Collections Database

Description:
Needlework sampler done in silk embroidery in cross stitch on a plain linen ground, which has two inscriptions: "Ruby Graves / born june 30 1796 and "E. Childs Prec / eptress / Done in 1807." Ruby Graves (1796-1877) was the daughter of Benjamin Graves (1760-1832) and Abigail Graves (1768-1843) of Sunderland, and married Zebina Stebbins (1797-1879) of Deerfield in 1819. The sampler descended in the Stebbins family to Zabina and Ruby's son, Evander Graves Stebbins (1821-1885) who married Matilda Childs Stebbins (1824-1885) in 1840; to their son, Charles Henry Stebbins (b.1859) and Elizabeth MacMahon Stebbins (1858-1919) who married in 1880; and to Charles and Elizabeth's daughter, Florence Copeland Stebbins (1888-1966) who married Albert Elmer Shaw (1886-1952) in Deerfield in 1913 and then lived in Webster, Massachusetts. The sampler has seven rows of the alphabet in capital, small and script letters (the top 3 1/2 rows are have mainly disintegrated); over two black dogs, stylized trees and a bird flanking a flower basket; over the verse, "Virtue be thou my constant friend / And make me to thy laws attend " flanked by stylized trees with two small white birds, one in each tree with one bird outlined in black and one in blue; two small stylized trees topped with two birds outlined in black; and two large fruit baskets and two small flowers, framed with a three-sided strawberry and vine scrolling border. There are many features to this sampler that are similar to ones done at Deerfield Academy; however, E. Childs is not listed as Preceptress in 1807 or any other time.

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+96.005

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