The Place of Origin of Samplers
Collectors, in discussing samplers among themselves, have wondered whether it would be possible to assign differences in construction and material to their having been produced in localities where the characteristic forms and patterns had not permeated. But those specimens which the author has examined, and which by a superscription gave a clue as to their place of origin, certainly afford insufficient foundation for such assumptions. In the first place, samplers so marked are certainly not sufficiently numerous to warrant any opinion being formed on the subject, and, as to those not so marked, the places where they have been found cannot be taken into account as being their birthplaces, as families to whom they have for long belonged may naturally have removed from quite different parts of the kingdom since the samplers were made.
It is surprising how seldom the workers of samplers deemed it necessary to place upon them the name of the district which they inhabited. There are few who followed the example of the girl who describes herself on a sampler dated 1766, thus:—
“Ann Stanfer is my name
And England is my nation
Blackwall is my dwelling place
And Christ is my salvation.”
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img047.jpg.id-1326710692385097445.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 37.—Scottish Sampler by Mary Bayland. 1779.
The only names of places in England recorded on samplers in The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition were Chipping Norton, Sudbury, Hawkchurch, and Tottenham, and certain orphan schools or hospitals, such as Cheltenham and Ashby. Curiously enough, the Scottish lassies were more particular in adding their dwelling-place, thus, in the sampler reproduced in [Fig. 37], and which is interesting as a survival as late as 1779 of a long sampler, Mary Bayland gives her residence as Perth, and others have been noted at Cupar, Dunbar, and elsewhere in Scotland. It might be expected that these Scottish ones would differ materially from those made far away in the southern parts of the kingdom, but whilst those in [Figs. 32] and [34] have a certain resemblance and difference from others in the decoration of their lettering, that in [Fig. 36] might well have been worked in England, showing that there were no local peculiarities such as we might expect.
It will be seen that two of the American samplers figured here have their localities indicated, namely Miss Damon’s school at Boston ([Fig. 50]) and Brooklyn ([Fig. 47]).