecticut River Valley—History—19th century. I. Huber, Carol.

II. Florence Griswold Museum.

nk9212.w57 2011

746.4409746—dc22 2011011692

v

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: The Connecticut River Valley as a Cultural Center, 1740–1840 1

a m y k u rt z l a n s i ng

With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley, 1740–1840 3

c a r ol a n d s t e p h e n h u b e r

Lessons Artistic and Useful: The Patten School of Hartford, 1785–1825 13

s u s a n p . s c hoe lw e r

Object Entries and Plates 21

Index 95

Contents

vii

Although little remembered today, before its celebrated role as the home of the Lyme Art Colony the Florence Griswold House served as a school for girls during the late 1800s. There, Florence Griswold and her sisters taught English, art, history, music, and, according to one advertisement, “the rich and elegant styles of French embroidery, ancient and modern, not elsewhere taught in this country.” Although this chapter of our institution’s history is often overlooked, the Florence Griswold Museum has long had an abiding interest in the material culture of New England and the role that women’s education played in the development of that culture.

With Needle and Brush is the first book to investigate the extra-ordinary embroidery created by girls and young women in the Connecticut River Valley between 1740 and 1840. This region, spanning from northern New Hampshire to Long Island Sound, was one of the most important centers in America for the teaching and production of embroidered pictures by young girls in private academies during the colonial and early national periods. Many will be surprised that their story has not been told in greater detail before.

This publication demonstrates the role of the needle arts in women’s education in early America. Among the daughters of

prominent families, completing a needlework at a private school was considered a necessary part of preparation for adulthood. Over the course of their education, girls undertook progressively more complex and difficult needlework. Before the age of ten, they began with elementary samplers worked on linen and gradually developed a repertory of stitching techniques. As the culmination of their studies, they executed elaborate samplers, memorials, and silk pictures. Proudly displayed in a family’s home as enticements to potential suitors, these needleworks affirmed a young lady’s mastery of the principles of “politeness”—a concept that encom-passed knowledge of religious and literary themes as well as an appreciation for art and music. Although women’s education has often been thought of as limited during this period, these intri-cate embroideries prove otherwise with their many allusions to art, literature, and religion. Teaching young girls needlework was, in fact, a means of instilling the values of citizenship, faith, and liberty into those who would become the mothers of the first few generations of Americans in the early republic. As a group, much can be gained by studying these needlework pictures for their in-sight into the lives of young women in early America.

Jeffrey Andersen Director, Florence Griswold Museum

Foreword

ix

With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley began its life as an exhibition, and these acknowledg-ments offer a place to thank those who made it possible to bring together the needleworks discussed in this book. First and fore-most, Carol and Stephen Huber have relied on their four decades of experience in the field of schoolgirl embroidery to assemble an extraordinary group of needlework. We are indebted to them for their willingness to share their knowledge with the public. Their excitement about each “juicy” new piece they sought to include was infectious and made working with them on this project a pleasure. Essayist Susan P. Schoelwer, curator at George Wash-ington’s Mount Vernon, graciously agreed to contribute a piece about the Patten school in the midst of finishing up her own ex-tensive project about Connecticut needlework in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. Thirty private lenders shared pieces from their collections with the public in both the exhibition and this publication, thus ensuring that they will be available for study in the future. Although many wish to remain anonymous, we would like to thank the following by name—Mr. and Mrs. William A. Frame Sr., Diane Denison Fuller, Sally and William Gemmill, Mr. and Mrs. James P. Jenkins, Mr. and Mrs. William Mitch-ell Jennings Jr., Stephen and Barbara Kovacs, Glee F. Krueger, Mrs. Carl M. Lindberg, Mary Jane and Clarence Mollett, Geoffrey Paul, George and Jane Rapport, Randy and Nancy Root, Donna D. Schwartz, and Nicholas and Shelley Schorsch. We also offer our gratitude to the following colleagues and public institutions for al-lowing us to include pieces from their collections in the exhibition and book—Butler-McCook House and Garden, Connecticut Land-marks; Phillip Zea, president, Historic Deerfield; Historical Soci-ety of Glastonbury; Middlesex County Historical Society; Mount Holyoke College Art Museum; Old Saybrook Historical Society; and Special Collections and Archives, Wesleyan University.

The staff of Wesleyan University Press have collaborated with us on a book that will delight readers for years to come. Editor-in-chief and Director Suzanna Tamminen, Assistant Director and Marketing Manager Leslie Starr, editors Kathryn Grover and

Amanda Dupuis, and designer Katherine B. Kimball have pooled their expertise to create a publication of which we can all be proud.

The staff of the Florence Griswold Museum has worked to-gether to create this publication and the exhibition from which it sprang. The board of trustees joins me in thanking Curator Amy Kurtz Lansing and Assistant Curator Amanda C. Burdan, who ably led the museum in the execution of the exhibition and worked extensively on this publication. They were assisted by Registrar Nicole Wholean and college interns Ian Kumekawa and Sarah Sargent. Volunteer Research Associate Caroline Zinsser, Ph.D., authored an overview of women’s education with particular atten-tion to Lyme, which provided useful background for this project. Members of the museum’s exhibition team each contributed to the success of With Needle and Brush. Director of Education David D. J. Rau composed a website to supply teachers and general visi-tors with needlework resources and planned programs to extend the exhibition’s educational impact in original ways. Director of Marketing Tammi Flynn sought every opportunity to publicize the exhibition to audiences interested in American material culture, and Director of Development Janie Stanley found sources of fund-ing for the exhibition and book—both major undertakings for this museum. Museum Educators Julie Riggs and Matthew Ferrer, Visi-tor Services Manager Matthew Greene, and Facilities Manager Ted Gaffney each worked to ensure that visitors enjoyed their experi-ence at the museum to the utmost.

With Needle and Brush would not have been possible without the generous support of the Coby Foundation, Ltd., a New York foundation that specializes in funding projects in the textile and needle arts. This book was published with the generous support of Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. The Connecti-cut Humanities Council, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, and several private donors were also instrumental in helping the Florence Griswold Museum fully realize this project. We are grateful for their commitment to making the exhibition and book such worthwhile endeavors.

Jeffrey Andersen

Acknowledgments

With Needle and Brush

1

The Connecticut River Valley was one of most important centers in America for the teaching and production of embroidered pictures by young girls in private academies

from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. This book is the first to examine the needlework of the region in depth. It explores the key centers and teachers of the craft, the styles they developed, and the themes their students addressed in the media of samplers, canvaswork, and silk embroidery. The needlework produced in the watershed of the 410-mile-long “Great River” over the course of one hundred years challenges our understand-ing of the region, which was defined by its diversity more than its homogeneity. Acting as a conduit for goods, people, and ideas, the river was key in knitting the area together through transportation and trade. This introduction explores the forces that shaped the region’s culture, with an eye toward the factors that encouraged schoolgirl needlework to flourish in its cities and towns.1

The range of approaches to needlework in the Connecticut River Valley, as Carol and Stephen Huber have noted in their essay in this volume, may be attributed in part to the region’s settlement patterns. Although Saybrook, at the river’s mouth, was founded quite early, European colonization of the area did not progress up the river from south to north but rather developed in widely spaced clusters around useful natural features such as waterfalls or large, flat, tillable fields. Moving overland from the coast, those attracted to the area’s fertile alluvial soil established communi-ties at places such as Wethersfield and Hartford in the mid-seventeenth century and avoided the marshy terrain south of Middletown until the next generation. Towns founded later, such as Haddam, remained smaller in scale—not large enough to support their own private schools, which encouraged students to travel to a larger center such as Hartford. Further north, in Massachusetts, the 1650s and 1660s saw the establishment of

Northampton, Hadley, and Deerfield at the frontier between Euro-pean and Native American land. Because it was settled over a long period of time, the valley’s culture incorporated frontier commu-nities and more sophisticated towns simultaneously, resulting in material culture that ranges from rustic to urbane.

The Connecticut River Valley developed as a region focused on agriculture and strung together through trade as farmers large and small moved their produce and livestock to market. The main source of wealth during much of this early period was agriculture. Because of its economic power as a landowning group, the rural gentry shaped a regional culture in which its values predominated. Rather than emulate urban sophistication, the gentry sought to differentiate themselves from their neighbors, the valley’s yeo-men farmers. To do so, they commissioned household goods that embodied their staid, prosperous, but unostentatious mindset, as well as their pride of place. Rather than rely largely on im-ports, people of means in the valley solicited local craftsmen to design and construct the furniture, architecture, and household goods that made up their material world. This led to consider-able diversity of styles and techniques as each maker or workshop developed its own approach rather than hewing strictly to the most fashionable styles disseminated from Europe or larger New En-gland cities. More exalted, imported goods eventually made their way into valley households, particularly by the early nineteenth century, but in general a rustic and homespun aesthetic prevailed and persisted even in the region’s most accomplished examples of material culture.

At the same time, commerce fostered an awareness of out-side trends, and Connecticut River Valley towns that developed as centers of trade—places such as South Hadley, Hartford, and Middletown—also became sites for the dissemination of ideas about gentility. Periodicals and books outlining the principles of

a m y k u rt z l a n s i ng

IntroductionThe Connecticut River Valley as a Cultural Center, 1740–1840

2 a m y k u r t z l a n s i n g

deportment and polite society were published in Hartford and towns further north along the river beginning in 1792.2 Per-haps not surprisingly, as the Hubers describe, some of the most distinctive needlework emerged from these commercial towns as teachers established schools there to meet valley inhabitants’ demand for cultural accomplishment. As trade and shipping from river ports grew in importance over the course of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many of those locales became vital points of connection to the shoreline, Boston, New York, London, and the West Indies. A flourishing needlework tradition came out of the region, one grounded in local styles and preferences but informed—especially as time went by—by the more ambitious standards set in such cities as Boston.

Landed gentry, merchants, and ministers, whose intermar-riages over the course of several generations helped the group wield considerable power in all areas of society, from commerce to politics to religion, shaped culture in the Connecticut River Valley. This privileged set maintained its authority by carefully nurtur-ing family ties—an endeavor in which needlework played a key part. Work by girls from these prominent families fills the pages of this book. Daughters of the elite were sent to study together at schools where they formed relationships that strengthened bonds among prominent families. At the same time, the needlework the girls produced at these academies helped pave the way for further alliances by promoting their eligibility and accomplishments as future wives and mothers. One type of needlework—the coat of arms—encapsulates the importance of family among valley elites. Leading families promoted their stature by celebrating their pres-tigious names with heraldic emblems stitched by their daughters. When a girl worked an elaborate coat of arms at school in showy metallic thread, she affirmed the station of her family as well as her own refinement, privilege, and education.

Education served as an important marker of status in the Con-necticut River Valley. In order to create a citizenry obedient to civil and religious laws, since 1650 towns in Connecticut had attempted to ensure basic education for both sexes by requiring the estab-lishment of schools. However, study beyond the acquisition of simple literacy was largely unavailable to women in these publicly funded schools. With grammar schools focused on the preparation of boys for professions such as the ministry, girls received most of their instruction—including training in needlework, reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar—from smaller “dame schools” run by female teachers out of their homes. As the Hubers note, a broader and more advanced education for women (one including but not limited to needlework) awaited the emergence in the late eighteenth century of private schools and academies that catered

to elite families’ desire to enhance their daughters’ accomplish-ments, both intellectual and artistic.

By 1800, it was not uncommon for valley residents to travel within the region, particularly for purposes of trade or education, and such travel facilitated exposure to goods and ideas even in rural territories. Thus, by the mid-nineteenth century the cultural differences between country and city or valley and coast dimin-ished somewhat, and with this shift the distinctiveness of the region’s character as a whole lessened. The Connecticut River Val-ley ceased to be thought of as a cultural center in its own right and was instead subsumed into New England more generally. Never-theless, during the heyday of schoolgirl embroidery, from 1740 to 1840, this decentralized region produced a rich and varied array of material culture, with the needle arts at the forefront.

Notes

1. The Connecticut River Valley’s culture has received extensive treat-

ment in Gerald W. R. Ward and William N. Hosley Jr., eds., The Great River:

Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635–1820 (Hartford, Conn.: Wads-

worth Atheneum, 1985). This introduction is indebted to this important

resource, published in conjunction with the Wadsworth Atheneum’s land-

mark 1985 exhibition.

2. The Young Gentleman’s Parental Monitor, an English manual of advice

about conversation and manners, was printed in Hartford in 1792, with

similar books issued in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1796 and Walpole,

New Hampshire, in 1812. See Richard D. Brown, “Regional Culture in

the Revolutionary Era: The Connecticut Valley, 1760–1820,” in Ward and

Hosley, eds., The Great River, 46. One such book provided the verse that

appears on a sampler worked by Charlotte Porter. See page 29.

3

c a r ol a n d s t e p h e n h u b e r

With Needle and BrushSchoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley, 1740–1840

Learn your duty and do it,” Lucy Ann Smith stitched on her 1810 sampler. Lucy’s work is unskilled and the colors are faded, but the sentiment—instructing the young girl to

be obedient and true to her strict New England values—remains forceful. Handed down from generation to generation, this simple sampler made by a seven-year-old from Lyme, Connecticut, re-flects the discipline of early Connecticut River Valley inhabitants. From the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century girls from the mouth of the Connecticut River to the Canadian border, as elsewhere, were taught sampler-making as part of their school curriculum. This essay surveys their work, its role in their educa-tion, and the distinctive pieces produced under the influence of teachers throughout this broad New England region. Although the students’ work leaves a physical piece of history behind, the real story lies in the artistic and academic talent of the teachers who taught these young women and the designs they composed. The unique characteristics of the embroideries make them identifiable as a group and allow attribution to a particular school within the valley. Examining three types of needlework—samplers, canvas-work, and silk embroidery—as we move geographically from the region’s edges and up the river from its mouth reveals the com-monalities and variations that define schoolgirl needlework of the Connecticut River Valley.

Girls began with simple pieces. They stitched alphabets and numbers at first and then graduated to more advanced needle-work as their skills improved. In the absence of a sophisticated population base familiar with current styles found in larger cities, teachers in rural valley towns relied on their own creative designs. At the same time, in the valley’s urban centers, with their ties to Boston or Providence, teachers and their pupils factored into their designs a wider array of stylistic influences. Consequently, work from the valley is diverse. It ranges from folksy, simple samplers

to sophisticated embroidery and watercolors often copied from prints to elaborate coats of arms embellished with silver metallic thread.

Connecticut River Valley needlework is set apart from that of other New England areas by the permanence of family and locality, which allowed distinct regional characteristics to develop. Follow-ing a period of mobility in the seventeenth century, the valley’s population became quite stable after 1680. The consistency of families in the area over several generations resulted in a more ingrown culture with strong local roots.1 Consequently, teach-ers who designed and supervised the stitching of their students were less exposed to outside images, which allowed local styles in needlework to develop throughout the Connecticut River Valley. The relative isolation and independence of these teachers helps account for the distinctiveness of the needlework students created under their tutelage.

Although none is known to have survived, the earliest school-girl needlework in the valley dates from the seventeenth century and likely resembled samplers stitched in England, as does the extant needlework sewn in nearby Boston. They were long, nar-row band samplers, rolled up and kept in the work basket and used as pattern references for decorating household textiles and costumes. As the valley was settled, women’s educational options broadened and needlework became more elaborate. Samplers became more pictorial; canvaswork (a type of needlepoint) and silk- embroidered pictures were added to young ladies’ “accom-plishments.” By the early nineteenth century, the ornamental branches addressed in the classroom expanded to include paint-ing watercolor pictures on paper or silk, as well as painting on vel-vet. Taught to wield both needle and brush, girls often combined sewing and painting in the same piece or at times painted pictures that emulated the look and subject matter of embroidery.

“

4 c a r o l a n d s t e p h e n h u b e r

In the seventeenth century girls were taught needlework by women within their communities, often in so-called “dame” schools. But by the early eighteenth century, many teachers of-fered boarding along with instruction, which made it possible for young ladies from the country or abroad to attend the finer schools in towns and cities. It was not unheard of for a girl to spend an entire year at school, and several of the well-known academies at-tracted students from as far away as England and the Caribbean.2

The women who taught and organized these schools usually did so out of financial necessity: they were often either unmarried or widowed. Women moved in and out of the teaching profes-sion, such transience perhaps contributing to the numbers whose names are unknown today despite the distinctiveness of their work. There were no schools for teachers, so these women educa-tors based their teachings on the training they had received as girls. It was not uncommon for them to use their girlhood sampler as the basic format for those their students made. Several different types of schools were available for young females. Some women offered only day schools where girls were taught basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and sewing skills. Others gave private lessons and focused on music, drawing, and needlework. And then there were the “best” schools, academies that young ladies attended as a sort of “finishing” school where they received an advanced education and lessons in all the “accomplished” branches—music, drawing, dancing, recitation, acting, and needlework.

Historical documents about schooling reveal a wide range of expectations for the student as well as expertise on the part of the schoolmistress. Mrs. John Waller taught the basics in Lyme, Connecticut, between 1680 and 1688. According to town records, she was hired “for teaching young children and maids to read and whatever else they may be capable of learning either knitting or sewing.”3 She was paid twenty shillings for teaching in 1688. Roughly a century later, in 1793, an advertisement for a more experienced and talented teacher, Mrs. Mary Mansfield of New Haven, stated, “She teaches . . . plain sewing, knitting, embroi-dery, lace making, drawing, etc. And if any ladies should think it too much trouble to draw their own patterns, if they will take the trouble to call on her, she will endeavour to suit them. She draws patterns of any kind, either for muslin, upon satin, screens, pock-etbooks, spreads, etc.”4

Girls in the Connecticut River Valley frequently pursued ad-vanced education and cultural accomplishment in New Haven, Middletown, Wethersfield, Hartford, Norwich, New London, and Litchfield (all in Connecticut); in Deerfield, Northampton, and South Hadley in Massachusetts; and in Windsor, Vermont. Many of the valley’s young ladies attended schools in Boston and

Providence and often enrolled in more than one institution over the course of their education. The pursuit of refinement was im-portant to the wealthy, and education for a young woman in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries could easily exceed the cost of sending a young man to Harvard or Yale.5 An accom-plished and educated young woman could marry well and bring additional wealth to the family. This fine education all began with the making of a sampler.

Samplers

The first sewing endeavor for a young girl—often when she was only five or six—was a marking sampler, usually worked in silk thread on a linen ground. This was a small piece undertaken as an exercise to become skilled at stitching and to learn alphabets and numbers. Such samplers reinforced basic literacy and aided in “marking” household textiles and costumes. Early inventories document textiles as among the most valuable possessions within the house-hold.6 Because of their worth they were stitched with the owner’s initials, to insure they were returned to the proper person after being sent out for laundering, and with numbers so that they might be rotated for even wear. After successfully completing a mark-ing sampler, a young lady might advance to a larger, more pictorial piece. But she could only do so if her family was able to afford to continue her education, and many girls did not have this privilege.

While the sampler form was pervasive in early America, each region developed its own variations. In the Connecticut River Val-ley, distinctive approaches also emerged in different towns. One of the most notable is that associated with Norwich, Connecti-cut, on the valley’s southeastern edge, where young women from the valley attended school. In Norwich, samplers incorporating pictorial panels worked in tent stitch—a series of parallel diago-nal stitches referred to as needlepoint today—in addition to the traditional alphabets and numbers were popular. The solidly filled backgrounds characteristic of Norwich samplers emerged in the late 1760s and derive from canvaswork pictures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These striking dark fields are extraor-dinarily appealing and are apparently unique to New England; examples have been found in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Alice Mather, who traveled to Norwich from her home in Lyme, Connecticut, worked her handsome sampler at an unknown school in 1774 when she was eleven years old (plate 1).7 In addition to the black background, her piece shares a Greek key pattern, the image of a blue house, and the choice of biblical verse with other Norwich needlework. Most samplers were not trimmed with fabric, so the applied chintz border on this piece is unusual.8

s c h o o l g i r l e m b r o i d e r y f r o m t h e c o n n e c t i c u t r i v e r v a l l e y 5

Thirteen years later, in 1787, Elizabeth Huntington and her cousin Ruth Huntington stitched samplers in Norwich that re-late to Alice’s with solidly filled backgrounds and quirky flowers (plates 3 and 4). The black filled background of these Norwich needleworks was also popular in Boston, where Hannah Gore made her delightful sampler depicting a couple walking to a meet-inghouse in 1784 (plate 2). In Westfield, Massachusetts, during the late 1700s the same solid background style was prevalent and appears on a group of small samplers including those worked by Fanny Mosley and Clarrissa Fowler (plates 14 and 15). Whether the filled black background style began in Massachusetts or Connecti-cut is unknown, but its presence in work from both areas suggests its use was spread by teachers and pupils who moved, at some point, between the two.

Like the work done in Norwich, Middletown pieces also share certain characteristics. Both Martha Mortimer Starr in 1791 and Charlotte Porter in 1810 worked pictorial scenes in their Middle-town, Connecticut, samplers depicting houses (which may have been their own) and boys tending animals (plates 6 and 7). Be-cause the compositions are quite different and the samplers were made nineteen years apart, it is doubtful that these were worked under the tutelage of the same teacher. Yet Charlotte’s teacher may have been influenced by samplers made under the instruction of Martha’s teacher. These Middletown pieces suggest how local tra-ditions developed based on the styles of one or two teachers.

In the early nineteenth century a different type of sampler emerged—family registers recording marriages, births, and deaths of family members. Needleworks honored these mile-stones and reflected the importance of family ties in the valley, where, as elsewhere, alliances by marriage helped shape the social fabric. Betsey M. Ingham, of Saybrook, Connecticut, was from a family that traced itself to the Mayflower and the earliest settlers of the Saybrook Colony. She stitched a family genealogy in 1830 that relates to a small group of others from this area (plates 9 and 10). Pieces associated with the group share an unusual stepped and floral border that distinguishes them from genealogies from other locales.9

Genealogies often included a memorial to a particular family member, and some women continued to supplement the infor-mation over the course of a lifetime. Between 1824 and 1827, Miss Anna Cornwall, a teacher in Glastonbury, Connecticut, taught her students to create mourning samplers with finely embroidered flowers, garlands, and trees surrounding family records. She may have based her designs on samplers from nearby Wethersfield and Hartford, which feature the same floral elements. Her pupil Mary Ann Post worked an exquisite example in 1827 that includes pillars

under an arched enclosure, floral garlands with bows, family births, memorial tombs, and cartouches inscribed with the deaths of her parents and brother William, which she added at a much later date (plate 13).

Wethersfield, in central Connecticut just south of Hartford, emerged as an important center for needlework in the valley, in keeping with its key role in river trade and regional culture. Al-though established in 1635 as one of the three founding communi-ties of the Connecticut Colony, there is no recognizable group of seventeenth- or eighteenth-century samplers from the town. It does, however, claim the largest group of identifiable nineteenth-century samplers in the state, which were worked at two differ-ent schools. One was taught by Abigail Goodrich (1762–1829), the oldest of seven children born to Elizur Goodrich (1730–85), a mariner who died in the French West Indies, and Abigail Dem-ing (ca.1733–1813). Goodrich kept a private school in Wethersfield from about 1804 until 1815, when she most likely joined two of her students, the Misses Charlotte (1790–1858) and Mary Porter But-ler (1788–1832), who had begun a school of their own about 1811. The Misses Butler were the daughters of Frederick Butler (1766–1843) and Mary Belden (1770–1811), who married in 1788 and bore eight children before 1806. In 1811 Frederick Butler, a Yale graduate, fell into financial ruin, and his wife died; these events may have impelled their two eldest daughters to commence teach-ing at that time. They possibly taught with him when he operated a school in the Academy building in Wethersfield and were joined by their friend Abigail Goodrich, about 1815. The Butler girls both had previously attended the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, the subject of Susan Schoelwer’s essay in this volume.

The Butler women combined elements of both the Goodrich and Patten schools in their teaching. The samplers from both schools are richly decorated with garlands and flowers. They often feature townscapes with houses, churches, rivers, and people. Characteristic of samplers worked under the direction of the Butler sisters is a gold paper eagle similar to the one identified with the Patten school, which was known for a raised-work eagle stitched with metallic thread. They also included paper-faced people, which are found as well on samplers from Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire (see plate 22). Diantha Griswold’s sampler is typical of the Butler school with its townscape, genealogical infor-mation, a memorial to her mother and brother, and eagle and swag (plate 11).

As the floral swag and elaborate townscape suggest, Sarah Smith most likely worked her 1813 sampler at Abigail Goodrich’s school (plate 12). Demonstrating her community’s pride of place, Sarah depicted the Connecticut River and several identifiable

6 c a r o l a n d s t e p h e n h u b e r

structures in prosperous Wethersfield, including the First Church of Christ and the building next to it, most likely the home of the pastor Reverend John Marsh (1742–1821) and his wife Ann Grant (1748–1838).10 Above this scene, Sarah incorporated a verse from a hymn written by Isaac Watts in 1709, one familiar to many sam-pler makers. Most of the verses found on samplers were not com-posed by the sampler maker or her teacher. Sentiments of virtue, piety, or death were sometimes original inscriptions, but usually girls were directed to pious and moral verses and hymns written by prominent ministers and literary figures.

