Description:
Needlework sampler done in silk embroidery on a plain linen ground, which is inscribed, "Wrought by / Olive Eldredge / aged 15[?] years" and "M.D. Williams / Teacher." Olive Eldredge (1812-1887) was the daughter of Lemuel Eldredge (1791-1824) and Lucy Seldon Eldredge of Ashfield who married in 1809; Olive married William Sears (1808-1875) of Ashfield in 1833. The sampler has four rows of the alphabet across the top with the alphabet with the top two in upper-case script and the second row ending in "A-E" in upper-case block letters, the third row ending in "a-f" in lower case block letters, and the fourth row ending in the numbers, "1-10"; the verse, "Restless mortals toil for nought / Bliss in vain from earth is sought / Bliss a native of the sky / Never wanders. Mortals try / There you cannot seek in vain / For to seek her is to gain; " and the epigram, "Be choice in your / amusements." The script is flanked by a matched pair of black-outlined white birds (doves), and four fruit and flower baskets; over the bottom row with a two-story, white house in the center flanked by trees and small flowers baskets; and a diamond-patterned border with “Algerian eye” stitches creating a void at the center of each oval. Olive put the project aside before filling in the border at the bottom and right edge. Other samplers with the white dove image are known in the Deerfield area, which represent a large group of needlework made from the 1790s to the early 1830s, which are sometimes referred to as the white dove samplers of the Deerfield area. Characterized by stylized, black-outlined, paired white birds embroidered in cross stitch, fruit and flower baskets arranged in a pyramid, and three-sided border, these samplers appear to have been made at a series of schools in a widespread area of the Connecticut River Valley from Connecticut to Vermont and New Hampshire that passed on that design tradition. Many of these samplers were made by children of prominent families. The teacher, "M.D. Williams" is also found on another sampler wrought by Lydia Hall, on view at the 2003 ADA Antiques Show at which this sampler was purchased. The teacher may be Mary D. Williams, who taught at Greenfield, Massachusetts, High School for Young Ladies, opposite the Weldon Hotel on High Street and may be buried in Greenfield's Federal Street cemetary. The verse first appeared anonymously under the title “On True Happiness” in an issue of "The Gentleman’s Magazine" (February 1757) published in London. It was reprinted in the 1787 school book "Miscellanies, Moral and Instructive, in Prose and Verse…for the Use of Schools and Improvement of Young Persons…," published in London and reprinted in Philadelphia with Benjamin Franklin’s endorsement. In 1802, Pennsylvania-born lawyer and expatriate author, Lindley Murray, included it in his textbook, "The English Reader…Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read with Propriety and Effect," which was widely reprinted in America and became the most popular grammar textbook before William McGuffey introduced his "McGuffey Readers" in 1836. The epigram “Be choice in your amusements” first appeared under the heading “Lessons for Those Who Like Them” in the November 12, 1827 edition of the Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper, the "Connecticut Mirror." See also a sampler by Lydia Hall, private collection.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.48.1 |
