Description:
Sampler done in silk embroidery on a plain linen ground, which has the inscription, "Wrought by / Eunice Nash" in the left bottom corner and "Aged 14 years" in the right bottom corner. Eunice Nash (1817-1842?) was the eldest of four children of Arvin Nash (1790-1869) and and his first wife, Lucinda Vinton Nash (1793-1835) of Goshen who married in 1813. In 1835, Eunice married Fordyce Rice (b.1805), the son of Elias Rice (b.1780) and Freedom Rice (b.1785) of Charlemont, Masachusetts, who married in 1804, who had moved to Goshen. Arvin Nash remarried, first in 1836 to Mrs. Dorothy Covell (1799-1841) of Buckland, Massachusetts, and had two more children; and then to Miss Lucretia Pixley of Plainfield where he moved. Eunice's younger sister was Martha J. Nash (1826-1893) who married Charles A. Lamb in 1852, and moved to Chicago where she lived from 1857 to 1866; after her divorce, she moved to New York City where she became a well-known writer of the period. The Martha J. Lamb Papers are stored in Smith College's Sophia Smith Collection, including family letters and daguerreotypes of Arvin and Maria Nash. Eunice's youngest sister was Maria Spencer Nash (b.1832) who married Jacob Sebert Whitmarsh (1823-1912) of Cummingont, Massachusetts, on April 10, 1865, and were living in Florence, Massachusetts in 1891. The sampler likely descended from Maria Nash Whitmarsh until it was donated to Historic Northampton by Martha P. Whitmarsh (d.1899) about 1899. There are three hand-written notes that came with the sampler, which Historic Deerfield's acquired from Historic Northampton (accession # 68.440): "Wrought by / Eunice V. Nash / in 1830" and "Chicago - March 1866 - A sampler worked by Eunice Nash for sister Maria if I never return - Martha" and "Maria Nash Whitmarsh / Martha J. Lamb." The sampler has five rows of the alphabet in capital, small and cursive letters and the numbers, 1-9; over the verse on the left, "While I this canvas [labor] to adorn / With flowers and letter fair as morn / May grace my ruder heart prepare / And stamp my Savior's image there." and fruit basket on the right; over two black-outlined white doves, butterfly, two pine trees, small bird, two-story house with a fence in front; and a three-sided scrolling strawberry and vine border. 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 inclusion of a two-story house at the central lower portion of the sampler resembles others in a sub-section of the White Dove sampler group worked in the Ashfield, Massachusetts, area. At least three other similar samplers exist, all worked under the tutelage of Mary D. Williams (1814-1897) who taught at Greenfield, Massachusetts, High School for Young Ladies, opposite the Weldon Hotel on High Street. As a teacher, Williams would have instructed her students to mix her preferred needlework motifs in with other ones already taught in area schools. Williams and may be buried in Greenfield's Federal Street cemetary.
Label Text:
This sampler belongs to the “White Dove” group. This sampler’s larger size and depiction of a Georgian house at the center bottom link it to a special sub-category of the group worked in the Ashfield, Massachusetts, area. At least three other similar samplers exist, all worked under the tutelage of Mary D. Williams (1814-1897). As a teacher, Williams would have instructed her students to mix her preferred needlework motifs in with other ones already taught in area schools.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2008.4.10 |