Further north, in Massachusetts, schools along the Connecticut River attracted students from other New England states. The larger schools that produced distinctive needlework are the Abby Wright school in South Hadley, and the academies in Westfield and Deer-field, which are discussed in the section of this essay that deals with silk embroidery. Although the teacher is not known, stylistic traits make it possible to identify works associated with another school, probably in Northampton, that drew girls from both Con-necticut and Massachusetts. Two spectacular pictorial samplers from this school were worked by Wealthy Griswold of Windsor, Connecticut, in 1804 and Sally Olcott Wells of Hatfield, Massachu-setts, in 1807 (plates 16 and 17). Both exhibit backgrounds covered with white silk worked in long stitch and oval pictorial center pan-els of youthful girls in bucolic settings.11

A large group of samplers from the Deerfield area have come to be known as the work of the “White Dove” school. Each depicts a pair of birds outlined in black. Molly Billings worked the earli-est known piece from this group in 1791, and the motif continued to be popular until 1826 (plate 18). In 1824 Esther Slate worked a sampler in this area that included, along with the white doves, an image of an elephant in the left corner (plate 20). Inspiration for her design probably came from an illustrated newspaper adver-tisement or broadside for the elephant “Columbus,” who drew large crowds as he was exhibited throughout New England and the South between 1818 and 1829.12 This playful inclusion serves as a reminder of the youth of its maker, who was then only ten years old.

Samplers from the less populated rural areas of the valley in Vermont and New Hampshire are not as plentiful. Schoolmis-tresses, most of whom came from other areas, brought with them designs from their native localities and introduced a variety of sampler motifs and styles. Polly Wyatt captured an earlier style from Massachusetts with a meandering floral border on the sam-pler she made in Newbury, Vermont, in 1808, when she was about fifteen (plate 24). It may have been based on one her teacher made as a child and, with its serpentine floral motif, bears resemblance

to others made in Newbury, Massachusetts, the town from which the settlers of Newbury, Vermont, originated.

Canvaswork Pictures

After mastering the basic skills of sampler making, girls from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries could expand their expertise by creating canvaswork pictures. These pieces recall seventeenth-century English precedents, which were also worked in tent stitch. Instead of the minute stitches in silk on a tightly woven linen canvas that characterized these English pieces, American canvaswork was stitched in wool and silk on a larger-weave linen canvas, thus making the project less time-consuming. The technique was very popular in Boston. The only other area known to have produced these pictures in any number is Norwich, Connecticut, which points to that city’s trade connection to the coast. However, a small group of early canvaswork pictures made by girls from Middletown and Fairfield, Connecticut, also exists. It is not known with certainty where they were created, but they were either influenced by a teacher from Norwich who left the area for towns to the west or the work of girls who traveled to Norwich for their schooling. A piece newly attributed to Lucia Yeomans of Mid-dletown, Connecticut, from about 1740 relates to an extraordinary pair of canvaswork pictures made by Mary Lockwood in the 1740s and another by Anna Burr dated 1743 (plates 26, 28, 29, and 27). The pieces all feature dark backgrounds and share similar compo-sitional elements, including trees and large, detailed houses with oversized mullioned windows.

Two delightful and ambitious canvaswork pictures of 1758 descended in the Chandler family of Woodstock, Connecticut, and were, according to family tradition, stitched by one or two of the daughters of John Chandler Jr. (1693–1762) and Hannah Gardiner (1699–1739) (plates 30 and 31). They depict charming garden scenes, one with courting couples engaged in conversation while being served refreshment by servants of African descent. Nearby, two boys read, and Cupid aims his bow. Furniture has been brought outside the house for the garden party. The other canvaswork exhibits a piper and friend entertaining a maiden in a pastoral setting filled with animals and flowers. One of the seven Chandler daughters attended school in Boston, but the maker or makers of these needleworks was likely educated closer to home, possibly even in Woodstock. Her use of an original design, one not derived from a print, also recalls earlier canvaswork from nearby Norwich. Although not copied from specific prints, the Chandler canvasworks emulate sophisticated “conversation pieces” com-mon at the time in English family portraiture.

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Typically, compositions for canvaswork pictures were taken from prints of English or French origin. Two sisters, Polly (Pru-dence) and Esther Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, worked the “Reclining Shepherdess,” derived from an English print, at school in Boston after their father’s death in 1748. Alethea Stiles of Woodstock, Connecticut, based her canvaswork on the same print in 1762 (plate 32). Alethea took the unusual liberty of prominently signing and dating her work at the upper center of the composition—a gesture indicative of her forthright person-ality. A letter written at age ten to her cousin Ezra Stiles, subse-quently president of Yale College (1777–95), demonstrates her forceful character: “Why mayn’t I go to college too, for my father says one Jenny Cameron put on a jacket and breeches and was a good soldier, and why may not I also and live at college?”13 The thirst for education Alethea expressed would increasingly be satis-fied in the nineteenth century at academies where women pursued a broader array of studies.

Silk-Embroidered Pictures

In the late eighteenth century, canvaswork pictures diminished in popularity as the neoclassical style emerged, and silk-embroidered pictures became the height of fashion. Unlike canvaswork, with its deep colors, or samplers, with their plainer linen grounds, silk embroideries incorporated lavish materials and complex imagery, both matching the ambitious spirit of the new repub-lic. The Federal-period interiors were the perfect setting for the gold-framed, glimmering silk pictures that young women made at private schools and academies. Considered an essential accom-plishment, upon completion they were taken home and hung in the “best” parlor for all to admire. Much of the subject matter of these lustrous embroideries derived from prints depicting stories from the Bible, history, mythology, and literature. Patriotic scenes and emblems were also widely copied.

Memorial scenes were an important part of the genre, and when George Washington died in 1799 the theme of mourners weeping at tombs became ubiquitous in silk embroidery. As scholar Betty Ring recognized, the Founding Father’s loss “was evidently the impetus for the sudden and overwhelming popular-ity of mourning embroidery.” Ring stated, “In addition to hon-oring Washington, something different immediately happened that seldom occurred abroad. American teachers devised related patterns for memorials dedicated to deceased members of the needle worker’s family, and these were often carefully planned to depict the appropriate mourners.” While sometimes inspired by the recent death of a loved one, memorial scenes could also honor

family members who died before their young maker was born. Thus, Ring concluded, “rather than an expression of current grief” these pieces “were the result of fashion rather than melancholy.”14

The execution of a silk embroidery involved a number of people—the young lady attending the school; her father or other sponsor who paid the tuition and materials fees; the teacher of needlework; the creator of the print source; the merchant who imported the silks from England and other countries; the profes-sional artist who painted the faces and the background scenes; and, finally, the framer. The teacher and student selected the design (often from an engraving), and a young lady frequently sought approval from her father or guardian before embarking on the project. The teacher or a student drew the design onto a piece of silk. The needleworker in turn sewed a linen border around the edges. This border was fastened onto a wooden frame by nailing or lacing through hand-worked buttonholes in the linen (plate 34), which created a taut surface on which to embroider, usually in silk or chenille thread. A student might also use watercolor, ink, paint, metallic thread, gold foil, fringe, fabric, velvet, paper, and spangles. Upon completion of the embroidery, a professional artist or the girl’s teacher would usually paint the faces and back-ground. Boston portraitist John Singleton Copley was known to have painted many, as was John Johnston, who is recognized as the “Boston limner.”15 Finally, the needlework was sent to the framer for a reverse-painted glass mat—sometimes embellished with the work’s title and the maker’s name—and a frame. From start to fin-ish, one of these exquisite works of art could take from six weeks to a year.

In contrast to more basic types of sewing done at home, silk embroideries were made at private schools and academies as part of women’s course of study. At the turn of the nineteenth century, young women at these schools were taught an extensive academic curriculum similar to that offered to young men. But there were important differences. Although academies offered female educa-tion in the fundamental branches of languages, history, and the classics, women were not encouraged to study law, medicine, or religion. They were being schooled to be homemakers and ma-trons in a polite society; therefore these subjects were considered unnecessary and the ornamental branches more important. As advertised in 1819, the Mrs. Saunders and Miss Beach Academy in Dorchester, Massachusetts, instructed young ladies in “reading, writing, arithmetic, ancient and modern geography, astronomy, use of globes, use of maps, history, rhetoric, botany, composition, English and French languages.” Students also learned applied arts including “drawing, painting in oils, crayons and watercol-ors, painting on velvet, ornamental paper work, drawing, coloring

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maps, plain sewing, tambour work, and needlework.” In addition to these subjects, the school offered excellent lodging and healthy conditions.16 With the tempting endorsements this school and others advertised, many girls from wealthier Connecticut River Valley homes sought further education in Boston, Providence, or Litchfield.

Three important academies in Connecticut attracted many young ladies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In Hartford, Miss Sarah Patten, in 1785, and Mrs. Lydia Bull Royse, in 1799, opened rival schools, and in 1792 Miss Sarah Pierce began her school in Litchfield. Girls at all of these schools produced extraordinary silk-embroidered needlework. Students from throughout the Connecticut River Valley made their way to these schools, and when some became teachers they translated what they had learned into designs for their own pupils.

The Hartford school started by Sarah Patten (1761–1843) and run by her, her mother Mrs. Ruth Wheelock Patten (1740–1831), and her sisters Ruth (1764–1850), and Mary (1769–1850) achieved great fame. Susan Schoelwer covers this school in depth in an essay within this catalog. The needlework produced at the Pattens’ school is bright and crisp, stitched with colorful silk often against a white silk background. A raised and padded eagle worked in gold or silver holding a floral garland tied with ribbon is the signature characteristic of many of the coats of arms and pictorial subjects worked under their direction (plate 40). Allegorical and biblical subjects such as Charity and Moses were copied from prints and became school favorites (plates 42–44). When family memori-als became the fashion, they were quickly incorporated into the Patten curriculum and usually included a river setting and painted figures. Apparently exclusive to the Patten school are water-color coats of arms like that painted by Mary Ingraham Rogers (plate 41).

Lydia Bull Royse (1772–1832), also spelled Royce, operated what many considered the best school in Hartford. Lydia was the daughter of tavern keeper and merchant Frederick Bull (1753–97) and Lydia Griswold (1753–1811). In 1792 she married John Royse (1772–98) in New York City. They lived in New York, Richmond, Virginia, and New Bern, North Carolina, where he died of yellow fever in 1798, leaving Lydia a widow with a daughter, the only one of four who would survive into adulthood. She returned to Hartford, and it was most likely out of financial necessity that she opened her school.

Beautiful silk pictures and memorial embroideries reflect the skill that emerged from the Royse school (plates 48, 50, 51, 52, and 53). These works commonly featured appliqué garments and velvet foregrounds, gold foil, star-shaped leaves on the trees, and

layered grounds. Lydia Royse painted the faces and backgrounds, which often exhibit large areas of open sky and finely painted water. One exquisite example of Royse school work is “The Her-mit,” the subject of which was taken from a poem by Anglo-Irish poet and clergyman Thomas Parnell (plate 54). Although draw-ing and painting were emphasized in the curriculum, individual authorship and originality of design were not. Attribution of needlework pictures to both the school and to particular stu-dents is difficult, as most were not signed and the designs were often copied from prints, making it challenging to discern each maker’s hand.

Lydia Royse’s school was an immediate success due to the many advertisements she ran and her immense skill as a needlewoman and painter. It is unknown where she learned needlework, but a notation on the back of a portrait attributed to her states that she studied art with portrait and history painter John Trumbull.17 Her school occupied four different locations from 1799 until 1816, when she temporarily closed. When her daughter Eliza mar-ried George Sheldon in 1816, Lydia joined their household and taught just a few pupils. In 1817, she reopened her school after her son-in-law’s sudden death. A year later Lydia stopped teaching, and her daughter opened a school with a Mrs. Grosvenor in 1818. In 1820–24 they were advertising in Boston’s Columbian Centinel as well as in Hartford that their school was only one day’s ride from Boston.18 Their efforts to appeal to Boston audiences demonstrate how important a center for needlework their Connecticut River Valley school had become. In 1824 Lydia and her daughter Eliza opened a Ladies’ Warehouse and sold piece goods and various notions. They also taught music and drawing. Lydia died in 1832. In 1837, Eliza remarried John Butler (1780–1847), a prosperous bachelor, and ended her teaching career.

The rivalry between the Royse and Patten schools was often the leading gossip in Hartford. Who had the most students? Who produced the best needlework? Who painted more beautifully? Many years after the close of the schools an elderly Miss Rock-well, whose sister had attended the Royse school, recalled that it “was far ahead of the Misses Pattens.”19 She continued, “After learning all that the academy on the hill could teach them, the best families, it seems, were accustomed to send their daughters to Mrs. Royse’s. . . . Its celebrity, in fact, seems to have been such that pupils were drawn to it from a considerable distance. . . . and since the room for boarders was always limited, the majority of these pupils appear to have occupied quarters in the town, and to have attended the classes along with the day scholars.”20 While the schools in Hartford were an overwhelming success, other schools were springing up throughout the valley and elsewhere as female

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education became more important in American society. After her father’s death, Sarah Pierce (1767–1852) was sent to school in New York by her brother with the intent that she return to Litchfield and open a school to help the family financially.21 Where she at-tended school previously is unknown, but quite possibly she at-tended school in Hartford with her contemporaries, the Misses Patten and Lydia Royse. Her first classroom was in the Pierce home, but by 1798 the school was so successful the town provided her a building that became known as the Female Academy. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century her school was attracting girls from every state, Canada, and the West Indies. Although she was not fond of needlework, she nevertheless emphasized it as an accomplishment, and she employed many teachers at different times to teach the ornamental branches. Sarah Pierce’s school was outside the valley, but the great resemblance between pieces from her school and those from Hartford suggest that she or some of her instructors may have attended the Patten or Royse schools in that city. In addition, many of her students came from the Connecticut River Valley.

Further north, the townspeople of South Hadley, Massa-chusetts, urged a local woman, Abigail Wright, or Abby, as she was known, to open a girls’ school. After its founding in 1803, it quickly drew a large student body. Betty Ring has identified the age range and origins of the pupils—the youngest girls of ten or eleven came from the local area, but most pupils were older, fourteen to twenty-one. Those from other towns boarded with South Hadley families.22 In order to ease the boarding problem, Abby’s widowed mother joined her about 1805, and they purchased a large house where many of the students lived.

Abby Wright (1774–1842) was born in Wethersfield, Connecti-cut, the only child of Levi Wright (1745–76) and Abigail Wolcott (1752–1832). Her mother’s second husband was Josiah Goodrich. Their large family of seven children lived in Pittsfield, Massachu-setts. Abby taught at some of the district schools and attended the Westfield Academy in 1800–1801 when she was twenty-six, but it is unknown where she learned needlework. Her mother was from Wethersfield, and some of the work from Abby’s school displays Hartford influences; she may have been educated there or at least have been exposed to some of the needlework produced in that city. Abby stopped teaching in 1809 when she married Peter Allen, a merchant and brewer. Her half-sister Sophia Goodrich took over her school, while her mother continued to house boarders. By 1816 Sophia was teaching in Spencertown, New York, and the school had closed.

Embroideries from Abby Wright’s school are easily recog-nized by the abundant use of metallic thread, stylized trees, wispy

willows, tiny stitches, and sometimes velvet appliqué (plates 58–63). The faces are simply painted, probably by Abby herself or the student, as were the figures in the later years of her school.

Abby was a beloved figure among both her students and the townspeople. She was concerned not only with teaching academic subjects and needlework to her students, who sometimes num-bered forty to fifty in a class, but also with guiding them in moral demeanor and manners. “Perhaps in no period of a woman’s life is her conduct more criticized and her actions more liable to censure than when attending a boarding school,” said Abby to her young lady students. She spoke of her “desire to promote the happiness of my pupils, to lead them in the paths of rectitude and virtue, that they may establish an unblemished reputation and become orna-ments to society.”23 While tutoring her pupils in needlework, Abby also instilled the values women in the early republic were expected to maintain.

It was not uncommon for girls to travel away from home to pur-sue either a classical education or to refine their needlework skills with the most elite teachers. On a trip to Springfield, Massachu-setts, in August 1805, Abby viewed an embroidery made in Boston and, in a letter to her half-sister, candidly acknowledged the dif-ferences between the more provincial products of the Connecticut River Valley and the sophisticated accomplishments possible in the coastal metropolis. “We called at the Rev. Mr. Howard’s . . . to see a piece of needlework lately executed at a certain celebrated school in Boston,” she wrote. “The piece I refer to was wrought by a Miss Lyman in memory of both her parents. . . . The expense of drawing and painting the faces was eight dollars and six months spent in Boston in working it. Comparing this with the labor of six or eight weeks in the country by a country girl without the assis-tance of a limner we might expect as great a contrast as we find.”24

The piece Abby described was worked at Susanna Rowson’s famed academy when it was in Newton, just west of Boston, and confirms that outside artists sometimes painted faces. The Rowson school was noted for the quality of the silk embroideries produced there. Betty Ring has observed that one of the char-acteristics of its needlework is the use of dark colors that do not blend with the painted background.25 A scene from the Rowson school depicting Antony and Cleopatra exhibits the use of richly colored sections in the embroidery (plate 49). A Connecticut River Valley teacher’s exposure to such skilled work could inspire her to encourage her students toward new heights in their silk embroideries.

Deerfield Academy was another school in the valley opened to cater to the growing demand for women’s education. Estab-lished in 1797 in Deerfield, Massachusetts, it was coeducational

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and required that the student be able to read and write before being admitted. Deerfield was a large agricultural village with no academies to the west, only one to the east at New Salem, and the other twelve in existence more than one hundred miles away. Schools to the south in Westfield, Northampton, and Springfield did not offer a comparable education. Along with education in academic subjects the academy emphasized manners and morals, and young ladies were offered classes in the ornamental accom-plishments. There was an additional fee of twenty-five cents each for drawing and needlework, which were sometimes taught by students from the Patten and Royse schools who found positions at Deerfield. The school, like others, consisted of four quarters, each eleven to twelve weeks long, and students were usually in their teens.

Prior to the opening of Deerfield Academy, girls from western Massachusetts often traveled to Boston to receive further edu-cation. Such was the case with seventeen-year-old Dolly Ash-ley, daughter of Rev. Jonathan Ashley, who according to Suzanne Flynt was sent there in the summer of 1760 “with the hope that she would ‘return with some useful improvements.’ ” Her father was greatly concerned that she would be “exposed to innumer-able temptations” in Boston and that a young woman who was not careful could become “haughty & disdainfull.”26 The reluctance to expose daughters to these influences, not to mention the consid-erable expense of study at an elite Boston institution, favored the success of such provincial schools as Deerfield Academy.

One of the teachers at Deerfield was Jerusha Mather Wil-liams (1783–1844), who attended the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford; there she worked a Williams coat of arms before becoming the preceptress at Deerfield from 1806 to 1812. Under her guidance students created many exceptional drawings and needlework pieces, often influenced by designs from the Patten school.

Another Deerfield Academy teacher, Orra White (1796–1863), attended two schools prior to assuming her position there. Born in South Amherst, Massachusetts, Orra studied at Abby Wright’s school in South Hadley and then at the very celebrated Susanna Rowson school in Boston, which was considered the best in the country. Orra taught both exact sciences and ornamental arts at Deerfield from 1813 to 1818. In addition to needlework, the or-namental arts included drawing and painting, Orra’s specialties, which students could pursue in their own right or incorporate into silk embroideries. Many exquisite botanical paintings were done under her meticulous eye. She was interested in astronomy and botanical specimens and compiled an “Herbarium parvum, pic-tum” in 1817 and 1818.27 An accomplished artist, she also copied

prints and landscapes from published works and instructed her students in the painting of decorative wooden boxes and hand-held fire screens.28 Subjects for watercolors made under her supervision were taken from natural scenes and prints. When copying from a print the scene was outlined in ink or pencil, then colored in and the foliage painted in a dappled stencil style. A large number of watercolors, which became immensely popular for schoolgirls in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, were made in Deerfield (plate 65). Orra White married Edward Hitch-cock (1793–1864), who was the Deerfield Academy preceptor from 1816 to 1819. They left the academy in 1819, but Orra continued to paint and draw; she executed most of the 232 plates and 1135 woodcuts for her husband’s scientific publications.

Deerfield Academy struggled for the next few years, at one point only admitting female students and then closing altogether for two years. In 1821 the tuition was lowered, and the following year the curriculum was expanded. By 1826 enrollment increased, and the ornamental branches continued to be offered.

In 1800, the Connecticut River Valley between the northern Massachusetts border and Canada was less developed than Deer-field and towns south. In 1792 there was no post office north of Springfield. But as rural as some of Vermont and New Hampshire was, girls still emulated their more sophisticated neighbors and sought instruction in the polite ornamental arts. Vermont and New Hampshire had few large towns along the Connecticut River in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and girls from these rural areas sometimes traveled to larger towns and cities for advanced study. Teachers often came from neighboring states, and it was not unusual for an instructor to teach at several different schools. Mary R. Read taught first at Miss Fiske’s school in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1816, at the Windsor Female Academy in 1817, and in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, in 1818.

The largest school in the northern area of the valley was es-tablished in Windsor, Vermont, in 1817. Migrants from the lower valley who brought with them a desire for culture settled the town. About 1800, the innovative Asher Benjamin designed many high-style buildings in Windsor that were comparable to those anywhere in America. Much in demand at the time, Benjamin was also the architect of Deerfield Academy’s first building, de-signed and erected just prior to his move to Windsor. In this rich environment there was an obvious need for a female academy that would prepare young ladies to fit into such elegant surroundings. Although named the Windsor Female Academy and Junior College, an extensive curriculum was offered to both the male and female population. Despite its location at the more distant reaches of the valley, the school was competitive with the best in New England. In

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addition to the usual academic studies, lessons in the ornamental accomplishments were available to women (plates 67 and 68).

Samplers made by girls in the upper portion of the Connecticut River Valley are usually more conventional, and numerous small marking samplers survive. While many memorial watercolors from the region are known (plates 69–71), few silk-embroidered memorials have been documented. Instead, the memorial water-colors from the area imitate silk embroidery through brushstrokes that mimic stitches and compositions resembling needlework memorials. The lack of more sophisticated silk embroidery known to have been created in the upper valley suggests the absence of enough capable teachers in the area. Girls may have been forced to settle for painted memorials or to travel greater distances for instruction. Wealthier girls could have attended more elite schools like Susanna Rowson’s in Boston, while young ladies from families of more modest means were unable to pursue further artistic edu-cation. Unless an upper valley girl signed her silk embroidery, it can be difficult to distinguish her work from that of her classmates who hailed from other areas.

By the 1830s female education and society were changing drastically. Public education became more available, and, under the encouragement of reformers such as William Woodbridge, Emma Hart Willard, and Catharine Beecher—once a student at Miss Pierce’s school—academic subjects from which women had once been excluded began to replace ornamental accomplish-ments. Women were more vocal about their desire for a rigorous curriculum, and the female masses were exposed to scholarship formerly only offered to young men. As the genteel world of the early-nineteenth-century Federal period gave way to a new era, women’s education evolved, and the importance of needlework waned. Although classroom instruction in sewing continued well into the twentieth century, it consisted mainly of plain house-hold sewing and not the decorative type that had been in vogue for centuries.

But the needleworks and paintings produced by diligent young ladies between the 1740s and the 1840s were treasured by their families and handed down from generation to generation, often with a verbal or written history. The Connecticut River Valley’s young ladies and their teachers have left a legacy in their designs, stitching, and painting. Their samplers, embroideries, watercol-ors, and paintings exemplify the education young ladies received and the towns and culture in which they lived. Regional char-acteristics allow works to be attributed to specific localities and set them apart from work performed in the large coastal cities. Collected and cherished, they have come full circle and once again hang in the “best” parlors and rooms in America.

Notes

1. See Kevin M. Sweeney, “From Wilderness to Arcadian Vale: Material

Life in the Connecticut River Valley, 1635–1760,” in The Great River: Art

and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635–1820, ed. Gerald W. R. Ward and

William N. Hosley Jr. (Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985), 21.

2. Lynne Templeton Brickley, “Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Acad-

emy,” in Theodore and Nancy Sizer et al., To Ornament Their Minds: Sarah

Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy, 1792–1833 (Litchfield, CT: Litchfield

Historical Society, 1993), 40.

3. Jean Chandler Burr, comp. and ed., Lyme Records, 1667–1730 (Ston-

ington, CT: Pequot Press, 1968), quoted in Mary Sterling Bakke, A Sampler

of Lifestyles: Womanhood and Youth in Colonial Lyme (Lyme: Lyme, Con-

necticut, Bicentennial Commission, 1976), 45, 85.

4. Quoted in Glee Krueger, New England Samplers to 1840 (Sturbridge,

MA: Old Sturbridge Village, 1978), 145.

5. Brickley, “Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy,” 35.

6. Abbott Lowell Cummings, ed., Rural Household Inventories: Estab-

lishing the Names, Uses and Furnishings of Rooms in the Colonial New England

Home, 1675–1775 (Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England

Antiquities, 1964), xx–xxi, 134.

7. The sampler states the maker was in the “twelvth year of her age.”

Because one’s first birthday marks the completion of the first year of life,

an eleven-year-old girl would be in the twelfth year of age.

8. A sampler made by Nancy Sibley of Great Barrington, Massachu-

setts, in 1808 has an applied cotton fabric with a painted and stitched

scene. The teacher was most likely Betsy Bostwick, who was from the

Wethersfield, Connecticut, area.

9. Two very similar samplers from this unknown school, both in pri-

vate collections, were made by Jerusha Rose ca. 1815 and Philippa Doane

in 1817.

10. Ann Grant, originally of East Windsor, Connecticut, made the coat

of arms discussed in one of the entries in this volume (see plate 38).

11. Another sampler, nearly identical in composition to Sally’s, was

made by Julia Ann Fitch of Hatfield, Massachusetts, and dated July 2, 1807

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

12. An early advertisement for Columbus from the area appeared in

the Greenfield newspaper Franklin Herald on May 12, 1818: “the majestic

Animal columbus, a male Elephant. . . . To be seen at A. Goodenough’s

in this Town, on Wednesday, and Thursday. . . . The elephant is not only

the largest and most sagacious animal in the world, but from the peculiar

manner in which it takes its food and drink of every kind with its trunk, is

acknowledged to be the greatest natural curiosity ever offered to the pub-

lic . . . and the only one ever exhibited in America.” This ad is only one of a

number from around New England touting Columbus’s appearances over

the course of a decade. See, for example, Providence Gazette, Sept. 4, 1822.

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13. Alethea Stiles to Ezra Stiles, Oct. 7, 1754. Ezra Stiles Papers, Beine-

cke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

14. Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers and Pictorial

Needlework, 1650–1850 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 1:20–21.

15. Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, 1:80.

16. The proprietors’ advertisement in an 1819 Boston newspaper con-

tinued, “It is presumed that no Seminary of the kind in this country ever

offered superior advantages for the advancement of young Ladies in the

accomplishments usually deemed necessary to constitute a polite educa-

tion. The Pupils have access to a well chosen Library of above fifteen hun-

dred volumes including the best Classic Authors, French and English, the

use of large Maps, etc. . . . The house is very spacious, the accommoda-

tions excellent, the situation admirable and remarkably healthy. terms/

Board per quarter $36, Tuition from 8 to $12 per quarter $12, Entrance

for the French Language $5, Use of piano-forte per month $1, Washing

per doz. .50, Stationary at Booksellers prices, Music and Dancing by emi-

nent Masters, Young Ladies who remain at the Academy one year will be

boarded at $30 per quarter.” Columbian Centinel, Apr. 21, 1819, 2.

17. Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, 1:212.

18. Ibid., 1:214; Columbian Centinel, Apr. 12, 1820; also Connecticut

Courant, Mar. 27, 1821.

19. Quoted in J. Hammond Trumbull, ed., The Memorial History of

Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633–1884 (Boston: Edward L. Osgood, 1886),

1:647.

20. The “academy on the hill” refers to the Patten school. Trumbull,

ed., History of Hartford County, 1:645, 647.

21. Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, 1:218–19. Sarah was the youngest of

seven children of John Pierce (1730–83), a Litchfield potter, and his first

wife, Mary Paterson (1731–70). Ring stated of Pierce: “She was about

twenty-five years old when she began teaching in the dining room of the

Pierce home, and journals of her early scholars reveal that her program

was rather erratic and attendance somewhat casual. Often the daily en-

tries say, ‘Miss Sally did not keep school,’ generally with no reason given.”

22. Ibid., 1:161.

23. “Abby Wright Allen: A Record of Her Letters, etc., 1795–1842,” 222,

224, quoted in ibid., 1:159.

24. “Abby Wright Allen: A Record of Her Letters, etc., 1795–1842,”

76–7, quoted in ibid., 1:82.

25. Ibid., 1:89. For more on the Rowson school, including its various

locations over the years, see Jane C. Nylander, “Useful & Ornamental

Education for Young Ladies: Mrs. Rowson’s Academy, Boston, 1797–1822,”

New England Ancestors (Winter 2006): 19–26, 51.

26. Jonathan Ashley to Dorothy (Dolly) Ashley, June 18, 1760, Deer-

field, Williams Papers, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library,

quoted in Suzanne B. Flynt, Ornamental and Useful Accomplishments:

Schoolgirl Education and Deerfield Academy, 1800–1830 (Deerfield, MA:

Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and Deerfield Academy, 1988), 9.

27. In Latin, an herbarium is a collection of plants, in this instance a

little one (parvum) composed of paintings (pictum, past participle of pin-

gere, to paint) rather than the dried plants themselves.

28. Flynt, Ornamental and Useful Accomplishments, 34. “Painting

wooden boxes with landscapes, flowers, shells, and other motifs was a

popular ornamental accomplishment of female pupils beginning at Deer-

field Academy with Orra White’s tenure. The boxes were sized to fit letters

or personal belongings and, once decoratively painted, became hand-

some table or dresser top furnishings. The landscapes painted on the lids

of these boxes relate to watercolor paintings done at the Academy at the

same time.”

13

The Patten school occupies a pivotal position in the his-tory of Connecticut’s needle arts and women’s education. Founded just four years after the end of the American

Revolution, it arguably inspired, and cultivated a market for, the offerings of subsequent girls’ schools, including its two most successful counterparts—Sarah Pierce’s school, active in Litch-field from 1792 to 1833, and Lydia Bull Royse’s school, active in Hartford from 1799 to 1818. During its forty-year operation, the Patten female school reportedly educated as many as four thou-sand students, drawn from both “the near and most remote parts of the United States” (including Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, upstate New York, and South Caro-lina); Bermuda; the West Indies; Guyana, South America; and a scattering of European countries.1 At least some of these students went on to operate their own schools, thereby extending the Pat-tens’ influence.

In an era when many girls’ schools opened and closed within a few years, the Patten school’s persistence was due at least in part to its operation as a family enterprise. Just as woodworking, metalworking, stone cutting, printing, and other crafts were car-ried out in multigenerational family workshops, so education was the Patten family business. Classes were begun by Sarah Patten (1761–1843), the oldest daughter of Ruth Wheelock (1740–1831) and Rev. William Patten (1738–75), who had been assistant pastor of Hartford’s Second Congregational Church. Sarah was joined in teaching by younger sisters, Ruth Jr. (1764–1850) and Mary (1769–1850), as well as younger brother George Jaffrey (1773–1830). None of these four siblings married, and they continued to teach until well into their fifties. George’s Hartford Literary School operated from 1807 to 1829 as a counterpart to his sisters’ classes. Together, the two schools offered “Latin, Greek, English & French languages, grammatically—mercantile and common

arithmetic—book-keeping—geography, with the use of the globes and maps—lectures in astronomy and natural philosophy, writing, composition, drawing, painting, embroidery, filligre [sic] & other ornamental work.”2 A fifth sibling, older brother Rev. William Patten (1763–1839), likely served as unofficial recruiting agent, providing connections to Rhode Island families through his posi-tions as pastor of Newport’s Second Congregational Church and fellow of the College of Rhode Island (now Brown University). He also became the family historian.

Family matriarch Ruth Wheelock Patten was the guiding spirit of her daughters’ school. A combination headmaster and house-mistress, she established its character, oversaw general opera-tions, supervised the boarding students, who lived under her roof, and instructed them in “propriety of behaviour, and in moral and religious duty.”3 Born a full generation before the American Revo-lution, Ruth Sr. was well connected to New England’s clerical elite and steeped in the religious revival fervor of the mid- eighteenth-century Great Awakening. Her mother, Sarah Davenport Maltby Wheelock (1702–46), was descended from generations of prominent, well-educated ministers, including founders of New Haven Colony and Yale College. Her father, Rev. Eleazar Whee-lock (1711–79), worked closely with leading revival preachers, including America’s most accomplished theologian, Rev. Jonathan Edwards. Wheelock was also a tireless educator, operating both a college preparatory school and a charity school for Christian In-dians; he later founded Dartmouth College. Like other ministers’ daughters, Ruth presumably acquired early learning from her fa-ther’s school and library. She also studied with Jonathan Edwards’s sisters, who were accomplished, erudite scholars (having studied Latin, Greek, rhetoric, natural philosophy, and other tradition-ally masculine academic subjects) as well as skilled embroiderers (fig. 1).4

s u s a n p . s c hoe lw e r

Lessons Artistic and UsefulThe Patten School of Hartford, 1785–1825

14 s u s a n p . s c h o e l w e r

Unfortunately, neither the Pattens nor the Pierce or Royse schools had students stitch their instructors’ names—a gen-teel but effective form of advertising. As with any artistic genre, attributing unsigned needleworks requires careful analysis of provenance, documentation, and subtle variations in design, technique, and materials. Popular motifs were evidently copied freely between schools and also adapted by students who opened their own schools. Later descendants often assumed that ances-tors attended the nearest school; however, some girls attended distant, or even multiple, schools to learn specialized skills. In the absence of stitched-on credits, it is difficult to be certain that a particular piece was made at a specific school, even if a girl or a family member is known to have enrolled there.

Although the Patten school opened in 1785, few examples of needlework have been firmly dated prior to 1800. The Pattens may have encouraged needlework instruction in response to compe-tition. Lydia Royse began advertising needlework instruction in June 1799, offering to teach “Plain Work, Tambour do., Embroi-dery, Cotton and Dresden work, Drawing, &c.”5 A more distant

source of competition may have been the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Nationally renowned for both academics and needlework, the school began admitting non-Moravians in 1786. Between 1789 and 1800, at least thirty-two Connecticut girls made the two-hundred-mile journey to Bethlehem.6

One of the earliest pieces associated with the Patten school may be an undated coat of arms that descended in the Patten fam-ily and is attributed to Ruth Patten Jr., the middle sister (fig. 2). Unconventionally, this coat of arms traces maternal lineage, from Ruth’s own family (Patten, center shield) to those of her mother (Wheelock, upper left) and maternal grandmother (Davenport, upper right). The use of three separate shields deviates from the standard protocol of dividing a single shield into multiple fields (a practice known as impaling, for a marriage alliance, or quartering, for additional families). The awkward drawing of the shields sug-gests an early effort, worked by the teacher for her own family and subsequently used as a model for student projects.7

During the years 1800–1810, the Pattens evidently made a

fig. 1. Hannah Edwards Wetmore (1717–73) and Mary (Molly) Edwards (1701–76), embroidered shoes, ca. 1745–46, said to have been made for Hannah’s 1746 marriage to Middletown, Connecticut, merchant and judge Seth Wetmore. Silk and metallic thread on ribbed silk; plain-weave linen lining, kid leather rand, and leather soles, 43/4 x 31/8 x 9 in. Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Gift of

Hannah Whittlesey, 1840.7.1ab. fig. 2. Ruth Patten (1764–1850), Patten-Wheelock-Davenport coat of arms, ca. 1795–1800. Silk and metallic thread on satin-weave cream silk, 161/8 x 131/8 in. (silk ground). Connecticut

Historical Society, Hartford, Museum purchase, 1992.68.1.

t h e p a t t e n s c h o o l o f h a r t f o r d, 1785–1825 15

specialty of coats of arms. More than a dozen closely related embroidered arms are attributed to the school (fig. 3; plates 39 and 40)—more than any other type of work and more than are as-sociated with any other Federal-era school. Additional students produced watercolor arms using similar designs (fig. 4).8 No other examples have been located with multiple shields; however, Patten students continued to celebrate matrilineal ancestry by creating paired armorials for paternal and maternal lines (fig. 4).9

Armorial embroideries had previously been fashionable in Ruth Wheelock Patten’s own childhood, about 1750. Most fre-quently worked on lozenge-shaped black silk (plate 38), these co-lonial versions were produced exclusively in Boston girls’ schools, primarily by the daughters of well-to-do merchant families, many of whom subsequently became Loyalists. In revising the formula to suit Federal sensibilities, the Pattens echoed watercolor examples produced by Boston artist John Coles Sr. (ca. 1749–1809), who began working as a heraldry painter about 1790.10 The meaning of heraldic embroideries arguably shifted along with the designs. Surmounted by splendid, spread-winged eagles, Patten school arms served as badges of a specifically American aristocracy, based on first-settler status. Like the Pattens themselves, students who

took home these heraldic devices typically traced their lineage to New England’s founders; the armorials served as precursors to later generations’ fascination with genealogies and ancestral societies.

The Pattens’ heraldic designs served as a basis for pictorial works created at the school during the years 1800–1810 (figs. 5 and 6, plates 42 and 43). Replacing the armorial shield with an oval or octagonal cartouche produced a distinctive arrangement of a central medallion framed by characteristic wheatears, floral garlands, raised golden eagle, and sequined bow knots. The first example in this format to be linked to the Patten school was a “Charity picture” (fig. 5), attributed by a granddaughter to Sarah Marshall (b. 1791) of Windsor, Connecticut, who was said to have worked it “at Miss Patton’s [sic] ‘painting and embroidery school,’ [in] Hartford, Conn. at the age of fifteen.” Genealogical proximity supports this family history, as does its appearance in 1928, de-cades before general recognition of Patten school characteristics.11

The Pattens’ most common central medallion pictures extolled the virtue of charity, either explicitly, in allegorical images by Sarah Marshall and others (plate 42), or implicitly, in biblical im-ages of the finding of Moses (fig. 6, plate 43).12 As recounted in the

fig. 3. Lucy Ripley (1789–1846), Ripley coat of arms, ca. 1804. Silk and metallic thread on twill-weave cream silk, sequin, and plain-weave linen, 171/2 x 141/2 in. (silk ground). Connecticut Historical Society,

Hartford, Gift of Emily Strickland, 1939.8.1.

fig. 4. Charlotte Perkins (1790–1873), Pitkin coat of arms, ca. 1805–15. Watercolor on silk; original wooden stretcher, 175/8 x 135/8. Connecticut

Historical Society, Hartford, Gift of Mrs. Alfred Howe Terry, 1980.23.9. Charlotte

made a matching Perkins coat of arms for her father’s family.

16 s u s a n p . s c h o e l w e r

Old Testament book of Exodus (2:1–10), the Egyptian pharaoh or-dered the execution of all male Israelite infants. Defying the order, Moses’ mother hid her son among bulrushes edging the River Nile. Discovering the infant, the pharaoh’s daughter in turn defied her father’s order and unknowingly arranged for Moses to be cared for by his own mother.

In the second decade of the nineteenth century, the Patten school evidently phased out both embroidered armorials and central medallion pictures and replaced them with more paint-erly compositions. Exemplifying this new style is a view of George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, credited by an early, hand-written label to Abigail Barker Noyes (1795–1864) of Lyme, Connecticut, while a student in 1812 at “Miss Patten’s Boarding School in Hartford.”13 A Moses picture produced ca. 1810–18 by Ruth Green (1790–1851) of East Haddam, Connecticut, adapts this established Patten school subject to the new format (fig. 7). No longer confined to a central medallion, the scene fills the entire ground, a horizontally oriented rectangle. Where earlier pictures had employed watercolor as an accent (primarily for sky

and faces), here paint is the dominant medium. Only the bushy oak tree at right is stitched, with myriad tiny French knots in crewel wool. The central grouping of the pharaoh’s daughter and her attendants remains compositionally similar, but the youngest servant is shown as a black girl, attired in a bright red dress. No longer hidden behind the next attendant, she stands boldly at the center of the composition, one hand raised in apparent greeting.14

A final example provides important new evidence on the pro-duction of samplers, a needlework genre not previously associated with the Patten school (fig. 8). Signed and dated “Ruth W Patten Hartford November 3 1808,” the sampler descended in the Patten family. Its maker was the eleven-year-old daughter of Rev. Wil-liam Patten, evidently sent to study with her aunts in Hartford. Echoing the themes of the school’s silk embroideries, the text of-fers the child’s work as an act of worship and instrument of grace: “Jesus permit Thy Gracious Name to stand / As the first efforts of an Infant,s hand.” The green linsey-woolsey ground would have contrasted vividly with the once-bright red, yellow, and cream silks, a color combination seen on other Hartford samplers. Below

fig. 5. Sarah Marshall (b. 1791), Charity, ca. 1806. Silk and metallic thread, chenille yarn, sequins, and watercolor on silk, 191/8 x 161/2 in. Daughters of the American Revolution Museum,

Washington, D.C., Gift of Sarah Richardson, 1967.160.

fig. 6. Emily Sage (1789–1836), “The babe wept and she had compassion on him” (Moses in the Bulrushes), ca. 1806. Silk and metallic thread, chenille yarn, sequins, and watercolor on silk, 201/2 x 171/4 in. Courtesy of Nathan Liverant and Son Antiques,

Colchester, Connecticut.

t h e p a t t e n s c h o o l o f h a r t f o r d, 1785–1825 17

the text is an informal display of fruits on a low, grassy knoll. The awkward drawing and inexpert stitching of this panel suggests that it was indeed Ruth’s first effort at pictorial embroidery.15

The prominence in Patten school needlework of the entwined themes of family and charity neatly parallels William Patten’s description of his mother’s role in the enterprise: “She presided in the family, and was very useful.” Throughout Ruth Wheelock Patten’s Memoirs and Family Letters, charity serves as a primary mode of usefulness—both assisting others and exemplifying the path to salvation. Her experiences provide numerous instances of charity, both received and given, always in a family context. Her father’s charity Indian school required years of passionate fund-raising. Ruth herself “undertook the instruction of female people of color” during her husband’s Hartford pastorate, from 1767 to 1773. Left a widow in her mid-thirties, she found herself in need of charity, being “without the visible means or prospect of support” for six children ranging from sixteen months to four-teen years old. Unlike most women in her position, Ruth did not remarry, nor did she immediately seek a livelihood through the common expedient of opening a school. How the family survived her first ten years of widowhood remains a mystery. According to her son, she depended “entirely upon the promises of God to the widow and fatherless, and these she found fulfilled in faithfulness

and truth.” As the school provided financial security, the Pattens became generous benefactors, maintaining an anonymous “char-ity seat” so that no students were refused “for want of funds.” In 1809 Ruth Wheelock Patten, then nearing seventy, became the founding president of the Hartford Female Beneficent Society, an organization dedicated to “the support and education of indigent orphan, or neglected female children.” Seven years later, mother and daughters wrote an unusual joint will, bequeathing their en-tire estate (“the fruit of our joint labors”) to the Connecticut Bible Society.16

The correspondence between embroidered subject matter and lived experience underlines the degree to which the Pattens’ nee-dlework served as instrumental devices for instilling moral and spiritual values , above all a knowledge of God and a desire to walk in “the way that is everlasting.”17 Whatever its success in adapt-ing to the dynamic world of the New Republic, the Patten family remained rooted in the much earlier worldview of New England Puritanism, specifically the evangelical fervor of the mid- eighteenth-century Great Awakening (an orientation physically embodied by classroom quarters in the 1718 Connecticut State House, fig. 9).18 The Pattens’ pedagogy and products appealed to descendants of old New England families, especially those with

fig. 7. Ruth Green (1790–1851), “ ‘And She Had Compassion on Him.’ Exod. C.2.V.6.” (Moses in the Bulrushes), ca. 1810–18. Watercolor, crewel (worsted wool) and chenille yarns, and gold foil on plain-weave cream silk, 175/8 x 20 in. (silk ground). Connecticut

Historical Society, Hartford, Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Caroline T. Jones,

1921.5.0.

fig. 8. Ruth Wheelock Patten (b. 1797), sampler, dated 1808. Silk thread on plain-weave green linen and wool (linsey-woolsey), 131/8 x 101/2 in. Connecticut

Historical Society, Hartford, Gift of Mrs. Theda Lundquist,

2001.29.0.

18 s u s a n p . s c h o e l w e r

ties to the established clergy. Expanding the opportunities offered to pre-Revolutionary women of ministerial families, the Pat-tens set the stage for more rigorous, formal programs of women’s schools founded in the 1820s and 1830s by reformers such as Catharine Beecher, Emma Hart Willard, and Mary Lyon. Notably, Catharine Beecher established the pioneering Hartford Female Academy in 1823, just as the Pattens’ long tenure was drawing to a close.

Notes

1. Interesting Family Letters, of the Late Mrs. Ruth Patten, of Hartford,

Conn. (Hartford: D. B. Moseley, 1845), 19–20; William Patten, Memoirs of

Mrs. Ruth Patten of Hartford, Conn. (Hartford: P. Canfield, 1834), 72. These

attendance figures may be exaggerated, but they are not impossible. At

twenty-five students per term, four terms per year, the female school

could indeed have enrolled as many as four thousand students over four

decades. (Patten claimed as many as thirty to forty boarders, plus day

students, during the peak years, probably about 1800–1815.) By contrast,

the better-documented Litchfield Female Academy is thought to have

educated between eighteen hundred and three thousand students over

forty-one years. See Lynne Templeton Brickley, “Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield

Female Academy,” in Theodore and Nancy Sizer et al., To Ornament Their

Minds: Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy, 1792–1833 (Litchfield, CT:

Litchfield Historical Society, 1993), 26–27.

2. Connecticut Courant (Hartford), Apr. 29, 1817, 3.

3. Patten, Memoirs, 69–73.

4. Patten, Memoirs, 9; Family Letters, 17; Susan P. Schoelwer,

Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art and Family, 1740–1840 (Hartford: Con-

necticut Historical Society, 2010), cats. 4–5. On the ten Edwards sisters

of East Windsor, see Kenneth P. Minkema, “Hannah and Her Sisters:

Sisterhood, Courtship, and Marriage in the Edwards Family in the Early

Eighteenth Century,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 146

(January 1992): 35–56, and George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life

(New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 18.

5. Connecticut Courant, June 26, 1799, cited in Glee Krueger, New

England Samplers to 1840 (Sturbridge, MA: Old Sturbridge Village, 1978),

141–42.

6. Betty Ring, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers and Pictorial

Needlework, 1650–1850 (New York: Knopf, 1993), 2:434–44; William C.

Reichel, A History of the Rise, Progress, and Present Condition of the Bethlehem

Female Seminary. With a Catalogue of Its Pupils, 1785–1858 (Philadelphia:

J.B. Lippincott, 1858), 308–460. A long letter describing the Moravian

Seminary appeared in the Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer

(Hartford), Apr. 28, 1788, 3 (crediting the New-Haven Register, n.d.).

7. Schoelwer, Connecticut Needlework, cat. 37. Betty Ring also viewed

the Patten-Wheelock-Davenport arms as a prototype for subsequent stu-

dent work; see Ring, “New England Heraldic Needlework of the Neoclas-

sical Period,” Magazine Antiques 144,4 (October 1993): 488, 492–93 n. 12.

8. Embroidered arms associated with the Patten school include the

following family crests—Belden, Bliss, Butler, Cheney, Ellsworth, Hurd,

Morley, Moseley, Perkins, Pomeroy, Pratt, Ripley, Roberts, Watson, Wil-

liams, and possibly Barnard and Wolcott (the last two images not seen by

the author). Watercolor examples include arms of the Barber and Drake,

Churchill, Francis and Wells, Griswold, Perkins, Pitkin, and Talcott

families. Neoclassical arms were also produced at Mary Balch’s school in

Providence, Rhode Island, and several Massachusetts schools; Ring, “New

England Heraldic Needlework of the Neoclassical Period,” 484–93; Ring,

Girlhood Embroidery, 1:75, 145, 157, 185.

9. Other examples of paired armorials include Belden and Butler fam-

ily arms, embroidered by sisters Charlotte Butler (1790–1858) and Mary

Porter Butler (1788–1832), daughters of Mary Belden and Frederick Butler

of Wethersfield (Parke-Bernet Galleries, Notable American Furniture . . .

Collected by the Late Mr. & Mrs. Luke Vincent Lockwood, May 13–15, 1954,

lots 214–215); and Bliss and Watson family arms embroidered by sisters

Sally Watson (1784–1814) and Harriet Watson (1786–1866), daughters of

Anna Bliss and John Watson of East Windsor, CT (Betty Ring, American

Needlework Treasures: Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection of

Betty Ring [New York: Dutton, 1987], 133, 135). Probate documents record

an Arnold-Gillette-Pomeroy coat of arms descended in the family of Ruth

Wheelock Patten’s cousin, Abigail Pomeroy Gillette (1743–1835), who

taught school in Hebron and East Windsor (now South Windsor) from the

early 1780s until late in life. The description suggests a counterpart to the

Patten-Wheelock-Davenport arms, but the original has not been located.

fig. 9. Connecticut State House, built ca. 1718. After construction of a new state house in 1796 (now called the Old State House), the earlier structure was moved to a new location on Hartford’s Church Street. It was occupied for a time by George Patten’s Hartford Literary School. Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Anonymous gift,

A1869.

t h e p a t t e n s c h o o l o f h a r t f o r d, 1785–1825 19

I am grateful to Sandra Hildreth Ball for sharing her unpublished paper,

“Abigail Pomeroy Gillette” (2008).

10. Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, 1:60–75; Betty Ring, “Heraldic Em-

broidery in Eighteenth-Century Boston,” Magazine Antiques 141, 4 (April

1992): 622–31; Ring, “New England Heraldic Needlework of the Neoclas-

sical Period,” 486–87.

11. Accession worksheet, Daughters of the American Revolution

Museum; Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, “American Samplers and Needle-

work Pictures in the DAR Museum. Part 1, 1750–1806,” Magazine Antiques

105, 2 (February 1974): 358–59, 363–64. According to museum records,

the églomisé mat (which bears the legend “Sarah Marshall 1806”) is a

replacement copied from the original, which was broken when received

from the donor. I am grateful to Olive Graffam for assistance in examin-

ing this piece.

12. Other central medallion subjects include a portrait of George

Washington (father of his country), by Amelia Hart (b. 1798) of Say-

brook, CT, private collection, on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, L1995.47; “The Signal between David and Jonathan” by Sally Ely

(1789–1831) of Lebanon, CT; Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 80–81;

King David, by Rhoda Newbury (b. ca. 1786) of Windsor, CT, Sothebys,

New York, Jan. 31–Feb. 2, 1985, lot 357.

13. Georgiana Brown Harbeson, American Needlework: The History of

Decorative Stitchery and Embroidery from the Late 16th to the 20th Century

(New York: Coward-McCann, 1938), 88, fig. 1 opp. 91; also Addison

Gallery of American Art, collections database, http://accessaddison.ando-

ver.edu, accessed Jan. 17, 2010. I am grateful to Juliann D. McDonough for

providing object file information.

14. Schoelwer, Connecticut Needlework, cat. 51.

15. Schoelwer, Connecticut Needlework, cat. 46. The verse continues,

“And while her fingers o’er this canvas move / Engage her tender heart to

seek THY Love / With Thy dear Children let her share a part / and write

thy Name Thyself upon her heart.”

16. Patten, Memoirs, 28, 49–50, 53–56, 72–73, 76–77; Family Letters,

14, 18. Original records of the Harford Female Beneficent Society are pre-

served in the Village for Families and Children, Inc., Hartford. Before the

last sister, Mary, died in 1850, she devised a new testament, leaving her

entire estate, amounting to slightly more than six thousand dollars after

debts, to such worthy causes as the Widows Society in Hartford; Ameri-

can Education Society; American Board of Commissioners for Foreign

Missions, for the support of the Ceylon and Sandwich Island (Hawaiian)

missions; Hartford Orphans Asylum; Female Beneficent Society; and

American Home Missionary Society, in addition to the Connecticut Bible

Society. Estate Papers, Sarah Patten and Mary Patten, Connecticut State

Library, Hartford.

17. Patten, Memoirs, 73.

18. William DeLoss Love, The Colonial History of Hartford (Hartford: by

the author, 1914), 222.

Object Entries and Plates

not e to t h e r e a de r

Because girls often traveled some distance to attend school, the maker’s hometown follows her name and life dates in the identify­ing information for each object. Threads appear first in the list of materials used in each needlework. In the dimensions, height precedes width. Measurements reflect the dimensions of the needle work visible as framed, followed by the overall framed dimensions. The town or school where the needlework was pro­duced (for example, Norwich, Connecticut, or Misses Butlers’ school, Wethersfield, Connecticut) is listed next. The final line credits the collection or owner of the needlework. Transcriptions of the verses or other text on the needleworks appear below the identifying information for each object.

23

Who can find a virtuous woman

for her price is far above rubies

Alice Mather her Sampler made in the

twelvth year of her age julyth/8 AD 1774

Dramatic in its high-contrast stitching, Alice Mather included a bucolic scenic panel in her sampler. She further enhanced it with the unusual addition of an applied border, in this case a floral chintz band. This sampler shows a great variety of influences, perhaps the strongest of which is an affinity with sev-eral pieces from Norwich. The solidly stitched black background appeared in Norwich in the 1760s, as did small sections of a t-shaped Greek key pattern. The blue house Alice worked is found on earlier Norwich canvaswork, while the same biblical verse (Proverbs 31:10) appears on a sampler worked by Naby Lord of Norwich in 1765. However, the reclining shepherdess figure was popu-lar on canvaswork pieces in Boston in the mid-eighteenth century, and the palm tree became a signature characteristic of later work stitched at the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford.

Alice Mather was born in Lyme, Connecticut, the daughter of Dr. Samuel Mather (1742/43–1834) and Alice Ransom (1743–1805). She married Dr. Wil-liam Ely (1762–1829) of Lyme in 1783. They had four children, only one of whom survived them.

I Plate 1 J

Alice Mather (1762–1842), Lyme, Connecticut

Sampler, 1774

Silk and printed chintz border on linen, 135/8 x 111/4 in.; 161/8 x

133/4 in. framed

Norwich, Connecticut

Private collection

24

The Time Will Come When We Must Give

Account To God How We on earth Did Live

Hannah Gore Ended Her Sampler In

The 9th Year of Her Age April The 8

Canvaswork pictures of mid eighteenth­century Boston influenced samplers, such as this one, incorporate a pictorial panel along with traditional alphabets and numbers. Overall stitched black backgrounds like the one seen here can also be found in Norwich, Connecticut, and Westfield, Massachusetts, sam­plers and are apparently unique to New England.

Hannah was eight years old when she worked a simple and delightful scene of a lady adorned with human hair and holding a parasol. Alongside her is a well­dressed gentleman with walking stick headed toward a meetinghouse. A cow, dog, and bird atop a tree fill in the landscape.

Hannah’s sister Zebiah Gore and cousin Elizabeth Richards made identi­cal samplers that were of the same design as Hannah’s, which indicates that all three of the girls probably attended the same school.

Hannah Gore was the second child of Jeremiah Gore (1734–1813) and his third wife, Hannah Richards (1750–1816). The family lived on Washington Street in Boston, where her father was a truckman. She married a baker named Richard Lane Pico (ca. 1772–1807) on May 4, 1794. The couple is recorded as living on Beach Street in Boston in 1806; they had four children. Hannah’s second marriage was to Thomas Holland (d. 1861) on November 11, 1810, with whom she had two sons.

I Plate 2 J

Hannah Gore (1776–1851), Boston, Massachusetts

Sampler, ca. 1784

Silk, human hair, and original needle on linen, 161/2 x 127/8 in.; 181/2 x 147/8 in. framed

Boston, Massachusetts

Private collection

25

When all thy mercies O my God, my rising ∫oul ∫urveys

Tran∫ported with the view I’m lost in wonder love and praise

O how ∫hall words with equal warmth the gratitude declare

That glows within my ravi∫h’d heart but thou canst read it there

Ten thou∫and thou∫and precious gifts my daily thanks employ

Nor is the lea∫t a grateful heart that ta∫te’s tho∫e gifts with joy

Elizabeth Moore Huntingtons Sampler

made in the ninth year of her age

September 10th 1787

A group of charming samplers with solidly filled black backgrounds were made under the tutelage of an unknown schoolmistress in Norwich, Con­necticut, in the 1780s. This sampler, a part of that group, was an ambi­tious undertaking for eight­year­old Elizabeth Huntington in 1787. A very similar sampler was stitched in the same year by Elizabeth’s older cousin Ruth (plate 4). Elizabeth used a variety of stitches and designs, alphabets and numbers, followed by three verses of Joseph Addison’s hymn, “When All Thy Mercies, O My God,” written in 1712. Sprigs of flowers and straw­berries comprise the uneven border surrounding the central text.

Elizabeth Moore Huntington was one of seven children born to General Jedediah Huntington (1743–1818), who had a brilliant career in the mili­tary, politics, and business, and his second wife Ann Moore of Virginia, whom he married in 1778. His first wife Faith Trumbull, the daughter of Governor Jonathan Trumbull and Faith Robinson, was a well­known and very accomplished needlewoman who made several silk­embroidered overmantle pictures now in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. Faith took her own life in 1775, when she became depressed and her health declined after witnessing the horrors of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Jedediah and Faith had one son, Jabez (1767–1848), who was raised by his grandfather Governor Trumbull. Elizabeth Moore Huntington died unmarried.

I Plate 3 J

Elizabeth Moore Huntington (1779–1823), Norwich,

Connecticut

Sampler, 1787

Silk on linen, 12 x 151/8 in.; 143/4 x 181/2 in. framed

Norwich, Connecticut

Private collection

26

As the ro∫e breatheth ∫weetne∫s from Its own

nature ∫o the benevolent heart produceth good

works

Ruth Huntingtons Sampler made in the 11th

year of her age 1787

Ruth Huntington undoubtedly attended school with her younger cousin Elizabeth Hun-tington (plate 3) in Norwich, Connecticut, where they stitched very similar samplers in 1787. Although Elizabeth’s is more ambitious and includes a lengthy verse, Ruth’s sampler exhibits a comparable floral border, an asymmetrical inner border with the content worked in bands, and a filled-in background. Ruth selected a shorter quotation than her cousin. It comes originally from an ancient Indian manuscript, first translated into English as The Oeconomy of Human Life in 1749. The popular verse frequently ap-peared in eighteenth-century anthologies of poetry and prose.

Ruth Huntington was the second child and only daughter of four children born to El-isha Huntington (1745–1810), a sea captain who owned his own vessel, and Anna Ryan in Norwich, Connecticut. Their oldest son George (1775–90) was a carpenter and died single at Demerara, in the West Indies. An obituary in the February 13, 1798, Norwich Packet states that Ruth died in Lansingburgh, New York, at age twenty-one, “occasioned by a fall from a sleigh.” Ruth’s fifth great-grandmother was Mary Wentworth, who came to the New World on the Mayflower.

I Plate 4 J

Ruth Huntington (1776–98), Norwich, Connecticut

Sampler, 1787

Silk on linen, 93/4 x 125/8 in.; 121/2 x 151/2 in. framed

Norwich, Connecticut

Private collection

27

Favour is deceitful and beauty is

vain but a woman that feareth the

Lord she shall be praised. 1795.

Sally Marvin s Sampler

With nice∫t care we

mu∫t the texture rai∫e

a point too much the

hand un∫kill-d betray

a thread mi∫plac’d t

heir harmony di∫poill

and every effort

unrelenting toil

an erring step will

bla∫t thy gentle fame

and with di∫honor

blend thy ri∫ing name

The needlework panels in Sally Marvin’s sampler are a carry-over style of canvaswork needlepoint pictures of the mid-eighteenth century. Similar to five others worked at the highly respected Rev. Samuel Nott’s school in Franklin, Connecticut, Sally’s sampler includes regimented scenes and verses intermixed with a free-style border of grapes and flowers. A hint of sky at the top and bottom tie the pictorial sections together. She included a biblical verse from Proverbs in her central panel and additional verses in the lower corners along with a Greek key design typical of samplers from the Norwich area.

Sarah (Sally) Rogers Marvin was the third of six children born to General Elihu Mar-vin (1752–98) and Elizabeth Rogers (1757–1808) in Norwich, Connecticut. Her father graduated from Yale in 1773 and taught school and medicine in Norwich, until 1777, when he joined the Fourth Connecticut Regiment as lieutenant and adjutant and spent the winter at Valley Forge. He resigned in 1778 and returned to Norwich and his career in medicine. He was well thought of as a physician and in the field of research for the treat-ment of yellow fever. Unfortunately, he contracted the disease from a patient and died at age forty-five. Sally married Dr. George Trott (1778–1815) of Norwich in 1806. They had no children, and she died at age twenty-six, one year after her marriage.

I Plate 5 J

Sally Marvin (1781–1807), Norwich, Connecticut

Sampler, ca. 1795

Silk on linen, 163/8 x 163/4 in.; 191/8 x 191/2 in. framed

Rev. Samuel Nott’s school, Franklin, Connecticut

Private collection

28

Virtue’s the chiefest beauty of the mind

The noblest ornament of human kind

Virtue’s our safeguard and our guiding star

That stirs up reason when our senses err

Martha Mortimer Starr Middletown 1791

Martha Mortimer Starr stitched a lively and exuberant sampler in 1791 when she was fourteen years old. Her unknown teacher most likely designed the sampler with an overall stitched central panel displaying a large two-story, center-hall house with a pond in the foreground, animals grazing, and a boy fishing. The meandering floral swag border with bow-ties is similar in style to samplers made in Wethersfield in the early nineteenth century that were per-haps borrowed from this design.

Martha Mortimer Starr was born April 24, 1777, the daughter of George Starr (1740–1820) and Ann Catharine Carnall (d. 1817). Her mother’s uncle, Philip Mortimer, and his wife Martha (for whom Martha was named) were wealthy Irish merchants, and it was thought that Ann would inherit their fortune. However, Philip instead left his fortune to Ann’s son Philip, Martha’s brother. According to the will, his slaves were to be freed upon his death. Martha’s father George contested and succeeded in overturning the will, and the slaves, along with the fortune, were transferred to him. This legal turn-about prompted an attempt on George’s life by two of the slaves, one of whom was incarcerated for life at Newgate Prison near Middletown, Connecticut. In 1822, Martha’s house was burned to the ground by one of the other slaves, who was imprisoned for five years, also at Newgate. Martha married John Lawrence Lewis, September 23, 1799, and later divorced.

I Plate 6 J

Martha Mortimer Starr (1777–1848), Middletown,

Connecticut

Sampler, 1791

Silk on linen, 163/8 x 151/4 in.; 19 x 177/8 in. framed

Middletown, Connecticut

Private collection

29

Middletown August 22d

Charlotte Porter wrought this Sampler in the twelfth

year of her age. AD. 1810.

Youth is the time for progress in all arts.

Charlotte Porter chose a green linsey-woolsey as a background for the sam-pler she worked in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1810. A small floral border surrounds the piece, while a charming pictorial scene dominates the center. A well-dressed young shepherd watches his sheep as a fashionable lady with a purse and parasol strolls from an elegant center-hall brick house. In the dis-tance, a church and windmill complete the landscape vista.

Linsey-woolsey is constructed with a linen warp woven with a wool weft, both usually dyed green or blue. Although the material was not commonly used for samplers, known examples using linsey-woolsey are typically from the northeast corner of Massachusetts and bordering areas of Maine and New Hampshire. The verse is a line from one of the earliest school books printed in the United States, The Instructor; or, American Young Man’s Best Companion, writ-ten by George Fisher and notably reprinted by Benjamin Franklin in 1748.

I Plate 7 J

Charlotte Porter (b. ca. 1798), Middletown,

Connecticut

Sampler, 1810

Silk on green linsey-woolsey, 151/2 x 165/8 in.; 183/8 x

195/8 in. framed

Middletown, Connecticut

Collection of Randy and Nancy Root

30

Register

Joseph Lewis born October 15th 1788 Mary Strong born June 8th 1788

Married Oct 21st 1813 and have the following Children

Births Deaths

James Strong born July 30th 1814

Frances Alvira born Feb 15th 1816

Harriet Lyman born July 5th 1818 H L Died June 13th / 1830

William Henry born Nov 25th 1819

Mary Ann born Nov 26th 1821

Joseph Hubbard born April 2cd 1824

Henry Augustus born May 30 1826 H A Died Feb 14th 1828

Henry Augustus Born Oct 27th 1828

Charles Ripley born July 24th 1831

H A L (on small monument)

Frances Alvira Lewis Wrought this in the 12th year of her age

Middletown 1828

Eleven-year-old Frances Lewis incorporated an extensive family record into this 1828 Middletown, Connecticut, sampler. Along with genealogical information, she stitched a highly developed rendition of several prominent Middletown buildings. Her instructress is un-known, but other Middletown samplers exhibit similar characteristics and were likely worked at the same school. At that time, Middletown was the home of many young cadets attending the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, whose campus eventually became Wesleyan University in 1831. It may be this campus that Frances’s sam-pler represents.

Frances Alvira Lewis was the daughter of Joseph Lewis (b. 1788) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Mary Strong (b. 1788) of Boston. Her father was a gunsmith, while her youngest brother Charles became the mayor of Middletown, Connecticut.

I Plate 8 J

Frances Alvira Lewis (b. 1816), Middletown, Connecticut

Sampler, 1828

Silk and wool on linen, 173/8 x 15 in.; 211/2 x 181/4 in. framed

Middletown, Connecticut

Private collection

31

An unknown teacher instructed several girls from Saybrook, Connecticut, in stitching family registers. Plates 9 and 10 show two of the four known ex­amples of the Saybrook type, which is characterized by a stepped cartouche surrounding the genealogical information as well as an embroidered floral border with large flowers framing the top third and a smaller vine and floral border framing the bottom and trailing up the sides. The registers record the names, births, and deaths of family members and conclude with the maker’s name and date. The flowers are reminiscent of those stitched by girls attending Anna Cornwall’s school in Glastonbury, Connecticut, suggesting that whoever instructed these girls may have been a student of Miss Cornwall.

Welthy Ann Carter was the second of eight daughters born to Samuel Carter (1779–1853) and Elizabeth Redfield (b. 1786). Welthy’s father was the daughter of a prominent doctor and teacher of medicine in Saybrook. She married Am­brose Whittlesey in 1834, and they had two children.

I Plate 9 J

Welthy Ann Carter (1806–75), Saybrook, Connecticut

Sampler, 1818

Silk on linen, 193/8 x 183/4 in.; 207/8 x 201/8 in. framed

Saybrook, Connecticut

Old Saybrook Historical Society

Register

Of Samuel Carters Family He Was

Born July 10th 1779 and married

Betsy Redfield Oct 3d 1803 She Was

Born Sep 19th 1786 and by her he hath

the following Children viz

Names Births Deaths

Betsy Maria born Feb 7th 1805

Welthy Ann born Dec 26th 1806

Susan Amelia born Oct 31th 1808

Grace Redfield born Aug 6th 1810

Caroline Matilda born Aug 13th 1813

Mary Jeannette born Aug 13 1816

Harriet Augusta born July 31 181

Aurelia Phebe

Mr. Mrs.

died died

Executed by Welthy Ann Carter Say Brook Oct 14 1818

32

Register

Of Elihu Ingham’s Family He was

born March 22. 1783 and married

Saba Chalker Oct.15. 1817 She was / born Dec. 5. 1787 and by her he hath

the following Children viz.

Names Births Deaths

died March 26. AD

Betsey M. Ingham born Aug. 20 1818. 1839. aged 20.

Polonard C. Ingham born March 15 1828.

Mr. Elihu Ingham Mrs. Saba C. Ingham

Died. Sept. 7. 1837. aged 54 Died. Dec. 5. 1862. aged 75.

Executed by Betsey M. Ingham Saybrook Sept. 4. 1830.

Betsey Marie Ingham was the daughter of Elihu Ingham (1783–1837) and Saba Chalker (1788–1862) and a descendant of John Alden of Mayflower fame. Betsey married Francis B. Loomis and died March 27, 1839, at the age of twenty; she left a five-day-old daughter, Betsey Ingham Loomis, who eventu-ally married George B. Whittelsey. The Inghams, the Chalkers, and the Whittelseys were all pioneer families in Saybrook and arrived about the same time. Betsey’s ancestor Joseph Ingham immigrated to Saybrook Colony ca. 1650.

Betsey stitched on her sampler, “Executed by Betsey M. Ingham Saybrook Sept 4, 1830.” Her death date was added just nine years later.

The composition of Betsey’s sampler relates to others from Saybrook (see plate 9).

I Plate 10 J

Betsey Marie Ingham (1818–39), Saybrook, Connecticut

Sampler, 1830

Silk on linen, 201/2 x 161/2 in.; 221/2 x 181/2 in. framed

Saybrook, Connecticut

Private collection

33

In life’s unfolding bloom ye young and gay / While

flowery Pleasures strew your verdant way / Adore the

bountious hand which largely Pours / Its sweetest

blessings on your vernal hour / In your Creators Praise

with dutious joy / Your bloom of life your active Powers

employ / Hear Jesus voice for heaven amends the sound /

To him alone devote your blooming days / So shall your

life with happiness be crown’d / So shall you join with

angels in his Praise

Mrs. Joanna Griswold was born July 13 1776 died July 1

1808. her little son Sylvester A / Griswold born June 22

1800 dying Dec 9 1806. Diantha the third daughter in

the name / of the whole family raises this semblance of

a monumental token of respect and affection / to their

memories

The town of Wethersfield, Connecticut, is nestled into the landscape of Diantha Griswold’s ca. 1818–19 sampler. Typical of the samplers made at the Misses Butlers’ school, a gold foil eagle holding a floral garland flies above the town and landscape. The Butler sisters attended the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut, where this design was popular and copied widely by their students.

Diantha Griswold was the fourth child and third daughter of Simeon Gris-wold (1773–1858) and Joanna Riley (1776–1808). Diantha’s brother died at age six, the year before she was born, and her mother died at age thirty-two, nine months after Diantha’s birth. Diantha included a touching tribute on this sampler to the mother and brother she never knew. Her father Simeon married Sarah Kentfield in 1812 when Diantha was four years old, a union that brought three additional children to the family. Diantha married Osmond Harrison (1798–1895) and died in 1837 at age twenty-nine.

I Plate 11 J

Diantha Griswold (1807–37), Wethersfield, Connecticut

Sampler, ca. 1818–19

Silk, gold foil, watercolor, and paper on linen, 161/2 x 201/2

in.; 211/4 x 251/4 in. framed

Misses Butlers’ school, Wethersfield, Connecticut

Collection of Sally and William Gemmill

34

Up to the fields above the skies

My hasty feet would go

There everlasting flowers arise

And Joys unwith’ring grow

Sarah Smith Wrought this in 1813 AE 11 year / s

Count that day lost whose low descending / Sun

Views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Scenic samplers depicting identifiable houses and buildings were characteristic of the Connecticut River Valley. Sarah Smith stitched this charming piece in 1813, at Abigail Goodrich’s school in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The river stitched in the foreground leads the eye to the central building, the First Congregational Church of Wethersfield, Sarah’s hometown.

Sarah’s sampler includes the typical alphabets and numbers followed by two verses and her stitched signature. The first two lines of verse she chose are from a hymn written by Isaac Watts in 1709, while the final two lines by an unknown author appear frequently on samplers. The sentiment was popular enough that the author George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) borrowed the lines for a poem of her own later in the nineteenth century. Teachers often referred their students to hymns and poems as a source for their sampler verses.

Sarah Smith was born May 29, 1802, in Wethersfield, Connecticut, daughter of James Smith (1756–1832), a widower with five children, and his second wife, Jerusha Dix (ca. 1763–1812). Sarah married George Dwight in 1832.

I Plate 12 J

Sarah Smith (b. 1802), Wethersfield, Connecticut

Sampler, 1813

Silk on linen, 161/2 x 17 in.; 191/4 x 193/4 in. framed

Abigail Goodrich’s school, Wethersfield, Connecticut

Private collection

35

Family Register

Diodate Post / was born / August 31st 1786

Diodate Post / and Pamela Birge / were Married. / May 29th 1810

Pamela Birge / was born / Sept 3rd 1792

William A. Post. July 17th 1811 Died June 13th 1856.

Mary A. Post. August 17th 1813.

Ichabod Post. August 29th 1815.

Sacred to the / memory of Dio / date Post. died apr / 11. 1860

Sacred to the / memory of Pa / mela Post July / 3. 1860

M.A.P. 1827.

Family register samplers, which document marriages, births, and deaths often over the course of several generations, became enormously popular in the early nineteenth century. Compositions and formats vary region­ally with vital statistics sometimes presented as a central motif, while at other times they are tucked into monuments and inscriptions in the periphery.

Mary Ann Post worked this striking family register sampler at Miss Cornwall’s school in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Several other later family registers from this school share similar characteristics. The later regis­ters are worked vertically but include the same pillars with arch and the elaborate floral border with bow­tied garlands. In this example, Mary Ann recorded the marriage of her parents and the births of their chil­dren. She initialed and dated her sampler “M.A.P. 1827,” indicating she was fourteen years old when she finished the main portion of the work. Her parents’ and brother’s death dates were added later.

Mary Ann Post was born in Hebron, Connecticut, daughter of farmer Diodate Post (1786–1860) and Pamela Birge (1792–1860). She married John Buell (b. 1812) of the same town and lived on the family homestead. They had four children.

I Plate 13 J

Mary Ann Post (1813–83), Hebron, Connecticut

Sampler, 1827

Silk on linen, 171/2 x 211/2 in.; 201/2 x 241/2 in. framed

Miss Cornwall’s school, Glastonbury, Connecticut

Collection of Stephen and Barbara Kovacs

36

Clarrissa Fowlers. S.

ag. Twelve Years. 179 / 9

A small group of samplers made in Westfield, Massachusetts, in the late eighteenth century relates visually to samplers from Norwich, Connecticut. They are small and vertically oriented, with the background linen entirely filled in, usually with black stitching. Their dates ranging from 1784 to 1799, they were made by girls as young as seven and as old as twelve. Clarrissa’s is the only one of the Westfield group that displays a pictorial panel with a house and landscape.

Clarrissa Fowler was the fourth of eight children born to Blackleach Fowler (1754–1839) and Miriam Smith (1759–1811). She married Henry Taylor (b. 1783) in 1812. Her father served as a private in 1776 at Dorchester Heights and in 1777 was in Captain Daniel Sackett’s company in the Continental Army. Clarrissa’s sister Lucy Fowler (1785–1854) also made a small Westfield sampler with a filled-in back-ground ca. 1792 at age seven.

I Plate 14 J

Clarrissa Fowler (b. 1787), Westfield, Massachusetts

Sampler, 1799

Silk on linen, 97/8 x 73/8 in.; 115/8 x 91/4 in. framed

Westfield, Massachusetts

Collection of Donna D. Schwartz

37

A time to learn my Parents give,

I’ll ne’er forget it while I live.

Fanny Mosley,s Sampler aged

Twelve Years worked August

1784.

Fanny Mosley worked a typical small Westfield, Massachusetts, sampler with a filled­in black background and an appreciative sentiment honoring her parents. Fanny’s has the distinction of being the earliest known example of the stylistic group. Several others include the basket of flowers and the triangular trees with strawberries sprouting from their bases. The unidentified teacher may have been influenced by designs from Norwich, Connecticut, where sol­idly stitched black backgrounds were popular.

The family name “Mosley” appears on several samplers of the Westfield group, and a woman named Lucy Mosley is known to have been teaching in Westfield in 1799. Though the maker of this sampler stitched her name on the piece, precisely which “Fanny Mosley” made this needlework has not yet been determined.

I Plate 15 J

Fanny Mosley, Westfield, Massachusetts

Sampler, 1784

Silk on linen, 121/4 x 9 in.; 14 x 103/4 in. framed

Westfield, Massachusetts

Collection of Donna D. Schwartz

38

1804

Then O divine benevolence be nigh

& teach me how to live and how to die

Wealthy Griswold

Wealthy Griswold worked this delightful composition in 1804. The alphabet, numbers, flowers, baskets, birds, and trees are all worked in cross­stitch, while the background is completely filled in with vertical stitches. The central vine­bordered oval depicts a playful shepherdess looking over her sheep and holding a floral garland. A tree with nesting birds and a distant house complete the compact landscape. The asymmetrical design of the elements surrounding the oval portion includes a crowned lion, a motif found on English samplers from the eighteenth century. A rosebud border surrounds the piece on three sides with an inscription running across the bottom.

The long­stitch filled background demonstrates Wealthy’s skill, as it was a difficult and challenging needlework to undertake. To date only a few similar pieces have been discovered, including the family register sampler stitched by Sally Olcott Wells (plate 17). Evidence suggests they were made in the Northampton, Massachusetts, area in the early nineteenth century.

Wealthy Griswold was born January 1, 1795. She was the daughter of Abiel Griswold (b. 1760) and Chloe Moore (1758–98) of Windsor, Hartford County, Connecticut. She was the eighth of nine children, and her mother died when she was three years old.

I Plate 16 J

Wealthy Griswold (b. 1795), Windsor, Connecticut

Sampler, 1804

Silk, paper, and ink on linen, 155/8 x 155/8 in.; 185/8 x 185/8 in.

framed

Probably worked in Northampton, Massachusetts

Private collection

39

(clockwise from bottom)

Sally O. Wells / Aged 11 Hatfield / August 21 1807

Mabel M Wells / Born April 7 1797

Sally O. Wells / Born Nov. 15 1795

Moses Wells / Born July 19 1771 / Married Mar 11 / 1794

Josiah Dwight / Born Nov 18 1767 / Died Sept 1796 / Aged 49

Tabitha Dwight / Born Feb 22 1741

Elisha Wells / Born Nov 10 1731 / Died Oct 5 1792 / Aged 61

Rhoda Wells / Born Oct 18 1734

Abigail Wells / Born Sept 4 1776

Lois D. Wells / Born Oct 5 1793

D. Dwight / Born Oct 5 1774 / Died June 25 1805 Aged / 30.

D Dwight Born July / 4 Died August 9 1805 / Aged 27

This family register by Sally Olcott Wells belongs to a group of solidly stitched samplers with oval pictorial scenes attributed to an unknown school in the Northampton, Massachusetts, area. All of the samplers in the group are original compositions. No two are alike, but they consistently have filled­in backgrounds stitched in white silk.

Sally embroidered a charming central scene depicting a teacher instruct­ing a student beneath a tree, while another student reads under a canopy. She surrounded her picture with a most unusual and complicated genealogy. Sally listed her name, age, town, and the date she completed the sampler in the bottom circle. From there, proceeding in a clockwise direction, she stitched a circle containing information about her sister Mabel and followed it with another circle showing her own name and date of birth. After that, her father Moses Wells is indicated in the center circle on the left side. The following four circles list her maternal grandparents, Josiah Dwight and Tabitha Big­elow Dwight, followed by her paternal grandparents, Elisha Wells and Rhoda Graves Wells. The next circle, positioned directly across from her father, is a record of her mother Abigail Dwight, Moses’s second wife. Progressing around the ring, the next circle belongs to Sally’s older half­sister Lois, the daughter of Moses and his first wife, Lois Dickinson (1774–1793), who died two months after young Lois was born. In the final circle, Sally recorded two uncles on her mother’s side.

Sally’s father Moses Wells (b. 1771) was born in Greenfield, Massachu­setts. He married Abigail Dwight (b. ca. 1776) on March 11, 1794. They were residents of Buckland, Massachusetts, where he was a blacksmith. After Sally’s father’s death, her mother married Jonathan Bliss of Hartford, Con­necticut. In 1815 Sally Olcott Wells married Gordon Percival Jr. in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

I Plate 17 J

Sally Olcott Wells (b. 1795), probably Hatfield,

Massachusetts

Sampler, 1807

Silk on linen, 161/2 x 151/4 in.; 181/4 x 167/8 in. framed

Probably worked in Northampton, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Mrs. Hugh B. Vanderbilt

Fund, 90.006.

40

Molly

Billings

1791

In 1791 Molly Billings stitched the earliest known example of the Deerfield, Massachusetts, group commonly referred to as the “White Dove” school. Named after the opposing white birds outlined in black that appear on the samplers, other characteristics of the style include the very common motif of baskets filled with round blossoms and protruding leaves arranged in a pyra­mid, windmills, and a variety of small trees and birds. Marian Childs (plate 21) worked a more developed sampler using many of the same motifs in 1820, twenty­nine years after Molly’s. Marian most likely worked hers under the tute lage of a different teacher, who copied these “White Dove” designs and added some new elements of her own.

Following some turbulent years, Deerfield was a well­established, stable, and pleasant town during Molly’s childhood. She was the fourth of seven chil­dren born to William Billings (1744–1812) and Jerusha Williams (1750–1821) and wrought this sampler at age twelve. In 1798, one year after Deerfield Acad­emy was founded, she married John Stoddard (1767 –1853).

I Plate 18 J

Molly Billings (1779–1857), Deerfield, Massachusetts

Sampler, 1791

Silk on linen, 15 x 10 in.; 183/4 x 133/4 in. framed

Deerfield, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Museum Collections

Fund, 97.3

41

Let ev’ry virtue reign within thy breast,

That heaven approves, or makes its owner / blest,

To candour, truth, and charity divine,

The modest, decent, lovely virtues join,

Let wit well temper’d meet

with sense refin’d,

And ev’ry thought express

the polish’d mind.

Hannah Graves’

Whately, Wrought 1818

SN (initialed lower right, possibly identifying the

schoolmistress)

Hannah Graves’s sampler shares some key traits with samplers made in the Deer­field, Massachusetts, area, including the simple border along the bottom with a more developed pattern on the other three sides. The characteristic baskets of flowers and the small bottom cartouche with a white background also relate the piece to others of the Deerfield style. It was probably worked in Whately, Massachu­setts, a town a few miles south of Deerfield that had several active schools in 1818. The verse Hannah selected traces back to a poem entitled, “A Minister’s Advice to a Young Lady,” which appeared in several early nineteenth­century behavior manuals.

Hannah Graves was the oldest of eight children born to Levi Graves (1769–1844) and Editha Field (1777–1854). She married Banister Morton (1805–83) in Hatfield at age eighteen in 1824.

I Plate 19 J

Hannah Graves (1806–64), Whately,

Massachusetts

Sampler, 1818

Silk on linen, 12 x 17 in.; 151/2 x 201/2 in. framed

Whately, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Museum

Collections Fund, 97.65.

42

Esther A. Slate’s. AE 10. 1824

This Deerfield, Massachusetts, sampler is embroidered with the distinctive opposing white birds of the “White Dove” school as well as typical alphabets and a variety of other decora­tive motifs. The elephant stitched into the lower left corner, however, is unique among the Deerfield samplers.

Esther Slate’s stitched rendition of an elephant resembles the one in newspapers and broadsides advertising Columbus the elephant, named after the ship that carried him to the United States. In September 1817, two ships left Calcutta—the Columbus, bound for Bos­ton with a male elephant, and the Trident, bound for New York with a female elephant. Both safely arrived at their respective ports about two and a half months later. According to early newspapers, Columbus toured throughout New England and the South and could be seen at different locations for from twelve­and­a­half to twenty­five cents. Columbus died in Philadelphia in 1829 from an old injury, but he continued to please the crowds in that city at Peale’s Museum after being stuffed with four hundred to five hundred bushels of cut straw.

Esther Adeline Slate, the tenth of thirteen children born to Amos Slate (1773–1830) and Esther A. Haws (1777–1857), worked this sampler in 1824 when she was a ten­year­old stu­dent in Deerfield. She eventually married a Mr. Root.

I Plate 20 J

Esther Adeline Slate (b. 1814),

Bernardston, Massachusetts

Sampler, 1824

Silk on linen, 121/4 x 211/4 in.; 133/4 x 223/4 in.

framed

Deerfield, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc. Museum

Collections Fund, 2003.48.2

43

Shelburne June 1820

Now in the cold grave is Marian sleeping

Unfinished the work which her fingers began

While we finish her task amidst sorrow and wee / ping

We’ll think of the frailty of shortlived man.

Marian Childs

AE 14 1820

This sampler from Shelburne, Massachusetts, only nine miles north of Deer-field, exhibits the recognized characteristics of samplers worked in the Deer-field, Massachusetts, area. Typically, the needleworks made there contain a central cartouche with a white background flanked by triangular trees topped with birds, fruit and flower baskets with protruding leaves, and a pair of white birds outlined in black. Marian worked this sampler when she was fourteen years old in 1820 under the supervision of her teacher Eunice Childs, but she died in 1823 without finishing it. Family tradition states that the inscription, birds, and cross were inserted by family members after Marian’s death.

Marian Childs was the longest surviving child of Israel Childs (1779–1821) and Sidney Hawks (b. 1786). She had two younger brothers, both named Israel, who died in infancy (1811–13 and 1814–15).

I Plate 21 J

Marian Childs (1806–23), Shelburne,

Massachusetts

Sampler, 1820

Silk on linen, 151/4 x 143/4 in.; 201/2 x 20 in.

framed

Shelburne, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Gift of

Marion Childs Stebbins, 63.330

44

How blest the maid whom circling years improve

Her god the object of her purest love

Whose youthful hours successive on they glide

The book the needle and the pen divide.

Melancia Bowker Age 13.

A paper-faced girl holding a bouquet stands in a disproportionate land-scape with paper sheep and a lavishly embroidered floral border on this large sampler stitched by Melancia Bowker in 1817. One of a small group of similar samplers from the Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, area, they are easily identified by the central landscape scene of a girl with a nosegay next to a large basket of flowers, the whole outlined with a sawtooth border.

Melancia Bowker was the sixth child of eight born to Charles Bowker (1757–1839) and Beulah Stone (1767–1836) of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. The Bowker girls—Betsy, born in 1793; Melancia, in 1803; Laura, in 1805; and Chestina, in 1808—all have an affiliation in one way or another with samplers from the area. Betsy and Chestina are known to have taught needlework (see plate 66, worked under the tutelage of Chestina). Laura made a sampler simi-lar to Melancia’s, also dated 1817, possibly under the direction of their older sister Betsy; it is now in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

In her twenties, Melancia was fortunate to study at the Ipswich Female Seminary with Mary Lyon, who went on to found Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, now Mount Holyoke College. Melancia taught in the schools of her neighborhood until her marriage in 1831 to Dr. George Newell, an invalid from Petersham, Massachusetts, who died just three months after their wedding. Melancia then became preceptress at Monson Academy in Massachusetts and in 1834 married Rev. John Storrs. They eventually moved to Winchendon, Mas-sachusetts, where he ministered at the First Congregational Church. In 1854, John Storrs died, leaving Melancia with little money and five children under the age of sixteen (two others died in infancy). An educated woman, she was determined to provide the same for her children, and all five graduated from college.

I Plate 22 J

Melancia Bowker (1803–1875), Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire

Sampler, 1817

Silk, chenille, paint, paper, and ink on linen, approx. 167/8 x

21 in.; 211/8 x 251/4 in. framed

Probably taught by Betsy Bowker, Fitzwilliam, New

Hampshire

Private collection

45

Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand

As the first efforts of an infant hand

And while her fingers o’er this canvas move

Engage her tender hart to seek thy love

With thy dear children let her share a part

And write thy name thy self upon her heart

Sacred to / Friendship

Wrought by Frances & Sophia Willard in the

14th & 12th year of thare ages

Pairs of samplers worked by sisters are not unusual, but this 1815 sampler from Charlestown, New Hampshire, is a rare example of two sisters working on the same sampler. The verse, its origin unconfirmed, is the most popular one found on samplers both in England and America. English sources attribute the lines to Rev. Thomas Trinder, whose wife Martha Trinder ran a prominent boarding school for girls in Northampton, England, in the mid-eighteenth century. To the right of the verse, a unique stylized monument is adorned with the phrase “Sacred to Friendship.” The sentiment takes on deeper meaning considering the hours these two young sisters must have shared working on their sampler.

Frances (Fannie) and Sophia Willard were the two oldest of three children born to Abel Willard (1788–1827) and Fanny Grout (b. 1792). The Willards were a pioneering family and moved to Fort #4 in Charlestown in 1742. Frances’s and Sophia’s grandfather Lieutenant Moses Willard was killed by Indians in 1756. Frances married Ebenezer Dunsmoor in 1830 and had four children. Sophia married Newton Allen, a selectman of Charlestown, in 1831 and had four chil-dren as well.

I Plate 23 J

Frances Willard (b. 1813) and Sophia Willard (1815–97),

Charlestown, New Hampshire

Sampler, ca. 1820

Silk on linen, 165/8 x 161/4 in.; 201/4 x 197/8 in. framed

Charlestown, New Hampshire

Private collection

46

1808

Newbury V.T. August 9 A.D.

Wrought by Polly Wyatt

aged 15 born Feb 6ht A.D. 1793

As I hope to be forever blest

May I be industrl pious &

Meek & benevolent virtuous wise

Dutiful to my Parents

Polly Wyatt of Newbury, Vermont, stitched a sampler with a fanciful embroi-dered border similar to a group from Newbury, Massachusetts, which sug-gests that her teacher may have come from that vicinity. Several residents of Newbury, Massachusetts, settled the Vermont town of the same name in the 1760s, possibly explaining the transfer of style. Unusual borders comprised of squares, diamonds, triangles, and a meandering floral vine traveling upward from a basket at the bottom of the sampler all surround the central panel.

Polly Wyatt was the oldest of nine children born to John Rogers Wyatt (1771–1813) and Sarah Hobart (1774–1858). Although she was born in Newbury, Vermont, her parents had also lived in Warren, Campton, and Plymouth, New Hampshire.

I Plate 24 J

Polly Wyatt (b. 1793), Newbury, Vermont

Sampler, 1808

Silk on linen, 171/4 x 151/2 in.; 20 x 181/4 in. framed

Newbury, Vermont

Private collection

47

Knowledge and virtue both combined

Like flower and fruit in youthful mind

Yield charms of brighter lustre far

Than wealth can boast or beauty wear

Virtue and wit with science joind

Reform the manner please the mind

And when with industry they meet

The whole character is complete.

Susan J. Hazen

Hartford Vt AE 11 years 1837

Susan Jane Hazen of Hartford, Vermont, stitched a simple sampler in 1837 with the usual letters, numbers, and virtuous verse while alternating the colors from word to word, a technique found in the Connecticut River Valley. Important buildings were often featured on samplers. This example depicts Dartmouth Hall in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire, the largest building in the area; it appears with its distinctive cupola in the lower left corner. The building is accompanied by a stylized “Lone Pine,” a symbol of Dartmouth College since the late eighteenth century. The actual “Lone Pine,” a colonial­era white pine atop Observatory Hill above the Dartmouth Green, was still standing when Susan worked her sampler in 1837. Several members of the Hazen family at­tended Dartmouth.

Susan Jane Hazen was one of eight children born to David Hazen (1791–1853), a tanner and farmer, and Nancy Savage (1797–1879). In 1849 she married William Howard Tucker (1826–95), a civil engineer, historian, and the author of History of Hartford, Vermont (Burlington, 1889). They had four children. Her husband wrote about Susan’s mother in his noted volume, “Mrs. Hazen was a prudent, industrious wife, and reared her daughters in an exemplary manner. They were deft at the great and little spinning wheel and at the loom.”

I Plate 25 J

Susan Jane Hazen (1826–1901), Hartford, Vermont

Sampler, 1837

Cotton and silk on linen, 151/8 x 141/2 in.; 185/8 x 185/8 in.

framed

Hartford, Vermont

Private collection

48

Canvaswork pictures from the mid­eighteenth century worked in the Connecticut River Valley often incorporated identifiable buildings, animals, people, and a variety of naturalistic motifs. Though similar to the more formal Boston canvaswork pictures, which are based on prints, the Connecticut River Valley examples tend to have a more fanciful quality. To date five known needlework pictures, including this one attributed to Lucia Yeomans, share this common design influence. The examples in this group have similar small houses with extra­large windows complete with mullions and steps leading to the houses. Additionally, all share heavily stylized, disproportionately large trees and flowers, as well as a black background, which also tie the pieces together.

Three of the group are signed by Fairfield, Connecticut, girls (plates 27–29), and one is dated 1741 (plate 27). This unsigned example has a family history of being worked by Ruby Brewster (1765–1801) from Middletown, Connecticut. When Ruby’s father Elisha Brewster (1715–89) died, his inventory included three framed “worked” pictures appraised at a total of eight shillings. Because six of his twelve children were girls, it is difficult to determine which of the daughters might have worked this partic­ular needlework picture or if, in fact, this is one of the pieces referred to in Elisha’s in­ventory. Given the dates of the Fairfield needleworks, however, it is far more likely that Elisha’s wife, Lucia Yeomans, stitched this canvaswork. Lucia, also from Middletown, could have produced this piece early in the 1740s before she was married in 1742.

I Plate 26 J

Attributed to Lucia Yeomans (1723–75), Middletown,

Connecticut

Formerly attributed to Ruby Brewster (1765–1801),

Middletown, Connecticut

Canvaswork, ca. 1740

Wool on linen, 83/4 x 83/4 in.; 115/8 x 115/8 in. framed

Middletown, Connecticut

Middlesex County Historical Society

49

ANNA•BURR•1741

Discovering where or when a piece of needlework was made sometimes depends on finding others that have common characteristics. This folksy example from 1741 by Anna Burr is the only one of a group of five similar needlework pictures that is dated. Anna’s was the key to understanding the others, which had been assigned later dates. Due to their stylistic similarities, an analogous date was given to a pair of needlework pictures from this group worked by the unknown Mary Lockwood (plates 28 and 29). Once the stylistic connection was made, research revealed that Anna Burr was related to a Mary Lockwood of Fairfield, Connecticut, which established Fairfield as a possible center of production for this type.

Anna Burr, the daughter of Ephraim Burr (1700–1776) and Abigail Burr (1702–80) made this needlework in 1741 at age ten. She married Sturgis Lewis (b. ca.1729) in 1751. All births, marriages, and deaths in the family took place in Fairfield, Connecticut.

I Plate 27 J

Anna Burr (b. 1731), Fairfield, Connecticut

Canvaswork, 1741

Wool on linen, 13 x 93/4 in.; 161/2 x 131/4 in. framed

Possibly worked in Fairfield County or

Middletown, Connecticut

Private collection

50

Colorful, graphic, and whimsical describe a delightful pair of ca. 1745 needle work pictures stitched by a young lady from Fairfield, Connecticut (plates 28 and 29). Some of the compo-nents are based on established designs used for bed hangings and domestic textiles, however, the combination of these designs is unique to these canvasworks. The unrestrained freedom of design is a testament to the creativity of both the instructor and student and their willingness to adapt existing traditions. Even within the small Connecticut group of five similar mid eigh-teenth-century needlework pictures (see plate 27), Mary Lockwood’s design sense is notable.

I Plate 28 J

Mary Lockwood, Fairfield, Connecticut

Canvaswork with house, ca. 1745

Wool on linen, 157/8 x 125/8 in.; 183/4 x 151/2

in. framed

Possibly worked in Fairfield County or

Middletown, Connecticut

Private collection

MARY • LOCKWOOD

51

MARY LOCKWOOD

Several Mary Lockwoods were born in Fairfield County in the early to mid-1730s. Short of finding these needlework pictures described in an inventory or some other written source, it remains impossible to know precisely which Mary Lockwood was the stitcher.

I Plate 29 J

Mary Lockwood, Fairfield, Connecticut

Canvaswork with flowers and trees, ca.

1745

Wool on linen, 153/4 x 123/4 in.; 181/2 x 151/2

in. framed

Possibly worked in Fairfield County or

Middletown, Connecticut

Private collection

52

I Plate 30 J

Unidentified artist of the Chandler family, Woodstock,

Connecticut

Canvaswork with Chandler home, 1758

Wool and silk on linen, 15 x 23 in.; 181/4 x 261/4 in. framed

Probably worked in Woodstock, Connecticut

Private collection

Two remarkable canvaswork pictures, seen in plates 30 and 31, have descended in the Chandler family of Worcester, Massachusetts, and Woodstock, Con­necticut (at the time these needleworks were made, Woodstock was part of Worcester County). Worked by one or two of the daughters of John Chandler Jr., one depicts an intriguing scene of two courting couples engaged in conver­sation, one holding hands, the other about to be smitten with Cupid’s arrow. Servants of African descent carry food and beverage and two young gentlemen sit reading, all in front of a center­chimney house with the date 1758 above the doorway.

The other picture depicts a maiden seated in a landscape filled with frolick­ing dogs, a swan, and a variety of disproportionate flowers, while a youth plays a pipe and another lounges alongside.

Both pictures have wonderful costume detail, and one illustrates household furnishings. It is unknown where these pieces were made, though they are somewhat reminiscent of earlier Norwich, Connecticut, pictures in their re­cording of everyday social activity through original, not copied, compositions. A daughter of the family, Katherine Chandler, attended a school in Boston

53

where she made a Chandler coat of arms ca. 1750, but these pictures do not re-semble the usual Boston canvasworks, which were frequently taken from print sources. It is also possible that they were stitched locally. Woodstock was pros-perous and progressive and ranked among the foremost towns of the county with well-patronized schools that included pupils from the best families in the area.

John Chandler Jr. (1693–1762) and his wife Hannah Gardiner (1699–1739) were parents to ten children, seven of whom were daughters. Oral family his-tory attributes the pieces to Sarah Chandler (1725–1811). She married Timo-thy Paine (1730–93) in 1749, and they had five children. The scene in plate 30 may depict Sarah, in red, and Timothy seated on the sofa, as well as Katherine (1735–91), in blue, and husband-to-be Levi Willard (a painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows him to be a portly man around the year 1770) being targeted by Cupid. Another possible identity of the woman in blue is Lucretia Chandler (1730–68), who may have been the only unmarried daughter of the family in 1758. She married John Murray in 1761.

I Plate 31 J

Unidentified artist of the Chandler family, Woodstock

Connecticut

Canvaswork with pastoral scene, 1758

Wool and silk on linen, 153/4 x 217/8 in.; 19 x 251/8 in. framed

Probably worked in Woodstock, Connecticut

Private collection

54

Two of the most popular subjects for mid-eighteenth-century Boston needle work pictures were drawn from European prints representing courting scenes—one with a lady fishing and a gen-tleman by her side, the other a reclining shepherdess with a shep-herd standing nearby watching over his flock. Both feature bucolic landscapes filled with animals, trees, and flowers set among hillocks and often a manor house in the distance. Two Northamp-ton, Massachusetts, girls, Esther and Hannah Stoddard, stitched “Reclining Shepherdess” pictures, like this one by Alethea Stiles, while attending school in Boston after their father’s death in 1748.

A letter written at age ten to her cousin Ezra Stiles, subse-quently president of Yale College (1777–95), reflects Alethea’s out-going and determined personality. “Why mayn’t I go to college too, for my father says one Jenny Cameron put on a jacket and breeches and was a good soldier, and why may not I also and live at college?” Though Yale was not in her future, Alethea attended school in Bos-ton, where she executed her “Reclining Shepherdess” in vibrant color. Not only did she sign and date her work, unusual in itself as most are not signed or dated, but she did so very boldly.

Born in Woodstock, Connecticut, Alethea Stiles was the

daughter of Rev. Abel Stiles (1708/9–83) and Alethea Robinson (1710–86). Her third great-grandparents on her mother’s side were John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, who crossed on the May-flower in 1620. According to his obituary in the New London Gazette, Alethea’s father, a Yale graduate and minister (whose congregation did not always agree with his doctrine), was considered a “sincere, steady friend, parent and husband; and although hasty in his natu-ral temper, yet sensible of this constitutional defect.” Alethea was the third child, with two older siblings having died, at ages three and one, in the year before Alethea’s birth. A son and daughter fol-lowed Alethea and both died, at ages five and six, within a week of each other when Alethea was only ten, a tragic event in her life that left her an only child. She was admitted to the Woodstock church on May 30, 1762, and on October 29, 1762, married Hadlock Marcy (1739–1821), a Yale graduate of 1761. They had one child, Sophia Marcy (1764–96), named for her deceased sister, but the couple separated shortly afterwards due to Hadlock Marcy’s misconduct. Alethea died January 27, 1784, at age thirty-eight in Woodstock, Connecticut.

I Plate 32 J

Alethea Stiles (1745–84), Woodstock,

Connecticut

Canvaswork, “Reclining Shepherdess,”

1762

Wool and silk on linen, 161/2 x 22 in.;

211/8 x 265/8 in. framed

Boston, Massachusetts

Private collection

ALETHEA

STILES

1762

55

Polly Jennings created a delightful courting scene with an ornately costumed shepherd and shepherdess under a large stylized tree with grapes hanging overhead. The landscape features cows, sheep, and a dog posed in a partially fenced field. Smoke billows from one of the chimneys of the house in the back­ground. Garden and pastoral scenes were romantic indulgences for schoolgirls and often created in paint and needlework.

Polly Jennings was the daughter of Zephaniah Jennings and Phebe Trap of Norwich, Connecticut. She married Thomas Tracy Rix (b. 1774) in 1802. A note on the back of the embroidery reads, “This picture worked by Polly Jennings in 1793. She was born in Norwich Mar. 20, 1778, the daughter of Zephaniah and Phebe (Trap) Jennings. When she finished the work at the age of 15, Norwich was nothing but a trading post, so her Father took it on horse­back to Boston to have it framed. She and Mrs. Isreal Burton (Betsy Kinnie Burton) became friends and she was married at the Burton home Dec. 30, 1802, to Thomas Tracy Rix, who was born in Preston Jan. 14, 1774.”

I Plate 33 J

Polly Jennings (b. 1778) Norwich, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, pastoral scene, 1793

Silk, metallic thread, gold foil, and spangles on

black silk, 151/4 x 203/4 in.; 191/8 x 245/8 in. framed

Norwich, Connecticut

Private collection

56

Inscribed on silk at lower right: A Lady of Ionia

This unfinished piece offers a rare opportunity to see one of the mounting techniques used in creating silk embroideries. The image was drawn on the silk, the silk stitched to a piece of canvas, the canvas hemmed, buttonholes created around the perimeter, and the silk then laced to the frame.

The scene depicts the virtuous ancient Roman woman Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, a popular subject for young ladies in New England to copy. Several embroidered pictures from different schools feature this composition, which was taken from an engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi (1729–1815) published in London in 1788 and entitled Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi. Bartolozzi based his engraving on a 1785 painting by Swiss artist Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807). Some of the embroideries of this theme bear varying titles—“These Are My Jewels,” “Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi,” or “Maternal Affection.”

A second-century Roman matron, Cornelia was the widowed mother of three children. Her reputation for goodness and wisdom was widespread, and many rich and noble men proposed marriage. Yet she always declined so that she might watch over her children; her purpose in life, she claimed, was to raise them to love and serve their country. A rich woman from Ionia came to visit with a box of jewels to show Cornelia, after which the woman asked to see her hostess’s jewelry. Cornelia, being of more modest means, pointed to her children saying, “These are my jewels.” Undoubtedly this endeared the heroine to nineteenth-century teenage girls; consequently Cornelia was often chosen as the subject of needleworks and watercolors. Schoolgirls probably also found the end of Cornelia’s story engaging as well. To their mother’s credit, the two sons grew to be Roman statesmen, famous for their great accomplishments. They did, however, meet with tragic deaths when both were eventually mur-dered as a result of their good deeds.

I Plate 34 J

Unidentified artist

Unfinished silk embroidery, “Cornelia, These Are My

Jewels,” ca. 1810

Silk, watercolor, graphite, and original pin on silk, approx.

121/2 x 151/2 in.; 203/4 x 231/2 in. framed

Probably worked in Boston, Massachusetts, area

Collection of Sally and William Gemmill

57

Maria was a popular subject for schoolgirls to stitch or paint. Mary Ann Newell based her example on an engraving by Robert Sayer, published in London in 1787, after a painting by Robert Dighton. Maria was the heroine of the 1768 novel A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by the Irishman Laurence Sterne (1713–68) published in London just three weeks before his death. Its emphasis on sentiment became a popular theme for travel writings in the late eighteenth century in contrast to previous travel literature, which was mostly based on classical learning and objective observations.

In the story, Maria was a French maiden who became distraught after being jilted by her fiancé yet somehow managed to maintain her natural allure. She went wandering with her flute and a goat (who also deserted her). After the death of her father, she acquired a dog named Sylvio and kept him tethered to her, stating, “Thou shalt not leave me.” The embroidery captures Maria’s pensive mood as well as several details of the narrative. The story drew the at-tention of young ladies in England and America as evidenced by the abundance of embroideries with this theme.

Mary Ann Newell (ca. 1792–1843) was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, the daughter of Captain David Newell and Mary Stow. He was engaged in slave trading and killed during an uprising of slaves aboard his vessel in the Cape Verde Islands in 1819. Mary Ann worked this silk embroidery ca. 1809, before she married John Bushnell (1790–1859) in 1812. The couple had three chil-dren before Mary Ann died and John married his second wife Jenette Tully (1799–1885) in 1844. Mary Ann, John, and Jenette Newell are all buried in the Saybrook Junction Cemetery.

I Plate 35 J

Mary Ann Newell (ca. 1792–1843), Saybrook, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Maria at Moulines,” ca. 1809

Silk and ink on silk, 111/2 x 93/4 in.; 163/4 x 14 in. framed

Saybrook, Connecticut

Collection of Diane Denison Fuller

58

In this painted and sewn composition, a young girl wearing a liberty cap ap­pears raising a chalice with an outstretched arm in an adaptation of Edward Savage’s engraving of 1796 entitled Liberty Giving Support to the Bald Eagle. In other comparable examples (plates 56 and 57), the cup is held up to offer nourishment to a bald eagle, which is absent in this needlework. Like the al­legorical figure of Plenty, Liberty was also commonly depicted with a cornu­copia in patriotic prints and needleworks of the early nineteenth century. The figure of Plenty is flanked by trees with a grouping of buildings in the lower left background similar to those found on other Connecticut silk embroideries. According to family histories this and two other nearly identical embroideries are from Saybrook, Connecticut.

I Plate 36 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Plenty,” ca. 1810

Silk, watercolor, ink, and graphite on silk, 133/4 x 113/4 in.; 223/4

x 203/8 in. framed

Saybrook, Connecticut

Private collection

59

Inscribed on glass: Peace

The theme of “Peace” is appropriately illustrated in this embroidery by the depiction of a well­dressed, serene young lady seated in a tranquil landscape reaching out to a bird grasping an olive branch, a traditional symbol of peace. It appears to be an origi­nal design, as no known print source exists. The anonymous stitcher used spangles, which were often incorporated into borders and costumes as a means of reflecting light, to enhance the woman’s dress. The grouping of buildings, although not identi­fiable, are very similar to buildings depicted on two silk embroideries representing “Plenty,” each with a Saybrook, Connecticut, history (see plate 36).

Family history indicates the work was performed by a Wethersfield, Connecticut, girl, ca. 1810.

I Plate 37 J

Unidentified artist, probably from Wethersfield,

Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Peace,” ca. 1810

Silk, spangles, watercolor, and ink on silk, 10 x 133/8 in.; 15 x 19 in. framed

Probably worked in Wethersfield, Connecticut

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Jenkins

60

The most lustrous and elaborate of all the embroideries worked in the eigh­teenth century by schoolgirls were coats of arms. The lozenge­shaped coats of arms, unique to New England, were created in Boston, first as canvaswork in the 1740s and then in silk and metallic thread on a black silk background by the early 1750s. They were sophisticated accomplishments intended as decora­tion to demonstrate a family’s prestige in society. Though visually similar to funereal hatchments, which were painted on wood and hung over the door of the deceased, the social functions of the two objects were very different.

Ann Grant was the daughter of Ebenezer Grant (1706–97) and Ann Ells­worth (1712–83) of East Windsor, Connecticut. She attended school in Boston during the summers of 1767 and 1769. She went first to Miss Jannette Day’s school and then the Misses Ann and Elizabeth Cummings’s school, where she stitched this elaborate coat of arms. In 1775 Ann married Rev. John Marsh (1742–1821), the minister of the First Church of Wethersfield, Connecticut, and they had seven children.

I Plate 38 J

Ann Grant (1748–1838), East Windsor, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, Grant coat of arms, 1769

Silk, metallic thread, metal, and beads on silk, 251/4 x 251/4

in.; 295/8 x 295/8 in. framed

Misses Ann and Elizabeth Cummings’s school, Boston,

Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Mr. Henry N. Flynt, 1391

61

BY THE NAME / OF CHENEY / NIL SINE DEO.

Mary Cheney’s coat of arms is the earliest known work from the Misses Pat-tens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut. “Hartford 1793” is written on the back of the frame in ink, while an attached paper states, “Mary Cheneys work / Henry Chester Pitkins / mothers done at Miss / Pattens School in Hartford, Conn / Henry Chester Pitk[loss]/ Mary Cheneys work / Hartford Conn” / 1793 / Hartford Conn -1793-.” The padded pelican at the top of the coat of arms is a unique feature. Embroideries from the Pattens’ school worked after 1800 usually included a padded eagle holding floral garlands. The pelican, a more religious symbol than the patriotic eagle, appears here in combination with the Latin phrase nil sine deo, or “nothing without God.”

Mary was one of seven children born to Timothy Cheney (1731–95) and Mary Olcott (1738–86). Her father and his brother were well-known clock-makers in the Hartford area. The celebrated clockmaker Eli Terry studied the craft under Mary’s father’s guidance. Her mother died when Mary was six years old, and her father later married Martha Loomis. In October 1806 Mary wed Roswell Pitkin (1774–1808), an innovative hat manufacturer and father of two small boys whose first wife had died earlier that year. Mary gave birth to her only child, a son, ten months after her marriage. Roswell passed away only five months later, leaving her with three boys under the age of six. Mary died five years later. Her only child, Henry C. Pitkin, born July 4, 1807, died unmarried in 1853.

I Plate 39 J

Mary Cheney (1781–1813), Hartford, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, Cheney coat of arms, 1793

Silk and metallic thread on silk, 181/8 x 161/4 in.; 263/8 x 231/2

in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Collection of Sally and William Gemmill

62

REGARD / THE END / WILLIAMS / MWG

The large padded eagle worked in metallic thread holding a floral garland was the signature characteristic of the beautiful coats of arms worked in the early nineteenth century at the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut. Bearded ears of wheat or fronds encircle the center heraldic pattern, and a ribbon with an inscription meanders below. Created as prestigious decoration for the home by daughters of prominent men, coats of arms were hung in the “best” parlor as a symbol of status and wealth.

Although the maker of this Williams coat of arms is unknown, Jerusha Mather Williams, a student at the Patten school, stitched a Williams coat of arms that was very similar to this example (ca. 1800, Longmeadow Historical Society). When Jerusha later became a teacher at Deerfield Academy, she used some of the design elements she learned at the Misses Pattens’ school at her new post, further up the Connecticut River.

I Plate 40 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, Williams coat of arms, ca. 1810

Silk, metallic thread, velvet, ink, and spangles on silk, 153/4 x

123/4 in.; 201/2 x 171/2 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Collection of Geoffrey Paul

63

Inscribed on glass: Mary Rogers.

Although the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut, was well known for the embroidered coats of arms the students stitched, a few girls chose to paint their family arms. Characteristics of work done at the Patten school in-clude the eagle at the top holding a garland of leaves and flowers and a central motif bracketed with flowering vines. The main field varies from example to example. This work depicts the combined coats of arms of the Rogers and Ingra ham families.

Mary Ingraham Rogers was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to James Rogers (1765–1816) and Sophia Ingraham (ca. 1772–96). She married Stephen Fitch in 1817 and moved to Hartford, New York. The couple raised a well-traveled and cosmopolitan family. They had two sons, both of whom eventually moved to Oregon, and two daughters, one of whom died in Paris. Her sixth great- grandfather was Richard Warren, who came to the New World on the Mayflower.

I Plate 41 J

Mary Ingraham Rogers (1794–1837), Norwich, Connecticut

Rogers and Ingraham coat of arms, ca. 1810

Watercolor, paint, ink, and graphite on paper, 23 x 193/8 in.;

281/8 x 241/4 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., John W. and Christiana

G.P. Batdorf Fund, 2008.27

Virtue the / safest shield / Rogers & Ingraham

64

Louisa Bellows was one of several girls from Walpole, New Hampshire, who made the journey to attend the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecti-cut. There she worked this large version of “Charity” with a detailed watercolor townscape in the background ca. 1810. Choosing Charity as the subject for silk embroideries and watercolors was no doubt fashionable, as several of this theme are known. Another, almost identical, embroidery was worked by Eliza Stone, also from Walpole. The central motif of a mother with three children, a common mode of representing the figure of Charity in art, was copied from a mezzotint engraving entitled Charity and published in London by P. Stampa in 1802.

Louisa Bellows was born in Walpole, New Hampshire, the third child of Josiah Bellows (1767–1846) and his first wife Rebecca Sparhawk (1768–92). After her mother’s death, her father married Rebecca’s sister Mary Sparhawk in 1793, and they had eight children. Louisa married a Boston lawyer named John White Hayward (1786–1832) in 1824. They had three children, two sons and a daughter named Louisa. After her husband’s death she moved back to Walpole, but by the time of her death, in 1868, she was living in South Boston with her daughter.

I Plate 42 J

Louisa Bellows (1792–1868), Walpole, New Hampshire

Silk embroidery, “Charity,” ca. 1810

Silk, chenille, metallic thread, paint, watercolor, and

ink on silk, 183/4 x 251/8 in.; 245/8 x 307/8 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Private collection

Inscribed on replaced églomisé glass:

(at top) Louisa Bellows

(at bottom) Charity

65

MC

Along with the allegory of Charity, “Moses in the Bulrushes” was one of the fa­vorite subjects for schoolgirls to copy at the Misses Pattens’ school. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century many young women stitched or painted these two subjects, which have become synonymous with the school. The compositions were usually worked in a vertical format with the central scene depicted within an oval. The padded eagle surmounting the oval, along with the beribboned floral garlands and the crossed bearded wheat in the surrounding stitched embellishments are all typical of compositions from the Misses Pat­tens’ school.

This anonymous work is most likely based on a print depicting the discov­ery of the infant Moses, as recounted in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Pharaoh’s daughter, her attendants, and perhaps Miriam, Moses’ sister, who was sent to keep watch over the baby, are depicted in contemporary rather than ancient Egyptian attire. Pharaoh’s daughter pulled the baby from the Nile where she saw him floating in a basket. She adopted the child and gave him the name Moses from the Hebrew Moshe, meaning “to draw out.”

I Plate 43 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Moses in the Bulrushes,” ca. 1810

Silk, chenille, metallic thread, watercolor, spangles, and ink

on silk, 171/4 x 14 in.; 24 x 203/8 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Jenkins

66

Inscribed on replaced églomisé glass: jeptha repenteth

his rash vow / R . CHILD.

“Jeptha Repenteth His Rash Vow” was the popular subject Beulah Child chose for her silk­embroidered picture, a scene stitched frequently at both the Lydia Royse and Misses Pattens’ schools in Hartford, Connecticut.

Typical of the Misses Pattens’ school is the white fence and palm trees in the background. Several other students at the school made renditions of this sub­ject. The faces of the ladies have an amateur look and were probably painted by Beulah, while the face of Jeptha appears to have been drawn by a different, more skilled, hand. The replaced églomisé glass mistakenly records Beulah’s first initial as an R.

Beulah Child was born April 18, 1796, in Haddam, Connecticut. She was the fourth daughter and sixth of the twelve children of James Kelly Child (1763–1837) and Prudence Brainerd (1764–1821). James built gunboats for the War of 1812 and followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who were both shipbuilders. According to an 1864 letter written by Beulah’s younger brother Hezekiah, their father had an adventurous childhood. “James K. Child, at the age of 14 years, and Thomas Child, at the age of 13 years, went privateering during the war of the Revolution; were taken prisoners and confined on board the old ‘Jersey’ prison ship lying at the Wallabout, New York, or Brooklyn; were sent on a cartel to Boston and there discharged, sick and covered with vermin and left to walk and beg their way as best they could back to their home in Con­necticut. I have heard my father say that he well remembered that one of the sentinels said as he was passed over the side of the ship that it would make but little difference whether that fellow went or not.”

I Plate 44 J

Beulah Child (1796–1886), Haddam, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Jeptha Repenteth his Rash Vow,” ca.

1810–15

Silk, chenille, gold fringe, metallic thread, watercolor, gilt

paper, and ink on silk, 19 x 161/2 in.; 255/8 x 231/8 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut

Private collection

67

This portrait of Harriet Wells (1796–1814) is attributed to Deacon Robert Peckham, who captured her as a very stylish young lady sporting the current hair fashion and empire dress. It is painted in pastel and with applied gilt paper and retains the original gilt frame backed with a Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper dated 1812, about the same time that Harriet attended the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford. The painting is also backed with a later layer of New York newspapers dating from the 1860s. Harriet died in 1814, only a few years after she made her embroidery of “Jeptha” (plate 47) and this portrait was painted.

Deacon Robert Peckham married Ruth Sawyer from Bolton in 1813 at age twenty-eight and they were living in Northampton, Massachusetts, between 1813 and 1815, when he likely drew this portrait.

I Plate 45 J

Deacon Robert Peckham (1785–1877)

Harriet Wells, ca. 1813

Pastel and gilt paper on paper, 253/8 x 203/4 in.; 32 x 27 in.

framed

Private collection

68

Girls who stitched pictorial samplers and exquisite silk­embroidered pictures began their needlework instruction by working a simple sampler, but it is unusual for the pieces to remain together. Fortunately, Harriet’s elementary sampler de­scended in the family with her silk­embroidered picture of Jeptha (plate 47) and the handsome portrait of Harriet drawn by Deacon Robert Peckham (plate 45).

Harriet worked an alphabet and number sampler in beiges and browns, in­expensive colors typically used in basic sampler making. She added a large pink flower for decoration. The verse she stitched is only slightly altered from the original 1726 poem “To Mr. Pope on His Works” by the British scholar and poet William Broome (1689–1745). Broome worked with Alexander Pope on a transla­tion of Homer’s Odyssey and wrote the poem from which Harriet drew these lines as a tribute to that collaboration. The original lines in Broome’s poem refer to the Renaissance artist Raphael but have been adapted, in several known needlework examples, to describe the artistic endeavors of a schoolgirl.

I Plate 46 J

Harriet Wells (1796–1814), Woodbury, Connecticut,

and New Hartford, New York

Sampler, ca. 1806

Silk on linen, 83/4 x 16 in.; 103/4 x 19 in. framed

Probably worked in Hartford, Connecticut

Private collection

Harriet Wells sampler

aged eleven years

Thus when my draught some future time invades

The silk & figure from the canvas fades,

A rival hand recalls from every part

Some latent grace and equals art with art.

Transported we survey with dubious strife,

Each form & figure starts again to life.

Harriet Wells born September 3rd A.D. 1796

69

Inscribed on glass: HARRIET WELLS / JEPTHAH

LAMENTS HIS RASH VOW.

Harriet Wells’s stitched rendition of the Old Testament story of Jepthah can be stylistically attributed to the Misses Pattens’ school. The composition includes three female figures on a portico, the central figure of Jepthah, and one soldier partially concealed by a tree and fence. The fence posts topped with spheri­cal finials are often found on embroideries from the Patten school. The faces are particularly well painted, and appear to be by Deacon Robert Peckham (1785–1877), who also drew Harriet’s portrait (plate 45). It was not unusual for a professional artist to paint the faces and backgrounds on silk embroideries. The gold metallic fringe on the drapery is typical of other embroideries of this subject. It retains the original frame with églomisé glass, an ornamental form of reverse painting on glass incorporating gold leaf accents, and printed label of “Spencer and Gilman Looking Glass Manufacturers, Main Street Hartford” on the reverse.

Harriet Wells was the daughter of Samuel Wells (1762–1803) and Dorothy Prentice (1765–1854) of Woodbury, Connecticut. Her parents moved to Oneida County, New York, and farmed land purchased from George Washington; theirs was the first recorded deed in the county. Harriet returned to Hartford, Connecticut, for her education. She died in 1814, shortly after she made her embroidery and sat for her portrait. A small sampler stitched by Harriet at age eleven (plate 46) and this outstanding portrait complete an unusually large body of work related to Harriet.

I Plate 47 J

Harriet Wells (1796–1814), Woodbury, Connecticut, and New

Hartford, New York

Silk embroidery, “Jepthah Laments His Rash Vow,” ca. 1812

Silk, chenille, gold fringe, metallic thread, watercolor, ink,

and spangles on silk, 171/2 x 213/4 in.; 241/2 x 281/8 in. framed

Probably worked at Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford,

Connecticut

Private collection

70

This exquisite and lustrous depiction of “Jeptha’s Rash Vow” was stitched by an unknown young lady of exceptional skill at Lydia Royse’s school in Hartford, Connecticut, ca. 1810. With its powerful ending, the story of Jeptha (Jephthah), found in the Old Testament book of Judges, captivated students at both the Pat­tens’ and Royse schools.

Jeptha, a judge in ancient Israel, led a war against the Ammonites. Before going into battle he promised the Lord that if he should win he would sacrifice the first person who greeted him when he returned home. The Israelites won the war, but unfortunately for Jeptha, the first person he encountered upon his return was his daughter. This needlework, like many of the subject, depicts the key moment when Jeptha realizes how rash he had been in making the vow, which now required him to sacrifice his only child.

This exquisite frame with corner shells, roping, incised decoration, and gold églomisé is the most elaborate found on any of the Connecticut River Val­ley silk embroideries. It is attributed to Spencer and Gilman, Hartford framers and looking glass manufacturers.

I Plate 48 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Jeptha’s Rash Vow,” ca. 1810

Silk, chenille, velvet, fabric, metallic fringe, watercolor, ink,

and spangles on silk, 211/4 x 213/8 in.; 26 x 281/2 in. framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

Private collection

71

It was not uncommon for girls from the Connecticut River Valley to travel great distances to attend such schools as Susanna Rowson’s academy in Boston, considered one of the best schools of its kind in the country. The curriculum at an academy like Rowson’s reflected an appreciation of classic literature and history, which often influenced the subject matter selected for an embroidery project. The quality of the stitching in this example suggests that this young lady was very adept with the needle. Maintaining the overall high standard of this embroidery, the Boston artist John Johnston painted the faces and back-grounds, as he did for many embroideries at the school.

The composition was directly traced onto the silk from a print entitled The Royal Palace in Alexandria, Antony, Cleopatra, Eros, Charmian, Iros etc. engraved by G. N. and J. G. Facius (London: John and Josiah Boydell, December 1, 1795) after a painting by Henry Tresham. The scene represents Act 3, Scene 11 from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The action takes place in the Palace at Alex andria with Pompey’s Pillar in the distance and depicts the first interview of Cleopatra and Marc Antony after the fatal battle of Actium.

I Plate 49 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Cleopatra,” ca. 1810

Silk, wool, and watercolor on silk, 153/4 x 211/4 in.; 263/4 x

321/8 in. framed

Mrs. Rowson’s Academy, Boston, Massachusetts

Collection of Sally and William Gemmill

72

Inscribed on glass: E. NOYES. 1807. / BLANCH. &

HENRIQUES.

This historical scene entitled “Blanch & Henriques” was most likely taken from a print and may depict the first meeting of the betrothed couple Henri IV, King of Castile, and Blanche II of Navarre. The two married in 1440 but the Pope granted them a divorce in 1453 on the grounds that witchcraft had interfered with the marriage because no heir was produced. It is an unusual subject mat-ter and the only needlework known to depict the scene.

Eunice Noyes stitched this colorful piece in 1807 at Lydia Royse’s school in Hartford, Connecticut. The faces were painted by the schoolmistress herself, who was known to be a very accomplished artist.

Eunice was born in Lyme, Connecticut, third child and only daughter of Captain Joseph Noyes (1758–1820) and Jane Lord (1764–1843). She married John Christopher Ely (1787–1864) on January 5, 1811. They had eleven chil-dren, eight of whom lived to adulthood. Eunice’s great-great grandfather was Reverend Moses Noyes, the first minister in Old Lyme.

I Plate 50 J

Eunice Noyes (1791–1870), Lyme, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Blanch & Henriques,” 1807

Silk, chenille, velvet, metallic thread, watercolor, and ink

on silk, 18 x 217/8 in.; 251/2 x 293/4 in. framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

Private collection

73

Inscribed on glass: Daughter of Toscar take the

Harp / And raise the lovely song of Selma. /

Sophia Kilborn

English literature studies often provided the inspiration for silk­embroidered pictures. This example, wrought at the well­known Lydia Royse school in Hart­ford, Connecticut, depicts a passage from one of Ossian’s poems titled “The War of Inis­Thona” in which Malvinia was commanded, “Daughter of Toscar Take the Harp, and Raise the Lovely Song of Selma.” The existence of Ossian, an ancient blind Gaelic poet, is questionable. The Scottish antiquarian James MacPherson (1736–96) claimed to have discovered Ossian’s manuscripts and to have translated them from Gaelic in the 1764 The Poems of Ossian. Now be­lieved to be MacPherson’s creation, the poems achieved international notori­ety and were considered by many to be the Celtic equivalent of the work of such classical writers as Homer. Thomas Jefferson wrote about the “daily pleasure of reading Ossian” at Monticello, and Napoleon carried an Italian translation with him.

Sophia Kilborn was a student at the Royse school, located on Front Street in Hartford, when she worked this silk embroidery ca. 1810. The image was cop­ied from a print, probably an illustration from one of the recent translations of Ossian, and the painting was most likely the work of Lydia Royse.

Sophia, a nickname for her given name Saphrona, was the second of five children born to Joseph Kilborn (1765–1851) and Hannah Sellew (1767–1826) of Glastonbury, Connecticut. According to a handwritten note attached to the back of the needlework, she stitched it before she married Samuel Whiting (1794–after 1856) of West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1816. They had eight chil­dren between 1817 and 1831.

I Plate 51 J

Sophia Kilborn (1796–after 1856), Glastonbury, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Daughter of Toscar Take the Harp, and

Raise the Lovely Song of Selma,” ca. 1810

Silk, chenille, and watercolor on silk, 17 x 235/8 in.; 23 x 283/4

in. framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

The Historical Society of Glastonbury, Gift of Thomas and

Patricia Flaherty

74

Inscribed on glass: Liberty guided by the wisdom of

’76.

The neoclassical vogue of the early nineteenth century extended to needle­work, where goddesses, classical temples, and ancient attire appear frequently in elegant silk embroideries. Often conflated with Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom, the personification of Liberty as an ancient goddess was a favorite theme in needlework. Liberty was the great protector, defending knowledge during the Renaissance, rebels during the French and American Revolu­tions, and America after the Revolution. Minerva’s symbol was a distinctive red stocking cap, called a pileus or Phrygian cap. Rebels in both America and France wore it in the Revolutionary era as a freedom symbol, and the cap was often raised on a pole. In needlework it was pictured both with Minerva and the Goddess of Liberty.

Here, Liberty is depicted in the guise of Minerva protecting two children while an eagle swoops through the sky carrying an olive branch and a liberty cap, symbolic of the revolutionary generation. A cornucopia (often shown with Liberty) overflowing with fruit and flowers displays abundance and prosper­ity. Typical of Royse school needlework are the star­shaped leaves, the layered landscape, the gazebo on a hill, velvet appliqué in the foreground, and wavy water. The frame bears the label of Nathan Ruggles (1774–1835), a Hartford looking­glass maker. A similar piece is in the collection of the National Mu­seum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

I Plate 52 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Liberty Guided by the Wisdom of ’76,” ca.

1810

Silk, chenille, metallic threads, velvet, fabric, paint,

spangles, and watercolor on silk, 163/4 x 181/2 in.; 23 x 243/4

in. framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Mr. and Mrs. Henry N.

Flynt, 63.167

75

Inscribed on monument: Washington / Montgomery /

Green / Franklin / Warren / Adams / Mercer /

Putnam / Jay / Clinton / Gates / Morris / Fayette.

Inscribed on glass: Chloe McCray of Ellington, 1814

Patriotic themes depicting classical figures and American heroes were popular subjects for silk-embroidered pictures in the early nineteenth century. This embroidery presents Liberty, with cap on a pole, and America, who is holding a document entitled “Constitution” and sitting beside a monument inscribed with a list of names. Liberty appears to introduce America to Clio, the muse of history, who kneels with her open book. Chloe McCray adapted the design for her embroidery from the frontispiece of the Self-Interpreting Bible, published in 1792, among the first Bibles published in America. The list of names of heroes of the Revolutionary era inscribed on the monument is copied directly from the print source.

An embroidery worked by Ann Kimball and inscribed “Truth & Justice” is similar to Chloe’s example, although Ann did not include the kneeling figure. The remaining two figures are identical, but the surrounding landscape is quite different. The two embroideries are the only known works of this subject and they were probably produced in Hartford, Connecticut, at either Lydia Royse’s or the Misses Pattens’ schools.

Chloe McCray was the daughter of Calvin McCray (1768–1836) and Eliza-beth McKinney (1769–1814) of Ellington, Connecticut. She married Abram Allen in 1822.

I Plate 53 J

Chloe McCray (1797–1848), Ellington, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “America Greeting Clio and Liberty,” 1814

Silk, metallic thread, watercolor, paper, ink, and gold foil on

silk, 17 x 21/4 in.; 231/4 x 261/4 in. framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., 75.128

76

Inscribed on glass: L.A. Merrick / “But scarce his

speech began when the strange partner seem’d no

longer man.”

Poetry and recitation were important elements in female education and some-times influenced the choice of subject matter for an embroidery. This silk work has its roots in the epic poem “The Hermit” by the Anglo-Irish clergyman Thomas Parnell (1679–1717). The poem relates the story of a hermit under-going a series of encounters with vice and virtue in an effort to understand both himself and the world. This scene is copied from an engraving by Benja-min Tanner (1775–1848) that was based on the Parnell poem. To date, there are three known embroideries depicting this particular scene, long thought to be a biblical story. It was not until the discovery of this example, which bears a line of the poem inscribed on the glass, that the embroideries could be connected to their poetic source.

Lucina Almira Merrick was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, the fifth of six children born to Chileab Brainard Merrick (1749–1833) and Lucina Smith (1751/52–1828). She married Haynes Kingsley Starkweather in 1818. They were the parents of four sons (three of whom joined the gold seekers and went to California for a short time) and three daughters. A note affixed to the back reads, “She attend Lydia Royse’s school in Harford, Connecticut where she made this piece in 1809. Married H. K. Starkweather in 1818 and gave this picture to her oldest son Charles and his wife Sophia. It should be carefully preserved. Sophia M. Starkweather.”

I Plate 54 J

Lucina Almira Merrick (1791–1862), Wilbraham,

Massachusetts

Silk embroidery, “The Hermit,” 1809

Silk and watercolor on silk, 171/4 x 21 in.; 261/2 x 301/2 in.

framed

Lydia Bull Royse’s school, Hartford, Connecticut

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Schorsch

77

Inscribed on monuments (from left to right): In memory

of / William Butler / who died at Trinidad / March 2d AD

1807 / AE 20

In memory of / Benedict A. Butler / who died at

Pernambuco / Brazil June 18 AD 1810 / AE 32

In memory of Mr. Charles / Butler who died 17th Decr /

AD 1811 AE 64 years / In memory of Mrs Hannah / Butler

who died 16th Decr / AD 1805 AE 54 years

In memory of Anna / Butler who died 23rd August / AD

1773 AE 2 years / In memory of Anna / Butler who died

23d Sept / AD 1784 AE 9 years

The deaths of six members of the Charles Butler family are recorded on this intriguing watercolor­on­silk memorial painted by Emmeline Butler to re­semble embroidery. The work relates to eight others that were painted at Sarah Pierce’s school in Litchfield, Connecticut, including two by girls from Middle­town. Flora Catlin taught at the academy from 1815 to 1831 and may be the painter of the faces on this example.

The memorial is dedicated to Emmeline’s grandfather Charles Butler (1747–1811), his wife Hannah Atwater (d. 1805), and four of their children—Emmeline’s father, William (ca. 1787–1807), Benedict Arnold (1778–1810), Anna (1772–73) and Anna (1775–84). The four male figures in the scene prob­ably represent the four remaining brothers, and the two female figures depict Emmeline and her mother. According to the inscriptions on the tombstones, two of the sons died abroad, in Trinidad and Brazil, which suggests that they were most likely involved in some sort of foreign trade. Another brother died in North Carolina.

Charles Butler, Emmeline’s grandfather, was born in Saybrook, Con­necticut, great­grandson of Thomas Buckingham, one of the founders of Yale University. In 1786, he moved to Branford, a town considered to have a better harbor than New Haven, where he was the only merchant at the time.

Emmeline Butler was the only child of William Butler and Rebecca Palmer (1789–1862). She married James Spencer of Guilford, Connecticut, in 1830.

I Plate 55 J

Attributed to Emmeline Butler (1807–75), Branford,

Connecticut

Memorial for the Butler family, ca. 1820

Watercolor and ink on silk, 20 x 26 in.; 25 x 303/8 in. framed

Probably worked at Sarah Pierce’s school, Litchfield,

Connecticut

Private collection

78

Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth Giving Support to the Bald Eagle was a fashionable subject portrayed with numerous variations in early nineteenth­century schoolgirl needlework. This example is almost a direct copy of Edward Savage’s (1761–1817) 1796 stipple engraving derived from depictions of Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth. The addition of the American flag topped with the liberty cap is the culmination of the transition from the image of youthful Hebe to the personification of the new United States symbol­ized by lady Liberty.

The bowed garlands of flowers surrounding the central motif and the treat­ment of the trees and foreground incorporate characteristics of silk embroi­deries worked at several schools in the lower Connecticut River Valley and Litchfield; however, the work cannot be confidently attributed to one school in particular.

Louisa Bushnell was the daughter of Benjamin (b. 1766) and Amanda Bush­nell of Saybrook (now the Essex section), Connecticut. She had a brother who died prior to her birth and a younger sister who died at childbirth together with Louisa’s mother in 1801. She attended one of the prestigious ladies schools, possibly the Pattens’ school in Hartford or Sarah Pierce’s Female Academy in Litchfield, as the work is somewhat reminiscent of both. She married Rich­ard Pratt Williams (1795–1877) in 1818. He was from a well­known shipping family and later owned the Williams shipyard and sawmill. Her needlework descended in the Williams family of Essex, Connecticut.

I Plate 56 J

Louisa Bushnell (1799–1887), Essex, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, “Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of

Youth Giving Support to the Bald Eagle,” ca. 1815

Silk, metallic thread, watercolor, and spangles on silk, 261/2

x 221/2 in.; 31 x 27 in. framed

Misses Pattens’ school, Hartford, Connecticut, or Sarah

Pierce’s school, Litchfield, Connecticut

Collection of Geoffrey Paul

79

Inscribed on monument: SACRED / TO / WASHING /

TON

Inscribed under mat: Memorial to Washington

Inscribed on back: Catharine Chauncy Rawson’s Painting /

at Miss Pierce’s School in Conn / in 1804 (aged 16)

Inspired in part by Edward Savage’s engraving Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth Giving Support to the Bald Eagle, sixteen­year­old Catherine Rawson painted this tribute to George Washington at Miss Pierce’s school in Litch­field, Connecticut. The painting exhibits a delightful naiveté that contrasts with the seriousness of its purpose. Memorial and mourning pictures in paint and needle work rose sharply in popularity after Washington’s death in 1799. Although five years had passed since his death, it was still very common for schoolgirls like Catherine to honor him in their creations.

Catherine Chauncey Rawson was the second­youngest of the eleven chil­dren born to Edmund G. Rawson (1739–1823) and Sarah Holmes (1742–1821) of East Haddam, Connecticut. She married George Palmer (1781–1844) in 1812, and they had two children born in East Haddam. Her great­grandfather, Rev. Isaac Chauncey, was the second president of Harvard College.

I Plate 57 J

Catherine Chauncy Rawson (1788–1826), East Haddam,

Connecticut

Memorial to George Washington, 1804

Watercolor and ink on paper, 8 x 91/8 in.; 111/2 x 123/8 in.

framed

Sarah Pierce’s school, Litchfield, Connecticut

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Frame Sr.

80

Inscribed on glass: Maria Williston, Ætat, 14.

Wearing the latest empire fashion, this Liberty stitched and painted by Maria Williston holds a staff topped with a liberty cap and an inverted cornucopia spilling fruit, symbols of freedom and prosperity that can be traced to Greek mythology. The abundant use of silver threads and the distinctive curvy trees are classic characteristics of needlework from Abby Wright’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The swagged floral vines with centered bows are preva­lent in works from both her school and the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut.

Maria Williston was second­oldest of five children born to Rev. Payson Wil­liston, D.D. (1764–1856) and Sarah Birdseye (1763–1845). Rev. Williston was born in West Haven, Connecticut, graduated from Yale in 1783, and became the first minister in Easthampton, Massachusetts. After stitching her embroidery in 1806 or 1807, Maria married Benagah Theodore Brackett in 1813. They had two daughters, and Maria died while they were still teenagers.

Maria’s brothers were extremely involved in education. John Payson Wil­liston was a very active board member at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, now Mount Holyoke College; the observatory there is named after him. He was also the inventor of Payson’s Indelible Ink. Another brother, Samuel, founded Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and financially supported Amherst College and Mount Holyoke College.

An inscription on a slip of paper once affixed to the back of the frame read, “Maria Williston . . . Easthampton, Massachusetts Daughter of Rev. Payson Williston of Mass. She was Sister of John Payson Williston—Faith of a Human [illegible] Williston. This was done while she was at school in 1807 or 1806.” The note was inadvertently destroyed during a December 1947 restoration of the frame.

I Plate 58 J

Maria Williston (1793–1830), Easthampton,

Massachusetts

Silk embroidery, “Liberty,” ca. 1806–7

Silk, chenille, metallic thread, watercolor, and paint on

silk, 105/8 x 81/8 in.; 16 x 131/8 framed

Abby Wright’s school, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Private collection

81

The young shepherdess stitched by an anonymous embroiderer relates closely to several other pictures worked in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in the early nineteenth century. The face, turned slightly to the left, and the composition of the features suggest they were all painted by the same artist. The building in the background has not been identified but is most likely a prominent local edifice.

Bucolic scenes complete with shepherds and maidens tending sheep were favorite themes to capture in silk and watercolor. The tree tops and detailed foliage worked in French knots were characteristics of both Deerfield Academy and the nearby Abby Wright school in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

I Plate 59 J

Unidentified artist

Silk embroidery, “Shepherdess,” ca. 1805

Silk, watercolor, and ink on silk, 9 x 71/2 in.; 121/2 x 111/2 in.

framed

Probably worked in Deerfield, Massachusetts, area

Private collection

82

Inscribed on monument: Sacred / to the memory of /

Jonathan Pratt, / Born July 14th. 1801. / Died August

22. 1803. / Aged 2 years.

Inscribed under glass: Harriet

This silk-embroidered memorial attributed to Harriett Pratt depicts her father (age thirty-three), mother (age thirty), younger sister (age four), and herself (age six) weeping at the monument to her two-year-old brother, who died in 1803. Harriett was only six years old when her younger brother died, so it is unlikely that this memorial was completed in 1803. Instead, Harriet probably created this tribute several years later while a student at Abby Wright’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Cleverly, the memorial depicts her family as it would have been in 1803.

Harriet was the daughter of Nahum Pratt (1770–1837) and Abigail Crane (1773–1860) of Oxford, Massachusetts. Her sister Lucy (1799–1833) is depicted on the right side of the monument. Between 1804 and 1816 another sister and two more brothers, who are not depicted in the memorial, were born. Harriet married William Dana (b. 1785) on July 12, 1812, and just a few weeks later, on August 30, their son Jonathan Pratt Dana was born, the first of four children the couple had between 1812 and 1818. According to the family’s genealogical records, Harriet’s husband William traveled to Vermont or New Hampshire to move a family and was never heard from again.

I Plate 60 J

Harriet Pratt (1797–1880), Oxford, Massachusetts

Silk embroidery, Memorial for Jonathan Pratt, ca. 1810

Silk, metallic thread, watercolor, and ink on silk, 151/4 x 121/2

in.; 201/4 x 165/8 in. framed

Abby Wright’s school, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Private collection

83

Eliza Maria Ely lived in Saybrook, Connecticut, but attended the school of Abby Wright in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Students at the school often chose to stitch memorials, which were at the height of their popularity when the school opened in 1803. So in fashion were memorials that they were sometimes worked with the inscription area left blank, to be filled in at a later date. This piece is not signed within the embroidery but is inscribed “Eliza Ely 1807” in black ink on the back. The heavy metallic thread, wavy foliage, and airy willows worked in this piece are all typical characteristics of Abby Wright’s school.

Eliza worked another memorial that closely resembles this one. The other needlework, also in the collection of Historic Deerfield, is inscribed on the silk “Saybrook” at the lower left and “Eliza Ely No. [?] 2” at the lower right.

Eliza Maria Ely, the daughter of Dr. Richard Ely (1765–1816) of Saybrook, Connecticut, and Eunice Bliss (1769–1850), originally of Wilbraham, Massa­chusetts. Eliza was the granddaughter of Rev. Richard Ely (1733–1814) of Say­brook and Jerusha Sheldon (1737–97) of Northampton, Massachusetts. Eliza married a cousin, Dr. Elihu Ely (1780–1851), before moving to Binghamton, New York.

I Plate 61 J

Eliza Maria Ely (1794–1836), Saybrook, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, Memorial, 1807

Silk, chenille, metallic thread, watercolor, and ink on silk,

approx. 15 x 131/4 in.; 193/4 x 181/4 in. framed

Abby Wright’s school, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., John W. and Christiana

G. P. Batdorf Fund, 2003.8

Inscribed on back: Eliza Ely 1807

84

Inscribed on monument: Champion

The unknown embroiderer of this ca. 1805 memorial is the central figure standing behind the double monuments dedicated to the Champion family. It was not uncommon for the stitcher to place herself in a prominent position. The remaining figures probably represent her family—her parents, a sister, and a younger brother. The lack of names and dates makes attributing this memorial to any particular member of the large and extended Champion fam­ily extremely difficult.

Characteristic of Abby Wright’s school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is the use of heavy metallic thread, the wispy willows, a broken tree (a common symbol of a life cut short) in the foreground with leaves of French knots, and minute seed stitches like those under the gentleman’s feet. The male figures are often shown leaning on the monument with one leg crossed over the other, while the woman opposite rests her elbow on it and holds a handkerchief to her eyes. The faces on many of the embroideries from the Wright school bear a striking similarity, suggesting that Abby Wright may have painted them all herself.

I Plate 62 J

Unidentified artist of the Champion family

Silk embroidery, Memorial to the Champion family, ca. 1805

Silk, chenille, metallic thread, watercolor, and ink on silk,

127/8 x 111/4 in.; 181/4 x 17 in. framed

Abby Wright’s school, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Private collection

85

Inscribed on left monument: IN MEMORY OF / MRS.

HANNAH HULBERT, / Deceased December 15, 1796, /

Aet. 44 years

Inscribed on right monument: IN MEMORY OF / MR .

HEZEKIAH HULBERT, / Deceased January 19th, 1800 /

Aet. 51 years.

Inscribed on glass: MARIA HULBERT.

The South Hadley, Massachusetts, school run by Abby Wright produced a large number of silk­embroidered memorials featuring heavily embellished monuments trimmed with silver metallic thread. Maria Hulbert stitched this unusual composition at Abby Wright’s school ca. 1805 to memorialize her parents, who had both been dead for several years. She positioned two figures, probably representing herself and a sister, as mirror images standing in front of intricately worked weeping willow trees, with a highly stylized ground be­neath their feet.

Maria Hulbert was born in Middletown, Connecticut, one of the nine children of Hezekiah Hulbert (1749–1800) and Hannah Clark (1753–96), his second wife. He had three children by his first wife and two more by his third. Maria’s mother died in childbirth when Maria was eight, and Maria was just twelve years old when her father passed away. Maria died unmarried in Lowville, New York.

I Plate 63 J

Maria Hulbert (1788–1810), Middletown, Connecticut

Silk embroidery, Memorial to the Hulbert family, ca. 1805

Silk, metallic thread, chenille, watercolor, and ink on silk,

16 x 173/4 in.; 233/4 x 251/2 in. framed

Abby Wright’s school, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Private collection

86

Silk embroideries are often a compilation of elements copied from or influ­enced by published prints. Mary Upham’s memorial to her father is typical in this respect. During the spring and summer of 1807, Mary attended Deer­field Academy where Jerusha Mather Williams, a former student of the Misses Pattens’ school in Hartford, Connecticut, was teaching. Jerusha no doubt had access to the patterns she used in her needlework as a student there. The crossed tree trunks, the extensive use of chenille thread in the tree foliage, and several other elements are closely reminiscent of needlework from the Pattens’ school.

Mary Upham worked this memorial to commemorate her father, Edward Upham (1759–1807), a Northampton lawyer who died six weeks before she entered Deerfield Academy. The figures near the monument may possibly rep­resent her mother, Mary Catlin Upham (1765–1833), and her younger sister.

I Plate 64 J

Mary Upham (1796–1859), Northampton, Massachusetts

Silk embroidery, Memorial for Edward Upham, 1807

Silk, chenille, watercolor, and ink on silk, 151/2 x 14 in.; 20 x

181/4 in. framed

Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., 69.0470

87

Inscribed on glass: A, M Williams aged 11

Mastering the art of watercolor was one of many pursuits of students at the Deerfield Academy. Eleven­year­old Anna McCarthy Williams based her painting of Mount Vernon on an aquatint engraved by Francis Jukes (1747–1812) after the ca. 1800 painting Mount Vernon in Virginia by the British artist Alexander Robertson. The size of the engraving is approximately the same as Anna’s painting, which suggests the print was traced and then painted.

Jerusha Mather Williams, a teacher at Deerfield and former pupil at the Patten school in Hartford, Connecticut, instructed Anna in painting. Some of the techniques used included stenciling the foliage, painting narrow horizon­tal strokes to imitate embroidery, and the use of blue in the background trees to indicate distance. Anna painted another watercolor the following year, the same that Jerusha retired.

Anna McCarthy Williams was the daughter of Ebenezer Hinsdale Williams (ca. 1762–1838) and Joanna Smith (ca. 1776–1852) of Deerfield, Massachu­setts. Her father was a trustee of Deerfield Academy and often paid the tuition for out­of­town pupils. Anna completed this watercolor in 1811 and married Charles Howard in 1818.

I Plate 65 J

Anna McCarthy Williams (1799–1822), Deerfield,

Massachusetts

Mount Vernon in Virginia, 1811

Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, 133/8 x 18 in.; 19 x

231/4 in. framed

Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Massachusetts

Courtesy Historic Deerfield, Inc., Anonymous Gift, 82.022

88

Inscribed on applied paper: (at left) Instructed by Chestina

Bowker / AD / 1828

(middle) Sacred to the Memory of / Sally Lincoln

Whitcomb / who died Aug. 12, 1818. / Aged 2 yrs 4 mo / 3

days / Sacred to the Memory of / William L. Whitcomb /

who died Sept. 24, 1815 / aged 10 mo. 24 / days

(at right) Wroughtd by Jael C. Whitcomb / aged 10 yr /

1828.

The encompassing branches of a feathery tree float protectively over the me­morial Jael Whitcomb stitched and printed to honor two of her siblings. The unusual format was wrought in 1829 under the instruction of Chestina Bowker of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, whose name is recorded in the circle at the lower left.

Jael Whitcomb, born April 6, 1818, was the daughter of Simeon Whitcomb (1790–1869) and Sally Lincoln (1792–1876) and the third of ten children. She married Harvey Wyman in 1854. Her mother’s family included cousins in­volved in the Boston Tea Party, one married to Paul Revere, two governors, and Abraham Lincoln.

Her teacher, Chestina Bowker, was the last of eight children born to Charles Bowker (1757–1839) and Beulah Stone (1767–1836), in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. She and two of her sisters taught needlework. Chestina mar­ried Asahel Allen, and they and their five children settled in Kansas Territory in 1854.

I Plate 66 J

Jael Whitcomb (b. 1818), Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire

Memorial for Sally Lincoln Whitcomb and William L.

Whitcomb, 1828

Silk, paper, and ink on linen gauze, 111/2 x 143/4 in.; 135/8 x 17

in. framed

Taught by Chestina Bowker, Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire

Collection of Mrs. Carl M. Lindberg

89

Lydia Powers copied her painting illustrating a scene from an ode by the clas-sical poet Horace from an engraving of a painting by the eighteenth-century Swiss artist Angelica Kauffmann (plate 68), who often drew her themes from literature and history. Prints of Kauffman’s works were popular models for watercolors and silk embroideries (see plate 34).

Powers, who painted this at the Windsor Female Academy in Vermont, remains unidentified. The Windsor Female Academy was incorporated by the Vermont legislature in 1814; an advertisement for it in Spooner’s Journal in 1817 mentioned instruction in drawing and painting. Other pieces copied from this print include a watercolor on velvet painted in 1825 and a silk embroidery with watercolor wrought at Susanna Rowson’s academy in Boston in 1812.

I Plate 67 J

Lydia Powers

Horace, 1819

Watercolor and ink on paper, 103/8 x 13 in.; 151/4 x 181/8 in.

framed

Windsor Female Academy, Windsor, Vermont

Private collection

Inscribed at bottom: Horace. / Painted by Lydia Powers, /

At the Windsor Female Academy; / Oct, 10, 1819.

When young & tir’d with sport and play / And bound

in pleasing sleep I lay, / Doves cover’d me with Myrtle

Boughs, / And with soft murmurs sweeten’d my Repose.

90

Prints like this one could easily travel from London, where it was published, to New England, where they were made available to students through instructors or school collections. Lydia Powers made some alterations from the original in the painting shown in plate 67, but the size of the figures and spatial relation­ship remain the same. The reversal of the composition probably indicates the use of a device to assist in copying the image, although schoolgirls frequently practiced freehand painting and tracing.

I Plate 68 J

Francesco Bartolozzi (1725–1815), published by William

Wynne Ryland, London

After a painting by Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807)

Horace, 1792

Colored stipple engraving on paper, 153/8 x 163/4 in.; 211/8 x

223/4 in. framed

Private collection

91

Inscribed on banner: Blessed are the dead who die in the

LORD.

Inscribed on monument: To the memory of / Waters

Chillson Esq. / who died March 31st, 1806, AE. 57 /

Here fall the Widow’s and the Orphan’s tears. / PEACE

TO THE JUST / “Our Smitten Friends / Are angels, sent

on errands full of love; / For us they languish and for us

they die”

Watercolor memorials on silk were more difficult to execute and are not as plentiful as those painted on paper or worked as silk embroideries. Lucy Chill­son used short brush strokes to imitate embroidery stitches in this memorial to her father and surrounded the entire work with a band of gold paper. The winged angel carrying an inscribed banner seen in this memorial appears re­peatedly in watercolors and embroideries from Great Barrington, Massachu­setts, created under the tutelage of a teacher from Wethersfield, Connecticut. This similarity suggests that the Wethersfield teacher or one of her students from Great Barrington may have traveled to Vermont. Lucy probably painted her piece at the Windsor Female Academy in Windsor, Vermont, which bor­dered Lucy’s hometown of Weathersfield to the north. Lucy Hubbard Chillson was the third child of Waters Chillson (1748–1806) and Parateen Field (1751–1836). The complexity of the memorial suggests she probably painted it as a teenager, years after her father’s death. Lucy married Jotham W. Durant (1791–1870), an enterprising businessman, in 1819. They had eleven children and eventually moved to Hartford, Ohio, where Lucy died in 1870, just one week after the death of her husband.

I Plate 69 J

Lucy Hubbard Chillson (1795–1870), Weathersfield, Vermont

Memorial for Waters Chillson, ca. 1810

Watercolor and ink on silk with gilt paper surround, 157/8 x

193/8 in.; 191/4 x 231/8 in. framed

Windsor Female Academy, Windsor, Vermont

Private collection

92

Printed on applied paper: SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF / Bridget Parker, / Wife of Isaac Parker, who di­ /

ed July 16, 1804, in the 44th year / of her age. / Many

daughters have done virtuous­ / ly, but thou excellest

them all

Inscribed on glass: Sally Parker

Sally Parker painted this watercolor to honor her mother, who died when Sally was only seven. An unusual octagonal églomisé glass with angel and shell cor­ner motifs frames the central painted scene of a bucolic riverbank landscape. The painting depicts the Black River and Sally’s hometown of Cavendish, Ver­mont, with the Green Mountains in the background.

Sally Parker, the seventh of ten children born to Isaac Parker (1760–1825) and Bridget Fletcher (1760–1804), painted this memorial ca. 1820. She taught many terms at the Wheeler school in Cavendish. According to newspaper ac­counts she never married, lived frugally, and bequeathed money for the sup­port of the Episcopal Church in Cavendish when she died at age eighty­nine in Proctorsville, Vermont.

I Plate 70 J

Sally Parker (1797–1886), Cavendish, Vermont

Memorial for Bridget Parker, ca. 1820

Watercolor and ink on paper, 131/4 x 161/4 in.; 155/8 x 183/4 in.

framed

Cavendish, Vermont

Private collection

93

Printed on monument: SACRED / to the memory of /

Mr. ELISHA ROYCE, / Who died, Jan. 7, 1815, AEt. 52

years. / Mrs. ALICE ROYCE / Who died, Jan. 20, 1813,

AEt. 47 years. / EPPENETUS ALLEN ROYSE / Who

died, March 23, 1813, / AEt. 6 years.

Inscribed on glass: Sophronia Royce Walpole NH

Although memorial designs were sometimes taken from print sources, schoolgirls usually sought to personalize their works by depicting actual family members and creating more sentimental and original compositions. Sophro­nia Royce painted a memorial to her parents and younger brother that depicted herself with sister Clarissa and brothers John and Phinehas in a rich landscape incorporating a large river with sailing ships, a small foreground stream, har­vested fields, and a townscape in the background.

Sophronia Royce (1796–1853) was born and lived in Woodstock, Vermont, but in her late teens or early twenties, when she created this ca. 1815 memorial, she was probably living with relatives in Walpole, New Hampshire, following the death of both of her parents. Her father Elisha Royce (1764–1815), a tan­ner, worked with toxic chemicals, which may have contributed to his reported mental instability and eventual death. Her mother was Alice Royce (1766–1813). Sophronia married Clark Hough in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1822.

I Plate 71 J

Sophronia Royce (1796–1853), Woodstock, Vermont

Memorial for the Royce family, ca. 1815

Watercolor and ink on silk, 171/8 x 22 in; 213/4 x 263/8 in.

framed

Walpole, New Hampshire

Private collection

95

academic subjects, in women’s education, 7, 11, 71

academies, 4, 7; boarding, 8, 9, 13accomplishments, 3–4, 9Addison, Joseph, 25agriculture, 1allegory, 8, 15, 58–59, 64–65, 74–75, 78–80.

See also themesAllen, Peter, 9alphabets, stitched, 3, 34, 42, 68America. See under themesAmerican Literary, Scientific and Military

Academy (later Wesleyan University), 30 “And she had compassion on him,” 17Antony and Cleopatra, 9, 71armorials, embroidered: phasing out of, at

Patten school, 16armorials, paired, 18n9Ashley, Dolly, 10Ashley, Rev. Jonathan, 10

Balch, Mary, school, 18n8Bartolozzi, Francesco, 56, 90, Pl. 68Beecher, Catharine, 11, 18Belden, Mary, 5Bellows, Louisa, 64, Pl. 42Benjamin, Asher, 10biblical subjects, 7–8, 66, 69–70, 76. See also

Mosesbiblical verse, 4, 23, 27Billings, Molly, 6, 40, Pl. 18Black River, 92Boston, MA, 4–8, 10–11, 24, 52, 60; sophistica-

tion of needlework in, 9Bostwick, Betsy, 11n8botanical paintings, 10Bowker, Betsy, 44Bowker, Chestina, 44, 88

Bowker, Laura, 44Bowker, Melancia, 44, Pl. 22Branford, CT, 77Brewster, Ruby, 48, Pl. 26Broome, William, 68Bull, Frederick, 8Burr, Anna, 6, 49, Pl. 27Bushnell, Louisa, 78, Pl. 56Butler, Charles, 77Butler, Charlotte, 5, 18n9Butler, Emmeline, 77, Pl. 55Butler, Frederick, 5Butler, John, 8Butler, Mary Porter, 5, 18n9Butler family, 77, Pl. 55Butler school, 5, 33, Pl. 11

canvaswork, 3, 6–7, 24, 27, 48, 50–52, 54, 60, Pl. 26–31; with flowers and trees, Pl. 29; with house, 48, Pl. 26, Pl. 28; Middletown, CT, 48; Norwich, CT, 6, 23; “Reclining Shepherdess,” 7, Pl. 32; Boston, 48; use of print sources for, 48, 52, 54

Carter, Welthy Ann, 31, Pl. 9Catlin, Flora, 77Cavendish, VT, 92central medallion pictures, phasing out of, at

Patten school, 16Champion family, 84, Pl. 62Chandler, John, Jr., 6, 53Chandler, Katherine, 52–53Chandler, Lucretia, 53Chandler, Sarah, 53Chandler family, 6, 52–53, Pl. 30–31Charity. See under themesCharity (P. Stampa), 64 “Charity picture,” 8, 15Charlestown, NH, 45

Cheney, Mary, 61, Pl. 39chenille thread, 86Chesterfield, NH, 10Child, Beulah, 66, Pl. 44Childs, Eunice, 43Childs, Marian, 40, 43, Pl. 21Chillson, Lucy Hubbard, 91, Pl. 69Chillson, Waters, 91coat of arms, 2–3, 8, 14–16, 18n8, 18n9;

Arnold-Gillette-Pomeroy, 19n9; Bliss and Watson, 18n9; Chandler, 53; Cheney, 61, Pl. 39; Grant, 60, Pl. 38; as Patten specialty, 15; Patten-Wheelock-Davenport, 14, 18n7, 19n9; Perkins, 15; Pitkin, 15; Ripley, 15; Rogers and Ingraham, 63, Pl. 41; by Ruth Patten Jr., 14; watercolor, 15, 18n8, 63; Williams, 10, 62, Pl. 40

Coles, John, Sr., 15College of Rhode Island, 13Columbian Centinel (Boston), 8commerce, 1Connecticut Bible Society, 17Connecticut River Valley, as geographic region,

1; educational centers in, 4Connecticut State House, 18Copley, John Singleton, 7Cornelia (Roman woman), 56Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (Bartolozzi), 56Cornwall, Anna, 5Cornwall, Anna, school, 31, 35cultural accomplishment, demand for, 2Cummings, Ann & Elizabeth, school, 60, Pl. 38

dame schools, 2, 4dappled stencil style, 10Dartmouth College, 13, 47Dartmouth Hall, 47Day, Jannette, school, 60

Index

note: Page numbers in italics refer to captions of figures on those pages. Numbers given as Pl. xx refer to the Plates.

96 i n d e x

Deerfield, MA, 1, 4, 40, 81, 87; sampler styles in, 6, 40–42 (See also under sampler)

Deerfield Academy, 6, 9–10, 12n28, 62, 81, 86–87, Pl. 64, Pl. 65

Deerfield style, 40–43Deming, Abigail, 5Dighton, Robert, 57Doane, Philippa, 11n9

eagle, padded, 8, 61–62, 65education: academic subjects in, 11; access for

women, 2, 7, 54; centers in the Connecticut River Valley, 4; cost of, 4; female, 7–9, 11, 76; as marker of status, 2, 4; and moral demeanor, 9

Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 13églomisé glass, 19n11, 66, 69–70, 92elephant, 6, 11n12, 42Eliot, George, 34Ellington, CT, 75Ely, Eliza Maria, 83, Pl. 61embroideries: armorial, 15; heraldic, 15;

schoolgirl, 3–11; teaching and production of, 1. See also silk embroidery

Essex, CT, 78

Facius, G. N. and J. G., 71Fairfield, CT, 48–51; and canvaswork, 6family, themes of, 17family registers, 5, 31, 35, 39Female Academy (Litchfield, CT), 9Field, Parateen, 91First Congregational Church of Wethersfield, 34Fisher, George, 29Fiske school, 10Fitch, Julia Ann, 11n11Fitzwilliam, NH, 44, 88; sampler styles in, 5floral garlands, 5, 8, 15, 28, 33, 35, 38, 61–62,

65, 80Flynt, Suzanne, 10Fowler, Clarrissa, 5, 36, Pl. 14Fowler, Lucy, 36frames, 7Franklin, Benjamin, 29Franklin, CT, 27French knots, 16, 81, 84

Gardiner, Hannah, 6, 53genealogy, family, 5, 15gentility, ideas of, 1–2gentry, rural, 1–2Gillette, Abigail Pomeroy, 19n9Glastonbury, CT, 31, 35, 73; sampler styles in, 5

Goodrich, Abigail, 5Goodrich, Abigail, school, 5, 34, Pl. 12Goodrich, Elizur, 5Goodrich, Josiah, 9Goodrich, Sophia, 9Gore, Hannah, 5, 24, Pl. 2Gore, Zebiah, 24Grant, Ann, 6, 11n10, 60, Pl. 38Graves, Hannah, 41, Pl. 19Great Awakening, 13, 18Great Barrington, MA, 91Greek key pattern, 4, 23, 27Green, Ruth, 16; “And she had compassion on

him,” 17Griswold, Diantha, 5, 33, Pl. 11Griswold, Lydia, 8Griswold, Wealthy, 6, 38, Pl. 16Grosvenor, Mrs., 8

Haddam, CT, 1, 66Hanover, NH, 47Harriet Wells, 67, Pl. 45Hartford, CT, 1–2, 4, 8, 13–18, 61, 70, 75;

sampler styles in, 5Hartford, VT, 47Hartford Female Academy, 18Hartford Female Beneficent Society, 17, 19n16Hartford Literary School, 13, 18Hazen, Susan Jane, 47, Pl. 25Hebe (Greek goddess of youth), 78 “Hermit, The” (Parnell), 8, 76Hitchcock, Edward, 10Hulbert, Maria, 85, Pl. 63Huntington, Elizabeth, 5, 25–26, Pl. 3Huntington, Ruth, 5, 25–26, Pl. 4

impaling, use of term, 14Ingham, Betsey M., 5, 32, Pl. 10Instructor; or American Young Man’s Best

Companion, The, 29Ipswich Female Seminary, 44

Jefferson, Thomas, 73Jennings, Polly, 55, Pl. 33Jeptha, 66–70Johnston, John (“Boston limner”), 7, 71Jukes, Francis, 87

Kauffmann, Angelica, 56, 89–90, Pl. 67–68Keene, NH, 10Kilborn, Sophia, 73, Pl. 51Kimball, Ann, 75

Ladies’ Warehouse, 8landscape, 5, 10, 12n28, 24, 29, 33–34, 36, 38,

44, 52, 54–55, 59, 74–75, 92–93Lewis, Frances Alvira, 30, Pl. 8Liberty. See under themesliberty cap, 58Liberty Giving Support to the Bald Eagle (Savage),

58, 78–79linen canvas, 6linsey-woolsey, 16, 17, 29Litchfield, CT, 4, 8–9, 77Litchfield Female Academy, 8, 9,77, 79, 18n1literature, as source, 7, 57, 71, 73, 76Lockwood, Mary, 6, 49–51, Pl. 28–29long stitch, 6, 38–39Lord, Naby, 23Lyme, CT, 3–4, 23, 72Lyon, Mary, 18, 44

MacPherson, James, 73Mansfield, Mary, 4Marsh, Rev. John, 6Marshall, Sarah, 15; Charity, 16Marvin, Sally, 27, Pl. 5Mather, Alice, 4, 23, Pl. 1McCray, Chloe, 75, Pl. 53memorial scenes, 7–8, 11; Memorial for

Bridget Parker, 92, Pl. 70; Memorial for Edward Upham, 86, Pl. 64; Memorial for George Washington, 79, Pl. 57; Memorial for Jonathan Pratt, 82, Pl. 60; Memorial for Sally Lincoln Whitcomb and William L. Whitcomb, 88, Pl. 66; Memorial for the Butler Family, 77, Pl. 55; Memorial for the Champion family, 84, Pl. 62; Memorial for the Hulbert family, 85, Pl. 63; Memorial for the Royce family, 93, Pl. 71; Memorial for Waters Chillson, 91, Pl. 69

Merrick, Lucina Almira, 76, Pl. 54Middletown, CT, 1, 4, 28–30, 85; and canvas-

work, 6; sampler styles in, 5Minerva, 74 “Minister’s Advice to a Young Lady, A,” 41Monson Academy, 44Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, 14Moses, 8, 15–16, 16–17, 65Mosley, Fanny, 5, 37, Pl. 15Mosley, Lucy, 37Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (Mount

Holyoke College) 44, 80Mount Vernon (George Washington’s home), 87;

view of, 16Mount Vernon in Virginia (Robertson), 87

i n d e x 97

Napoleon, 73needlepoint, 3. See also canvaswork; tent stitchneedlework: attribution of, 14; local styles of,

2–3, 5; and nurturing of family ties, 2; types of, 3. See also styles and techniques

needlework tradition, 2neoclassical style, 7, 11, 74Newbury, MA, 6, 46Newbury, VT, sampler styles in, 6, 46Newell, Mary Ann, 57, Pl. 35New England Puritanism, 17New Hartford, NY, 68–69New Haven, CT, 4, 77New London, CT, 4Northampton, MA, 1, 4, 6, 10, 38–39, 86Norwich, CT, 4–6, 55; sampler styles in, 4–5,

24–27, 36–37; canvaswork styles in, 6, 23, 52Nott, Rev. Samuel, school, 27Noyes, Abigail Barker, 16Noyes, Eunice, 72, Pl. 50numbers, stitched, 3–4, 24–25, 34, 38, 47

Oeconomy of Human Life, 26Old Testament, 16, 65, 69–70ornamental branches, 3, 7, 9–10Ossian, “The War of Inis-Thona,” 73

paint, 3, 7, 63; as dominant medium, 16Parker, Sally, 92, Pl. 70Parnell, Thomas, 8, 76pastel, 67, Pl. 45Paterson, Mary, 12n21Patten, George Jaffrey, 13Patten, Mary, 8, 13Patten, Rev. William, 13Patten, Rev. William, Jr., 13, 17Patten, Ruth, Jr., 8, 13; Patten-Wheelock-

Davenport coat of arms, 14Patten, Ruth Wheelock, 8, 13, 15, 17; Family

Letters, 17; Memoirs, 17Patten, Ruth W., 16; sampler (1808), 17Patten, Sarah, 8, 13Patten school, 5, 8–10, 13–18, 23, 33, 61–67, 69,

75, 78, 80, 86, Pl. 39–44, Pl. 47, Pl. 56; arms embroidered at, 18n8; attendance figures, 18n1; samplers, 16; watercolor coats of arms, 8, 63

Patten-Wheelock-Davenport coat of arms, 14, 18n7

Peace. See under themesPeckham, Deacon Robert, 67–69, Pl. 45pelican, 61Perkins, Charlotte, Pitkin coat of arms, 15

Phrygian cap, 74Pierce, John, 12n21Pierce, Sarah, 8–9Pierce, Sarah, school, 8–9, 13, 18n1, 77–79,

Pl. 55–57Plenty. See under themesPorter, Charlotte, 5, 29, Pl. 7portrait of Harriet Wells, 67Post, Mary Ann, 5, 35, Pl. 13Powers, Lydia, 89, Pl. 67Pratt, Harriet, 82, Pl. 60provenance, 14Providence, RI, 4

quartering, use of term, 14

Rawson, Catherine Chauncey, 79, Pl. 57Read, Mary R., 10 “Reclining Shepherdess,” 7, 23, 54Richards, Elizabeth, 24Ring, Betty, 7, 9, 12n21Ripley, Lucy, and Ripley coat of arms, 15Robertson, Alexander, 87Rogers, Mary Ingraham, 8, 63, Pl. 41Rose, Jerusha, 11n9Rowson, Susanna, school (Boston), 9, 12n25,

71, 89, Pl. 49Royal Palace in Alexandria, Antony and Cleopatra,

Eros, Charmian, Iros, etc. (Tresham), 71Royce, Clarissa, 93Royce, John, 93Royce, Phinehas, 93Royce, Sophronia, 93, Pl. 71Royse, Eliza, 8Royse, John, 8Royse, Lydia Bull, 8–9, 14Royse school, 8–10, 13, 66, 70, 72–76, Pl. 48, Pl.

50–54Ruggles, Nathan, 74

Sage, Emily, “The babe wept and she had compassion on him,” 16

sampler, 3–6, 11, 68, Pl. 1–25, Pl. 46; band, 3; Boston-influenced, 5, 24; family register, 5, 31, 35, 39, Pl. 8–10, Pl. 13, Pl. 17; landscape, 24, 29, 33, 36, 38, 44; marking, 4; mourn-ing, 5; and Patten school, 16; from upper valley, 6, 11

sampler-making, as part of school curriculum, 3sampler text, first lines: “As I hope to be

forever blest,” Pl. 24; “As the rose breatheth sweetness . . . ,” Pl. 4; “A time to learn my Parents give,” Pl. 15; “Count the day lost

whose low descending sun,” Pl. 12; “Favour is deceitful and beauty is . . . ,” Pl. 5; “How blest the maid whom circling years improve,” Pl. 22; “In life’s unfolding bloom ye young and gay,” Pl. 11; “Jesus permit the gracious name to stand,” 16, Pl. 23; “Knowledge and virtue both combined,” Pl. 25; “Let ev’ry virtue reign within thy breast,” Pl. 19; “Now in the cold grave is Marian sleeping,” Pl. 21; “Then O divine benevolence be nigh,” Pl. 16; “The Time Will Come When We Must Give,” Pl. 2; “Thus when my draught some future time invades,” Pl. 46; “Up to the fields above the skies,” Pl. 12; “Virtue’s the chiefest beauty of the mind,” Pl. 6; “When all thy mercies O my God . . . ,” Pl. 3; “Who can find a virtuous woman,” Pl. 1; “Youth is the time for progress in all arts,” Pl. 7

Saunders, Mrs. and Miss Beach Academy, 7, 12n16

Savage, Edward, 58, 78–79Saybrook, CT, 1, 31–32, 57–59, 77, 83; sampler

style in, 5, 31Sayer, Robert, 57schools. See names of schoolsSecond Congregational Church (Hartford), 13Second Congregational Church (Newport), 13seed stitch, 84Self-Interpreting Bible, 75Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, A,

57Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 9, 71Shelburne, MA, 43Sheldon, George, 8shoes, embroidered, 14Sibley, Nancy, 11n8silk embroidery, 3, 7–11, 56, 61–62, Pl. 33, Pl.

38–40; “America Greeting Clio and Liberty,” 75, Pl. 53; “Blanch & Henriques,” 72, Pl. 50; Charity, 64, Pl. 42; “Cleopatra,” 9, 71, Pl. 49; “Cornelia, These Are My Jewels,” 56, Pl. 34; “Daughter of Toscar Take the Harp, and Raise the Lovely Song of Selma,” 73, Pl. 51; “Hermit, The,” 76, Pl. 54; “Jepthah Laments His Rash Vow,” 69, Pl. 47; “Jeptha Repenteth His Rash Vow,” 66, Pl. 44; “Jeptha’s Rash Vow,” 70, Pl. 48; “Liberty,” 80, Pl. 58; “Liberty Guided by the Wisdom of ’76,” 74, Pl. 52; “Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth Giving Support to the Bald Eagle,” 78, Pl. 56; “Maria at Moulines,” Pl. 35; Memorial, 83, Pl. 61; Memorial for Edward Upham, 86, Pl. 64; Memorial for Jonathan Pratt, 82, Pl. 60;

98 i n d e x

Memorial for Sally Lincoln Whitcomb and William L. Whitcomb, 88, Pl. 66; Memorial to the Champion family, 84, Pl. 62; Memorial to the Hulbert family, 85, Pl. 63; “Moses in the Bullrushes,” 65, Pl. 43; “Peace,” 59, Pl. 37; “Plenty,” 58, Pl. 36; “Shepherdess,” 81, Pl. 59; “Truth & Justice,” 75

Slate, Esther Adeline, 6, 42, Pl. 20Smith, Lucy Ann, 3Smith, Sarah, 5, 34, Pl. 12South Hadley, MA, 1, 4, 6, 9–10, 80, 85; sampler

styles in, 6Spencer and Gilman Looking Glass Manufac-

turers, 69–70spangles, use of, 7, 55, 59, 62, 65, 69, 70, 74, 78Stampa, P., 64Starr, Martha Mortimer, 5, 28, Pl. 6Sterne, Laurence, 57Stiles, Alethea, 7, 54, Pl. 32Stiles, Ezra, 7, 54stitches. See names of stitches; styles and

techniquesStoddard, Esther, 7, 54Stoddard, Hannah, 54Stoddard, Polly (Prudence), 7Stone, Eliza, 64styles and techniques, 56; alternating colors by

word, 47; applied border, 4, 11n8, 23; appli-qué, 8; baskets, motif of, 37–38, 40–41, 43, 46; brush strokes as imitation embroidery, 11, 87, 91; cartouche, 41, 43; chenille thread, 86; cross-stitch, 38; crowned lion, 38; curvy trees, 80; Deerfield, 41–43; diversity of, 1; eagle, padded, 5, 8, 15, 61–62, 65; fence posts with spherical finials, 66, 69; filled-in background, 4–5, 26, 39; floral border, 5, 26, 28–29, 31, 35, 38, 44, 46; French knots, 16, 81, 84; gold foil eagle, 5, 33; Greek key, 4, 23, 27; high-contrast stitching, 23; “Lone Pine,” 47; long-stitch filled background, 6, 38–39; metallic thread, 9, 69, 80, 83–84; mounting, 56; needlework panels, 27; overall stitched central panel, 6, 28; painted

faces, 7–9; paper face, 5, 44; pillars with arch, 35; seed stitch, 84; silver threads, 3, 80, 85; solidly stitched, 4–5, 39; solidly stitched black background, 4–5, 23–26, 36–37; stenciling, 87; stepped cartouche, 31; stitched signature, 34; townscapes, 5, 33–34; use of print sources, 7–8, 10, 56, 65, 71–73, 75–76, 86–87, 89, 93; velvet appliqué, 8, 9, 74; white background, 8, 39; winged angel, 91

Tanner, Benjamin, 76Teachers, 3–4, 10; role in development of local

styles, 5; difficulty in identifying, 14tent stitch, 4, 6 “The babe wept and she had compassion on

him,” 16themes: 7; America, 75; Charity, 8, 15, 16, 17,

64–65; Jeptha, 66–70; Liberty, 58, 74–75, 78, 80; Moses, 8, 15–16, 65; Peace, 59; Plenty, 58; Reclining Shepherdess, 23, 54

“To Mr. Pope on His Works,” 68townscape, 5, 64, 93Tresham, Henry, 71Trinder, Rev. Thomas, 45Trumbull, John, 8

Upham, Mary, 86, Pl. 64

velvet, painting on, 3, 7, 89verses, source of, 6, 34

Wadsworth Atheneum, 2n1Waller, Mrs. John, 4Walpole, NH, 64, 93Watson, Harriet, 18n9Watson, Sally, 18n9Washington, George, 19n12; and mourning

embroideries, 7; memorials, 79watercolor pictures, 3, 10, 11, 56, 63, 77, 87,

91, Pl. 55; Horace, 89, Pl. 67; Memorial for Bridget Parker, 92, Pl. 70; Memorial for the Royce family, 93, Pl. 71; Memorial for Waters Chillson, 91, Pl. 69; Memorial to George

Washington, 79, Pl. 57; Mount Vernon in Virginia, 87, Pl. 65

Watts, Isaac, 6, 34Weathersfield, VT, 91Wells, Harriet, 67–69, Pl. 45–47Wells, Sally Olcott, 6, 38–39, Pl. 17Wesleyan University. See American Literary,

Scientific and Military AcademyWestfield, MA, 36–37; sampler styles in, 5–6Westfield Academy, 6, 9Wethersfield, CT, 1, 4, 6, 11n8, 28, 34, 59, 91;

sampler styles in, 5Wetmore, Hannah Edwards: embroidered

shoes, 14Whately, MA, 41wheat, bearded, 15, 62, 65Wheelock, Rev. Eleazar, 13Wheelock, Sarah Davenport Maltby, 13Whitcomb, Jael, 88, Pl. 66White, Orra, 10, 12n28White Dove school, 6, 40, 42–43Willard, Emma Hart, 11, 18Willard, Frances, 45, Pl. 23Willard, Sophia, 45Williams, Anna McCarthy, 87, Pl. 65Williams, Jerusha Mather, 10, 62, 86–87Williston, Maria, 80, Pl. 58Windsor, CT, 38Windsor, VT, 4, 10Windsor Female Academy and Junior College,

10, 89, 91, Pl. 67, Pl. 69Wolcott, Abigail, 9Woodbridge, CT, 11Woodbury, CT, 68–69Woodstock, CT, 6, 7, 52–54Woodstock, VT, 93Wright, Abby, school, 6, 9, 80–85, Pl. 58,

Pl. 60–63; embroidery style in, 9Wright, Abigail (Abby), 9Wright, Levi, 9Wyatt, Polly, 6, 46, Pl. 24

Yeomans, Lucia, 6, 48, Pl. 26

Carol and Stephen huber are leading experts and dealers in the field of American and schoolgirl needlework with a gallery in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The Hubers have contributed articles to publications such as Antiques and Fine Arts and are the authors of How to Compare and Value Samplers. They have lectured extensively for the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, the Bard Graduate Center, and the Peabody Essex Museum, among oth-ers, and have advised museums and historical societies on their collections.

SuSan p. SChoelwer is a curator at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, Mount Vernon, Virginia, and the author of Connecticut Needlework: Women, Art, and Family, 1740–1840.

amy Kurtz lanSing is the curator at the Florence Griswold Mu-seum in Old Lyme, Connecticut.